critical thinking

In Monday’s Globe and Mail, Roy MacGregor judges us for judging the Canadian Womens Hockey team for their quiet Olympic victory celebration on home ice last week.

The ladies waited until the arena was empty, and wandered back out on to the ice, still in skates, still in uniform, still wearing their gold medals. They had a bottle of champagne to share. There was no screaming, no bouncing off the boards, no breaking of glass or even any drunken singing. According to someone who actually saw the spectacle, “I do not know if I have seen anything so sweet and so very, very, very Canadian.”

My hat is off to all the ladies, especially the so called “offending” 18 year old who had a beer, who just so happened to score both goals that brought them the gold.

In Europe (remember the other half of the world?), you’re pretty much old enough to drink when you say you are, and that extended trust leads to a much more mature attitude when it comes to alcohol. So, if your gripe is with the actual drinking, grow up. If your issue is with the tarnishing of the Olympics and Canada, then maybe you should remember that the Olympics is about the triumph of the human spirit, and these girls did just that, on home ice no less, for the first time in all of history. And the beer? This IS Canada, isn’t it?

Nobody got hurt. Nobody got rowdy. Nothing got broken. They were celebrating with pride at the site of their historic victory. Just as I would.

Maybe you wouldn’t. Your loss. Don’t make it theirs.

P.S. Congratulations to the fine men & women of the Olympic Canadian Hockey teams for bringing home the gold. Well played.

A leaked document called Microsoft’s Global Criminal Compliance Handbook clearly states that law enforcement and investigative agencies are welcome to access anything MS ever knew about you. Yes, anyone who actually still uses Hotmail, this means you. And for email over 180 days old, they don’t even need a subpoena. Now THAT’s naked.

To be fair, this is not much more than what the law in America requires. So everybody does it. The mantra still holds true – if you want something kept secret – really secret – don’t tell anyone, not even your keyboard.

But MS goes so far as to include hotline numbers for out-of-business-hours requests. That seems a little more eager to please than I’m comfortable with. Like wearing a t-shirt with “cheerful informant” emblazoned across the chest.

All that said, the worst secret most of us are likely to commit to email is how we really feel about our boss. So maybe it’s no big deal, right?

Right?

Maybe it will help if I say that this has always been the case. Anything you commit to print, directly or by someone else on your behalf, in any medium, can one day come back to haunt you. Letters, receipts, invoices, email, IM conversations, text messages, Facebook updates and profile pics… anything. Maybe you’ve heard of Nixon’s Watergate scandal.

So, I reckon if you were going to take anything away from this, it would be this: don’t put it in print unless you’re willing to pay for it. Unlike yesterday’s corporate shredder parties, nothing on the web (or a computer) ever goes away. I’m talking to you, drunk photo uploader. And your sudden exposure might not happen because you are suspected of a terrorist act. Mistakes happen all the time. ALL the time. And your prospective boss uses Google too.