Can the center hold?

The world just seems to get more unstable every day. Here's the opening of my column for The Risk Universe magazine this month:

  “Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”

             William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1919)

"These first three lines of a poem that Yeats wrote after the first world war resonate with us today, and have been referenced in American political debate – and perhaps also around the Brexit vote as well.  Going it alone or going it together with other countries appears at least to be the question as discord and violence present themselves more regularly, in no small part because of the technology now available to us."

The level of political discourse has never been more base; and the level of trust for either U.S. political candidate seems to be at an all time low.

Some of us fancy we know that we are at a critical turning point in our history.  Others seem so filled with irritation and rage at the current environment that they cannot see the shape of things unfolding.

I plan to continue not to use the current election as fodder for risk-based speculations.  But I will continue to speak out when employee safety and situational awareness issues are at stake.