No Thriller

"Adored", "genius", "one-of-a-kind", "never again", and on and on and on, all associated with Michael, all coming from the same news organizations and in some cases, the very same reporters who just a few short years earlier said he was through, if not on his way to jail.

Now? Ahead of even Elvis with no mention of the Beatles, Sinatra and a few others you would think might be considered his equal if not his better.

But that was the day he died. Not the day before or the day before that nor any day for a long time now.

And Farrah?

"She really tried. And for a sex symbol, that alone can be like an accomplishment. Fame's camp follower." NY Times 6.26.09

"Behind the glossy grin, all-American good looks and acting stamina, Fawcett struggled to find personal happiness." USA Today 6.26.09

And can you imagine being more upstaged?

Farrah battles cancer knowing she's going to die early. And then the very day she does, just hours later, Michael dies and as a result she becomes a back page obit notice while he's front page news. Front pages she rightfully would have thought would be hers the day she died.

But more than that is the incredible hypocrisy of not only the press coverage but the manner in which many of his fans reacted as well.

As usually happens at times like this, uncontrolled wailing from throngs waiting in front of the hospital where he had died hours before. Professions of grief so deep you'd have thought his death was theirs or at least that of a close relative.

All covered on live TV by somber toned "news people" asking deep questions like "What did Michael mean to you?"; tearfully answered by people who hadn't thought about the man for years prior to that day.

And the numbers bear this out as well. According to Nielsen BDS, in the week prior to Michael's death, "Thriller" was played on the radio 39 times across the US. And in the week after? 3,570. Radio stations play what they think their audience wants to hear and after Michael died there was no doubt what that would be. But the question is, for how long?

I know this sounds bitter but I'm really not. Just sickened by the same contrived reactions we see each time a celebrity passes, including those we wouldn't otherwise hear of, including those we've dissed for one reason or another (not too long ago the headlines called him "Sicko".)

I am Michael agnostic, recognizing him as someone I knew of rather than knew. I thoroughly enjoyed his music and found his passing sad, just as I did Farrah's and the 100 who, on average, die each and every minute of every hour of every day, 365 days a year throughout the world, with no radio play to mark their time or passing from this earth.

Dear Leader: My New BFFL

If you're 50 or older you'll recall headlines such as this one talking about "Red China" (click images to enlarge.)

And if you do, you're probably now thinking "God, how long has it been since I last heard China referred to as Red China?"

Similarly headlines from the 40's routinely talked about our enemies as "Japs" and "Krauts", now both politically unacceptable not to mention unimaginable to most grandchildren of the WWII generation driving Japanese and German cars.

So now we're not happy with Iran, barely tolerate Venezuela and are busy strengthening Hawaii's defenses against North Korean missiles.

Well at least we're not calling them names which should make it easier to turn today's enemies into tomorrow's BFFL's.

Hitchhiking to There

"When you're young, the essence of adventure is to offer yourself up to the world and see what it does to you, and where it takes you. But, with time, the uncertainty of it all wears thin. . . . it's probably home we're looking for when we first hit the road. It's just that we don't yet know where it'll be. Or who we'll be when we get there."

Peter Egan
Road & Track Editor-at-Large
"The Lost Art of Hitchhiking"
Road and Track, July 2009

You typically wouldn't look for life philosophy in a car magazine but that's what this is. Youth does approach life as though it were a science experiment with no rules.

"Let's mix this with that just to see what will happen, explosions acceptable."

And then one day you decide that uncertain outcomes can get a bit old, and expensive (the older you get the more you have to lose.)

I'm ok with that. I've reached a point where I can enjoy a glass of wine, watching a beach sunset, as opposed to compelling myself to spend the entire day challenging my limited surfing ability, sun burned way past anything my dermatologist would find acceptable (she finds no sun burn acceptable.)

But "use it or lose it" comes to mind too, so no glass of wine in a comfortable chair watching that sun until, as Peter says, I've offered myself up to the world that day in some way.

While I now know much more about who I am, I don't to the point of knowing for certain who I'll be when I finally get there.

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

"He's telling me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination, I can't get no satisfaction."

"Satisfaction"

The Rolling Stones

The picture you see below was the first of ten pages of discharge instructions I was handed after recent emergency treatment at a local hospital. (I was on the wrong end of a clipping shear and needed stitches.)

Let me say again, the top sheet, which to me suggests the one thing they think is most important to say to a patient being released from their care.

Was it about keeping the bandage dry or how much pain killer to take or maybe how soon to see my primary care giver? No, as you can see, it was alerting me to the fact that I may get a call from a research company who would ask me to rate my care.

They wanted me to know that if I would not be able to rate them a "10", I should call immediately. Did it not occur to them that if I wasn't happy when they handed me this document, the affront had already occurred? What then, try to convince me that the hour I waited, arm extended above my head, still holding a bloody rag on my hand trying to contain the bleeding, was no big deal?

