See the article below:

The reality is that for this very reason, heads of state and heads of large companies do not travel together. World leading specialists should consider taking these measures to avoid such a massive blow to initiatives of this magnitude. The coordination, while inconvenient on the individual scale, and more tedious to manage, may very well need to be considered by organizing bodies. This undoubtedly extends to subject matter experts in business and other arenas, where decades if not centuries of collective and specialized knowledge have been amassed in one space. The related guiding principle may take the form of simple questions: How can this aggregated knowledge be replaced? By whom? By when? The guidance should not be dictated by probability, but by consequence.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/aids-conference-says-100-researchers-may-have-been-on-board-crashed-plane

As many as 100 of the world’s leading HIV/Aids researchers and advocates may have been on the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine, in what has been described as a “devastating” blow to efforts to tackle the virus.

Delegates to a plenary session held ahead of the Aids 2014 conference were told that email exchanges showed about 100 attendees were booked on the MH17 flight. The plane was downed in eastern Ukraine by what the US and Australian governments have described as a surface-to-air missile.

There was no official confirmation of the number of researchers on board.

There were no survivors among the 298 people on the flight, which was bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. The Aids 2014 conference, due to start on Sunday, is being held in Melbourne.

“There’s a huge feeling of sadness here, people are in floods of tears in the corridors,” Clive Aspin, a veteran HIV researcher who attended the pre-conference plenary session in Sydney, told Guardian Australia. “These people were the best and the brightest, the ones who had dedicated their whole careers to fighting this terrible virus. It’s devastating.”

Prof. Richard Boyd, director of the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories, told Guardian Australia he was “gutted” by the losses.

“There were some serious HIV leaders on that plane,” he said. “This will have ramifications globally because whenever you lose a leader in any field, it has an impact. That knowledge is irreplaceable.

“We’ve lost global leaders and also some bright young people who were coming through. It’s a gut-wrenching loss. I was involved in the aftermath of 9/11 in New York and it brings back that level of catastrophe.

“But the Aids community is very close-knit, like a family. They will unite and this will galvanise people to strive harder to find a breakthrough. Let’s hope that, out of this madness, there will be new hope for the world.”

Trevor Stratton, an HIV/Aids consultant, told the ABC: “The cure for AIDS may have been on that plane, we just don’t know. You can’t just help but wonder about the kind of expertise on that plane.”

A number of leading scientists, including a former president of the International AIDS Society (IAS) who has led HIV research efforts since 1983, are believed to be among the dead.

Organisers of Aids 2014, which is set to welcome about 14,000 delegates from around the world, said they were unable to officially confirm the number of people on MH17 who were due to attend the conference. The organisation said in a statement: “The IAS is hearing unconfirmed reports that some of our friends and colleagues were on board the flight and if that is the case this is truly a sad day.”

The president of the IAS, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, told a prearranged event in Canberra that the deaths “will be a great loss to the HIV/Aids communities. If confirmed, it would be a terrible loss for all of us. I have no words really to try to express my sadness; I feel totally devastated if it is confirmed.”

IAS said the conference would go ahead as scheduled. Former US president Bill Clinton and activist Bob Geldof are due to speak.

The executive director of the Australian Federation of Aids Organisations, Rob Lake, said: “This morning’s news is absolutely tragic and will be felt throughout the conference and worldwide.

“The people we have lost have played critical roles in the global fight against HIV.”

This needs no introduction, description or analysis from me. Watch. Listen. Think. Feel.

I have had so much to say in the last weeks that ironically I’ve said none of it. I spent two weeks in Europe: Paris, Luxembourg, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Geneva.. I learned a lot, saw tons, met people and took many pictures. I’ll post them at some point. The art on the Berlin Wall was certainly one of highlights.

Among the things I learned: The French unions enjoy going on strike. I also had my 132 day streak of Spanish on Duolingo snapped, not because I didn’t do it, but because the cafe outside the train station had spotty service and the app let me continue with the exercise and told me I was done with it. It didn’t register the completion though, so just like that… it was time.

Yesterday was the first day that I did no Spanish since the last week of January. I have been doing French instead. For a few days prior, I had been doing both. I’ll continue with daily language exercises for the foreseeable future.

Also learned: Switzerland is expensive. So much so that a return to NYC felt like a small town visit rife with discounted fare. $30 hamburgers at the bar are obscene, and the one I had was about as bland as could be. Disappointing on all counts. Other than that Switzerland was enjoyable in many ways. I met good and interesting people who I’m sure I’ll continue to be in touch with and see as we are able.

I realized that for each of the last two world cups I was in Europe for at least a part. I enjoy being around people who appreciate the game and have investment in their teams and countries.

