Broadsheet

- Review and finalization of the Vision
- Discussion of our current business success model and the requirements to reach our strategic goal
- Finalization of our values
- Agreement of the Strategic Intents
- Formation of the Performance Excellence teams
- Process for selecting members
- Presentation to the broader Leadership members

The Olympic site itself no longer seemed like a lost cause. Touring it before, I thought there was no way the buildings would be finished and the vast dust bowl paved and tricked out with its planned parks, roads, and watercourses before the games began on August 8. It certainly will be—Herzog & de Meu­ron’s intoxicating “Bird’s Nest” stadium is now in punch list—but such sprinting has a cost. The New York Times reported in late January that six construction workers have died on Olympic sites in the last five years; the Times of London had previously put the number at ten. A long article on the official Beijing 2008 Web site was posted in early February, likely in response to all the bad press. The protesting-too-much begins with the headline, “Workers Enjoy Good Serv­ices at Olympic Venue Sites.”

The current transformation of Beijing also includes the wholesale razing of many of the old residential quarters in the central city, the residents themselves relocated to vast new tower blocks on the urban edge—deluxe hutongs in the sky—or simply made homeless without contingency. Several of the old neighborhoods along the tourist routes near the Forbidden City have been preserved in sterilized form. But there’s little opportunity here for outsider self-righteousness; the effects of such changes are not very different than they would be in any American city: low-rent buildings replaced by expensive ones through economic churn, people displaced, quaint neighborhoods locked in amber. Though having two invisible hands—the will of an all-powerful government plus the inexorable pressure of capital—seems to streamline the process.

“It's kind of hitting me finally that I need to get out there and find a job,” she said. “Even if it's just part-time just to help out however I can.”

A male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.

A young, student nurse appears to give him a partial sponge bath.

'Nurse', he mumbles, from behind the mask. 'Are my testicles black?'

Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, 'I don't know, Sir, I'm only here to wash your upper body and feet.'

He struggles to ask again, 'Nurse, please check. Are my testicles black?'

Concerned that he may elevate his blood pressure and heart rate from worry about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and pulls back the covers. She raises his gown, holds his manhood in one hand and his testicles in the other. Then, she takes a close look and says, there's nothing wrong with them, Sir!'

The man pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her and says very slowly, 'Thank you very much. That was wonderful, but listen very, very closely......

A r e - m y - t e s t - r e s u l t s - b a c k?

"Now the blaze and blood in Lhasa has unclad the nature of the Dalai Lama, and it's time for the international community to recheck their stance toward the group under the camouflage of non-violence, if they do not want to be willingly misled.

The Dalai Lama and his clique have never for a day refrained from violence and terror. His childhood teacher, an Austrian, was a Nazi, and it's no secret that for quite a long time after he fled to India, he kept a force, armed by his western patron, for separatist activities. The peace advocator had also shown no interest in the global campaigns against U.S. wars on Afghanistan and Iraq."