Have you had a car serviced at a car dealer recently? If you have they very likely said essentially the same thing when you picked up your car, but in a more direct way.

"Everything about your service visit seem ok? Great. Listen, you may get a call asking you to rate our service and it is extremely important for you to rate us a 10."

Just to momentarily pick a nit, extremely important to who?

Customer service is important and I am glad to see the people who take care of my car as well as those who put me back together, worrying about what I think.

Or do they?

They don't. All they want is that "10" because they know if they don't get it they are in trouble; in the case of the car dealer, with the manufacturer, and hospital administration for that emergency room. But as one who has made a career out of research including customer satisfaction, don't any of those in charge of these programs see how bogus it all is? Doesn't anyone worry just a little about potential bias with "prompts" for perfect ratings?

And what would happen were I to rate them a 9 or God forbid, an 8? After all even 8 would be a B in school, 9 an A, so what's wrong with that? As it turns out, plenty to those who may well know the hospital or car business but don't know squat about customer satisfaction and/or how to monitor their employee performance.

10 of 10?
Perfection?
I don't think so.

Pave Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot

Running along a dirt horse trail, bordering a paved street in my neighborhood the other morning, I began thinking about how much time I spend on natural versus man-made surfaces.

On the one hand, dirt, sand, grass and/or bodies of water. On the other, carpeting, linoleum, tile, wood and other other floor coverings, in or on vehicles regardless of whether they are used on natural or made-made surfaces, including in the air and on water.

The time ratio of one to the other is not even close. At the very least, 95% on man-made surfaces as is true for every one of us excluding a few forest rangers (and even then, I'll bet their time on man-made is still more than on natural surfaces.)

How different it was 150 years ago before the streets and sidewalks were paved. Back then no matter how you got around, unless you lived in a handful of major US cities in the East, you were likely more often on a natural surface.

The US has 3.9 million square miles of territory with 5.7 million miles of paved roads. No way to accurately convert those paved road miles to square miles but we can estimate.

If we assume the average is 3 lanes in either direction, each lane 10 feet, that means our paved roads represent less than 2% of all our land and water mass. But that's just the roads. If we add sidewalks, driveways, parking lots and all the buildings in which we live and work, what maybe 5%?

So 5% or less of our time on this earth spent in contact with natural surfaces, even though they account for 95% of the surfaces we could be on.

Not complaining but I do think I'll go camping.

Barefoot.

Why I'm Not The Pope

Many who know me have said they wondered why I'm not the Pope. They often say things like "Bill, you'd make a super Pope!" Or whenever one dies and they get ready to elect a new one, "No doubt about it this time Bill, it has to be you."

I can see their point but there are good reasons I'm not. Things like as great a city as Rome is, I wouldn't want to live there year round given the heat and humidity of summer. Or the fact that I like to wear shorts and as near as I can tell the Pope never does (actually there are other wardrobe issues as well.) And I'm not a particularly good church attender . . . as in never.

A recent edition of The Economist ran a story called "Pope Benedict: A Chapter of Accidents". Some think Benedict is prone to insensitivity when he speaks and based on the article's examples, if that's insensitive, those offended would be in for some serious eye brow raising were I the Pope.

No, if I was going to head any religion it would probably need to be one like the Methodists. Actually that's not a bad idea because I do have some history with them. Growing up our family belonged to a local Methodist church and I even did a brief stint in the youth choir. The Methodists don't have a Pope but they do have a President of the Council of Bishops and I could probably handle that.

Or maybe not. That brief choir stint was so because I once came to church wearing sneakers under my choir robe and that didn't work for them.

Now the Buddhists . . . there's a religion I can get behind!

The Center of Reason

"According to this reporter (for the New York World), the "army" surrounding Scopes included feminists, birth-control advocates, agnostics, atheists, free thinkers, free lovers, socialists, communists, syndicalists, biologists, psychoanalysts, educators, preachers, lawyers, professional liberals and many others, including just talkers."

"Summer for the Gods"
Edward J Larson

The above was a description of the individuals gathered around high school teacher John T Scopes, charged by the State of Tennessee in 1925 with violation of the state's curriculum law. In short, he taught evolution at a time in Tennessee when doing so was against the law.

The Scopes or "monkey" trial as it was also called, is landmark although the issue remains hotly debated today, some 84 years later. Much was said, little decided.

Because Scopes was allegedly on the side of evolution (he actually volunteered to be charged under the new statute as a test of the law), he was seen as "liberal" as was anyone who appeared to associate with him. At least as seen by those who opposed to teaching evolution.

The book is great; I highly recommend it to those interested in the trial's minutia, but it is the list that interests me here. No surprise that "communists", "professional liberals" and even "syndicalists" are there, but alongside "biologists", "psychoanalysts", "educators", "preachers" and "lawyers"?

