A comet, some Uncle Jay-isms, and a CEO

Here's one for all you star gazers and comet watchers. Yesterday, Comet Lulin passed its closest to Earth, and so the comet will remain near its brightest over the next few days. The following photograph was taken of the skies over New Mexico (USA) two days ago.


For more details on where it will be in the sky and how to find it, go here. Now, those New Mexico skies really lend themselves to star-gazing, but I thought I might try my hand at it tonight and go out for a while to see if I can spot it. Will let you know if I'm successful. [Just talked to my daughter and told her about this. They have a telescope. Altho supposedly you should be able to see this with the naked eye (I don't have wide-field binoculars), the odds on my being successful just went up!]


Selected Uncle Jay tongue-in-cheek-isms ...

1. The economy's fundamentals are sound, but right now the sound is turned down.
2. The most annoying Oscars are the ones for movies you didn't see.
3. Hell hath no fury like a chimpanzee scorned.
4. MLB players using steroids will face severe consequences ... perhaps one day even from MLB!
5. If you think they hate us now, just wait until we stop buying their oil.
6. It's hard to compose a tune for "Buddy, can you spare seven hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars invested over a three-year period?"


A different kind of CEO ...

Now here's a name you might not be familiar with, Haruka Nishimatsu. He is the CEO of Japan Airlines, one of the world's largest airline companies. In this day and age of corporate jets, limousines, and other business perks; when some CEO's are spending upwards of a million dollars to redecorate their offices (Merrill Lynch, for example) and enjoying salaries of many hundreds of thousands - not to mention millions in a few cases - of dollars, Mr. Nishimatsu rides a bus to work, knocked out the walls of his office so that fellow employees could access him more directly, and eats lunch with them in the company cafeteria.

I first heard of this remarkable man this morning, when I was going through some of my "Favorites". Although the interview you're about to see is not brand new, a story as good as this one deserves to be told often and is never out of date.




If you're interesting in reading more about this humble man, go here.

Here's what he said in a 2006 interview* ... "JAL used to consciously work to be No. 1 in terms of scale. Although it is important to pursue a high ranking and profits, it is wrong to make those one's only objectives. We can only win the support and understanding of the people around us by swiftly responding to social needs and fulfilling our social responsibilities."

*For the complete and extensive interview with Mr. Nishimatsu, go here.