I had an extremely information conversation with a Fortune 200 CEO who was kind enough to engage me about my career. Her advice was poignant, but like any workout, I was exhausted by the end. Figurative and emotional sweat. More work to do..

I painted today for the first time in a long while..

That’s it for now. I had a good weekend, in case you wanted to know..

The world is for everyone, not just a chosen few (economic and certain border restrictions notwithstanding). The more I travel the world, and the more that I see of it, its physical structure, composition, and people, the more I learn about myself. Sometimes I feel judged, stared at, or ignored; others times I feel celebrated, stared at, and completely included. Usually, I feel very fortunate. Rarely, though, do I feel perfectly like myself – which is of course, the point.

Though I love the Bahamas and being from there, I also realize that I am more a citizen of the world than of a particular place and should work on connecting more people with more of it, and each other. People have shared sentiments about how “lucky” I am to be able to travel. Yes, while I do feel fortunate to see what I’ve seen and been where I’ve gone, I also know that it does not require “luck” per se, it requires planning and a belief in its importance to make the requisite sacrifices and commitment of finances and time. It requires asking: What am I willing to trade to be able to travel, and what fears and judgments will I suspend or fully divest?

There is no better way to expose areas where lessons still need to be learned, and learnings still need to be taught – even when we are initially unaware of our deficits. In much the same way that new exercises expose physical demerits and create soreness, travel exposes flaws in our character and thinking that need to be pressed and melted away, allowing the remainder to be reshaped and built up. When thinking about the considerable sums of money that need to be spent to “subsist” en route to and in foreign places, I have realized that while I may not have anything tangible to show for it, I have literally invested in myself in a way that at minimum assumes the attributes of a formal education. And a spiritual one too. It’s an investment in self and in others, alike; and the cross-pollination of inspiration and ideas.

#offtoseeberlin
#100thpost

It is only every two years that the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, an association to which I belong, produces and publishes its Report on the state of fraud. This report includes specifics of cases, and particulars about those who both perpetrate and fight against fraud. Prior to 2012, the report focused on responses from the United States alone, but last time it went from The Report to The Nation to include a pluralized world view which was an excellent move. I have been periodically checking the ACFE website for the last few months to determine when the new report would be coming out. Each previous search yielded little fruit… until today. I don’t care how nerdy it sounds, I’m pretty excited about this report (even the art work on the cover is exciting). So much so, in fact, that I printed two copies in color – one for my office to reference as needed, and one to take on my transatlantic flight this weekend, assuming that I can hold off that long.

http://www.acfe.com/rttn/docs/2014-report-to-nations.pdf

I just noticed and approached the CEO of Xerox at umami burger on 6th Ave. We had a short conversation in which she asked what I did and where I went to undergrad. It felt like a mini interview, but cooler – but then less cool, because I’m not sure how I’d be in touch with her again. I didn’t want to be intrusive. Where there’s a will there’s a way. The burgers were also delicious.

On the train around 8 last night heading into lower Manhattan, I was sitting next to a mother and her two boys. The one who caught my attention in particular was probably about six years old, but looked like a chubby man. He had big curly hair, glasses that seemed embedded into his face as if he’d worn them for a lifetime, and a square jaw. I don’t remember if he had freckles, but he seems like the kind of kid who would have – and wrinkles.

We were on the D train, and running parallel on the other side of the platform must have been the A. The brother of the boy that I just described, probably also around six or seven years old with curly hair, stood up and told his mother that they should try to catch the other train that had already stopped at the station as we pulled in. There were lots of people in between and the likelihood of their catching it after also crossing the platform wasn’t that great, something his mother must have realized. She decided that they would wait until a later station to try to make the transfer. I don’t know what awaited that little boy at the end of a ride on the A, but whatever it was was enough to make him cry at the thought of missing out.

Whenever children start to cry I always feel like they’re just joking, and I am often amused. Then I see the actual tears, and while my amusement does not give way to guilt, it is usually accompanied by it. The tears come almost immediately which is also quite astonishing. It is as if their faces are bipolar, transforming from smooth to wrenched accompanied by Bellagio-type water works at the flip of a switch. I always want to ask “How did you do that ?!” It is only then that I’m reminded that they are in fact children. And that they are in fact crying. And that they are in fact far from joking, because “issues” are “problems”, and their “problems” are very real, and huge. Like missing the A.

As we left the station that boy stood and looked through the windows of the D at the A on the other side as they both rode parallel through the tunnel until it disappeared. He cried more. The trains eventually met again after a few minutes and the mother’s decision was vindicated, her quiet resolve rewarded. What mattered most though was the response of the curly haired, bifocaled little man to his brother when he first started crying. He put his little hand on his brother’s back and said, “Don’t cry… Life is good.”