Whatever the opposite of "In a nutshell" is: Long ago a gunslinger known as The Big Unit came to Houston. As I see it, Carmelo Anthony is Randy Johnson. Anyone remember that rental? Sure it was baseball, but bear with me.
When the Big Unit came over to our swamp, he said he wouldn't be staying. Management spun frantically, saying, "Oh, he'll love us, he'll change his mind. Houston is flat, hot, and obscure to the national media, who wouldn't stay?" Despite these blandishments, the Unit departed. Yes, he left a nice fat contract on the table, just like he said he would. Now, he performed pretty well whilst here, but what did we give up? (Remember this was back when Drayton was still funding an actual, good, farm system.)
Let's see - Freddy Garcia, a guy who was an ERA champ, all-star and went on to close out the Astros in Game 4 of the World Series, and Carlos Guillen, 3 time All Star who would have ably filled the sucking void the Astros laughingly called "shortstop" over the years. Also there was John Halama - a useful lefty swingman who hung around for years.
(and that's neglecting the fact that Carmello isn't even that good)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog ... sions.html
Actually, I think this article both applies, and is nifty
The perception of risk is skewed when bad outcomes are vivid, personal and immediate.
Given the choice between working on the important and the urgent, the urgent almost always wins.
Given the choice between avoiding the rare but grisly outcome or doing the hard work to avoid the equally nasty, more subtle but more common outcome, we usually go for the grisly.
We do this sort of miscalculation all the time at work. We avoid the hard work on the long-term project in order to panic and rush about to avoid the possible vivid, immediate and personal risk on the short-term project, even if it's far less important.
(Think about this the next time you're in the security line at the airport). (Note from moofs: A-*******-men)
This is one reason why the media is so complicit in many of the issues of the day... they take concepts that were previously abstract and relentlessly make them vivid, personal and immediate. It amplifies the risks around us and easily sells us on a cycle of dissatisfaction.
If you want to create action on the important, figure out how to make it vivid, personal and immediate.
(I love posting more than 3 paragraphs from blog entries, as I think it's not technically in the rules
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