"Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee."

Last week, I heard an op-ed on BBC radio (via KQED, S.F.) that proposed a reversion to a less vicious business environment, ending in a negative restatement of the (in)famous Muhammad Ali quote: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." So I popped up, walked to my keyboard in the next room, wrote the following, & e-mailed it to the BBC World Business programme. Tho the BBC didn't reply, Ann Wainwright in Billingham, Teeside, northern England heard from her friend Brian who'd heard it read over that programme @ 3am GMT the next day.

Bottom-line: I'm glad I can still easily do what I used to do (for a tiny PR-shop in Wellesley MA): plink a distant, passing media window of biz.PR-op., but this time, on behalf of myself & social sanity.


RE: the last words: "butterfly...bee."

Monday, July 20, 2009 10:13 PM
From: "Bill Costley"
To: world.business@bbc.co.uk
Here in Silicon Valley CA, I've just been listening to the BBC overnite business programme that ended with the anti-quote: "Don't float like a butterfly, don't sting like a bee" (Muhammad Ali, reversed) That is, act & talk no jive. If that had been the Golden Rule for the past 25+ years, the USA economy might possibly be solvent, or something almost like it. But it sounds nice to hear as I lay me down to sleep in Silicon Valley.


~ Bill Costley, ex high-tech marketing writer
Santa Clara CA 95050 usa