The entertainment for the evening was a Potomac dinner cruise (again no sushi, darn it!!!)on the Odyssey. The Odyssey appears to be a barge with a glass conservatory built on it. It barely clears some of the bridges over the river. In one case, an old and rusty railroad trestle, you could literally reach up and touch the bridge.
Cruising past the monuments and being able to see the farmhouse at Arlington in the distance made me really aware of the sacrifices our forefathers and foremothers made for us to have the culture and freedoms we have. At the same time, thinking of the disaster in New Orleans, Biloxi and Mobile, I can only hope that there are few deaths, and that the damage will be restored. The reality of things is that New Orleans may not be able to be rebuilt. That would be a shame, but if it were rebuilt without serious upgrades, the same thing would happen again.
During the cruise, I got to talking with Ron Helson, of the Hart Communication Foundation, about ISA. We tried very hard to come up with a value proposition for ISA, and failed. Several other people joined the discussion. The upshot was that ISA needs to hire a new Executive Director who will identify a saleable value proposition, and then reconstruct ISA to produce that value. It remains to be seen what ISA will do.
Walt
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