What I Think About What Other People Say (WITAWOPS)

Last week was my 40th post. Some readers have noted my posts are heavy and they require a certain mood to read and digest. Others voiced a different opinion: “...so do you actually have any positive posts without a trace of didactic prose? 🤔 ” Unapologetically, no. I don’t. Hence the name of the blog: WITAWOPS. But on the occasion of 41, here is a slightly lighter one. What Other People Say (or don't think): I’ve worked on airport projects for about 5 years and I have flown in and out of airports across the globe: Anchorage, Bogota, Cairo, Gandor, Gilgit, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lubbock, Phuket, and Singapore. What struck me across the globe was the number of airport staff, consultants, and passengers who don't know how runways are numbered.  Why is Boston’s newest runway 14/32, while Giglit has 7/25. Why does Singapore have 2R/20L but also 2C/20C and 2L/20R? Look at a satellite image of any airport and you will see the runway number at the end. For example, here are the runwa...

Happy independence day America. Congress ratified the declaration of independence on July 4, 1776; therefore, today, we officially start our 250th year as a nation. Birthdays mark the end of a year lived, not the beginning. If you say you're 40, you've completed 40 years and are now living your 41st. Designed by Freepik So what will we be reflecting on a year from now? Considering all of this, how will we mark the end of 250?  We know what we have to deal with: Global geopolitical forces and unrest Economic turmoil Domestic polarized political perspectives (see November 2024 election post entitled It’s Over. Now can we really get to know each other ?);  Climate change  Worsening effects of natural disasters including heat, fire, and flooding All we know for sure is what Congress ratified in 1776, how America was born:  “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of ...

I never parroted the obligatory land acknowledgments. Everyone opened with one: teachers, presenters, even meeting participants doing introductions. I didn’t get the point. I always wanted to ask, “That’s nice. So… are you giving the land back?” But I held my tongue. Instead, I’m unpacking these statements through the WITAWOPS lens: What I Think About What Other People Say. Let me know if this resonates — or just makes you uncomfortable. Image by Freepix My Disclaimer (or Bias, if you prefer) I grew up in Kenya — on land taken by white settlers and later sold to brown Indian-Kenyans like my family. Now, I live just outside Seattle — on land taken by white settlers and sold to brown Indian-Americans like... also my family. In both cases, the land wasn’t bought from the pre-colonial residents. So yes, I’m complicit. And no, I’m not pretending otherwise. Let’s get into it. What Do I Think: Let’s start in Indiana — my first U.S. home. From Indiana University Indianapolis : “IU Indianapolis...

On December 9, 2024, I published this post that was really focused on whether or not America would do the right thing and allow Syria to reboot. This week, I am excited and proud to acknowledge that America set off in the direction I was hoping for. We have begun the complex process of lifting four decades of sanctions and gulf states have offered to pay off some of Syria's debt. Image designed by freepik.com What I said in December: Title: Mistakes: Can we correct, repent, offer reparations, and remember? Today I explore whether we can and do forgive past leaders for their mistakes. “ The American administration made many mistakes against other peoples. Will every American citizen, every American soldier be asked: “Why were you with them? Why were you with them?” He will respond, saying that there was an administration, and there were inherent circumstances unique to this time and place that imposed on me to be here. Administrations are making bad decisions. The American people ca...

This post presents verbatim excerpts of a Department of State Office of Inspector General Inspection Report on Kenya in 2012. I did not make them up. Please visit the page https://www.stateoig.gov/reports , enter Kenya in the first field (Keyword of Phrase), select “inspection” in the Category drop down, and open the August 2012 ISP-I-12-38A report (not the 2018 report). Enjoy. The Ambassador has lost the respect and confidence of the staff to lead the mission. Of more than 80 chiefs of mission inspected in recent cycles, the Ambassador ranked last for interpersonal relations, next to last on both managerial skill and attention to morale, and third from last in his overall scores from surveys of mission members. The inspectors found no reason to question these assessments; the Ambassador’s leadership to date has been divisive and ineffective. The Ambassador has damaged the cohesion of Embassy Nairobi’s country team by underscoring differences between offices working directly with Kenya...

I met Sudan—the world’s last male northern white rhinoceros—at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in central Kenya in 2009. He had recently been relocated from a zoo in the Czech Republic, in a last-ditch effort to breed him naturally. I had just arrived in Kenya myself, representing the U.S. government through USAID, and embarking on a number of exciting projects.  Sudan lived another nine years before a leg infection made it impossible for him to stand. At 45, he was euthanized. For me, he is a symbol of our power over other species although at one point, the dating app Tinder dubbed him the world’s “most eligible bachelor.” ( CNN ) Photo of me with Sudan, Ol Pejeta, 2009 (real, not generated) Sudan was a northern white rhino, a distinct subspecies now functionally extinct. Only two females remain—his daughter and granddaughter—both also at Ol Pejeta. In contrast, the southern white rhino population has rebounded from around 100 in the early 1990s to nearly 20,000 today across Africa, tha...

Everyone, even me, makes three recycling and composting mistakes. First, toss an item into the wrong container. Second, throw away money (literally) by spending more because we believe the item is “greener”. Third, misalign intent and action.  Wrong Container “Dad, where do I toss this?” I looked at the trash can, recycling bin, and compost bin under our kitchen sink. Then I looked at the empty take out clamshell takeout container with its confusing and faint labels. I had no idea and I have two environmental degrees. ChatGPT. (2025). Cartoon of a person deciding where to dispose of a clamshell food container at an airport. [AI-generated image]. OpenAI. Oscar couldn’t help me either. I had stumped him recently. [ Oscar is Seattle airport’s AI-waste sorting technology that is supposed to help me figure out where to put my waste.] Let’s break down my kitchen dilemma. The clamshell container was white, looked and felt like plastic. On the bottom was the product name that included the...

I mourn USAID the way we knew it. The agency that I worked for a decade has essentially disappeared, with only a fraction of it reincarnated and subsumed into the State Department. I empathize with all my former USAID colleagues, contractors, grantees, sub-grantees, recipients, project beneficiaries, vendors, and suppliers in the United States and around the world. All of you are economically and emotionally harmed. The battle will ensue in the Courts and in the end, Congress will have no choice but to act (see my January 4 post explaining this locus of power). The next incarnation of US Foreign Assistance will be skinny, laser-focused, more intertwined with U.S. Peace and Security, and obviously A.I.-driven. Disclaimer: the views expressed in this post are solely my own, published under my first amendment rights, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Government or any of its current or former federal agencies. What Other People Say Designed by  Freepik “Aft...

“There are other forces in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought.” — Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring What Do I Think? Gandalf’s words to Frodo reflect an age-old debate: Are we merely playing out a script that has already been written, or do we have the power to shape our own destinies? The struggle between free will and predestination is not just a historical theological debate—it is playing out in society and governance today. It impacts how we interpret success and failure, in how we justify actions, and out day-to-day decisions. Designed by Freepik Christianity has long been divided on this question. Strict Calvinists embrace predestination, the idea that God has already determined who will be saved and who will be damned. In contrast, strict Arminians believe in free will, asserting that while They know what we will choose, the Almighty ...