June 2013

Here is something old and something new that should remind you of where we have come from to get where we are and who those in charge would like to take with us into the future. The UAE is the home of the Zayeds, the source of the money for the new building. Sounds consistent […]

This email was sent in Sunday morning and is reprinted anonymously with the permission of the sender. Thank you and all of you who have contacted me and are encouraging me to keep writing. I am surely going to try. As of now the blog has had over 37,000 page views. Now if I only

A guest blog for your Sunday afternoon or Monday morning pleasure. Thank you HPF! Great to Good By HPF In the book “Good to Great” Jim Collins and his team of economists developed methods to determine how institutions transition from mediocrity to greatness. According to their data there is one essential element for any great

The Mourning After By  Leonard Zwelling             It’s beginning to feel like Armageddon for surely this must be the end of life as we know it at MD Anderson.             The large salaries and furniture budgets in IACS clearly indicate that there is no longer one kind of MD Anderson employee and/or faculty member. There

Thanks to Lisa Falkenberg for allowing me to post the link to her article in yesterday’s Chronicle: Thanks much. Here’s the free link: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/falkenberg/article/Are-7-700-couches-needed-to-cure-cancer-4585064.php?t=0f445f7346ad6264fa

The Bullying Pulpit   June 7, 2013 By Leonard Zwelling             Kevin Grigsby’s presentation in Hickey at noon on June 6 was excellent. Dr. Grigsby, a social worker by training, works for the AAMC running Leadership Development and Talent Management. Some of us on the Faculty Senate’s Anti-Bullying Task Force had the pleasure of meeting

A few Interesting News Items for you: The first needs no explanation: http://www.thestreet.mobi/story/11942355/1/aveo-fires-140-workers-as-punishment-for-ceos-incompetence.html?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO The second shows why one institution cannot take on genomic sequencing on its own: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/health/global-partners-agree-on-sharing-trove-of-genetic-data.html?ref=science&_r=0 Finally, thanks to all who have written or come up to me in person and offered your encouragement.  It really, really matters!   Len Z

Boston is Not America and it Definitely Isn’t Texas            June 5, 2013 By Leonard Zwelling             In the hit Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, the Mormon missionaries in Uganda sing a song called “I Am Africa’ describing how they have come to appreciate the place they were sent to spread the message of Jesus

From Blue Collar Scholar in response to my last post: Thanks.  LZ The reports in The Cancer Letter and Houston Chronicle are troubling on so many levels. What’s most bothersome to me is witnessing the MDA PR/propaganda machine at work. How many state employees are working full time on damage control for poor decisions made by Drs.

Dynasty, Dallas and DIRTT    June 3, 2013 By Leonard Zwelling             Well, there they go again. The rich are definitely different from you and me (F. Scott Fotzgerald).             In a manner that even the Hollywood President Reagan and his free-spending wife Nancy would have seen as unseemly, MD Anderson has spent a fair