Most social/political characterizations are far reaching, often too far with this being just one example. And least you think only conservatives do this, perish the thought. Consider this post from a 2005 blog defining conservative beliefs:

"The term conservative means resistant to change. If one agrees with that than you conservatives should by all means agree that we should still have segregated schools, that women should not be allowed to vote or own property and that we should still be burning witches in the public square."

All of which is why I am a registered and practicing Independent; a "suspect" in the eyes of liberals and conservatives, absolutely of no consequence as far as politicos in my home state of California are concerned.

Let Me Introduce You

Networking is as old as when one Neanderthal Man asked another to introduce him to the Piltdown Man who just move in two caves over.




Like just about everything else, people can be grouped based on how they network and I offer the following as but one way.

1. Networkers
2. Networked

The first group are those who actually attempt to bring others together; in my caveman example, Neanderthal Man number 2 assuming he actually made the requested introduction. They work the room at mixer receptions, pass along resumes, write reviews in the profiles of others on networking sites, etc. In short, they network.

The second group are those who want what the first group does, done for and to them. They are often the ones you only hear from just after they've lost their job. The ones who suddenly show up in social networking sites with incomplete profiles and zero connections, only to go "dark" again after getting their next job.

Doesn't "networking" imply a two-way exchange of benefit? You scratch mine, I'll scratch yours. However if that's so, the scale of benefits received is heavily weighted in favor of the networked.

I propose a new social networking law.

Any individual wishing to network with others must network back; meaning, they must work to increase awareness for others with little or nothing in return to them other than the good feeling that comes from having helped someone else.

Agreed?

Agreed!

They Ought To Do Something About That!

You almost cannot open a newspaper and not find a story where people are talking about why the US auto industry is in trouble.

• too high wages
• bad cars
• unfair competition
  
• bad management
• unions

Most cite just one or at most two reasons as the root cause of the problem, which seems to suggest the solution should be easy to find since there's only one or two things to address.

Singular thinking at its best.

The tendency to do that is not limited to explanations of the problems facing the US auto industry. People think this way about a lot of things.

• The problem with government is it's too big.
• The problem with professional sports is they forget it's about the game.
• The problem with my (employee/boss) is they just don't get it.

Maybe worse than singular thinking are vague, suggestive proclamations. For example:

• Somebody should do something about the economy.
• Banks need to be taught a lesson.
• Taxes are too high because those idiots don't know what they're doing.

But still, it would be cool if what are seemingly big problems could be solved by doing just one thing, or better still, by simply passive/aggressively hinting that "they" need to do "something".

Just utter the thought without naming names and bing-bang-boom, problem solved.


You know why that's not gonna happen don't you?

Because they want to keep things just as they are, that's why!

Somebody ought to do something!

I Think I've Heard This Tune Before

Think about humankind and you see incredible advancement in almost everything imaginable.

From weapons (rocks to laser beam canons) to flight (Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years), the history of human development is about inventing that which doesn't exist, or at the very least, significantly improving that which does.

Well there appears to be at least one exception that probably is the rule prover. Musical instruments. Not a lot new under that sun.

Yes I know electric guitars are relatively new but even they now go back some 60 years or so. Electric organs? 81 years ago.

What about accordions, they kind of figure not to have been one of the first, and my audio memory doesn't hear any in the recordings my 8th grade music appreciation teacher chose to play for me. 1829.

Likewise the saxophone invented by Adolphe Sax (who else?) and the modern French horn came along in the early to mid 19th century. A hundred years or more before the oboe, piano and trumpet, all of which came centuries after the earliest flute from China.

So why nothing newer than electrifying/amplifying that which already exists?

Let me clarify that by "new" I mean new and established (regularly used to make popular music.) Lots of people try to invent new things with which to make pleasing sounds, but few succeed and none I can recall now.

I wonder why that is? Maybe because what they come up with looks and sounds strange? Could be but stranger than a trombone, tuba or the harp (4000 BC), which to me is the skeleton of musical instruments?

There's got to be some other reason that to this day we continue to make music, pounding, strumming and blowing through pretty much the same equipment used 100, 200 or even 300 years ago.

Got to be and I have no idea what it is.

I Got My Twitter Ears On!

Seemingly overnight, seemingly everyone including me, is on Twitter, tippy typing away our lives, 140 characters at a time.

Man, technology is like totally awesome!

I can provide real time knowledge about my doin's almost anywhere, anytime while at the same time keeping abreast of my inner circle's lives. Important stuff too like what I/they had for breakfast, the location I/they are headed to, or my personal favorite, what music I'm listening to (I don't care what they're listening to.)

God, how did people live without Twitter in the olden days?


Well, it turns out they didn't.


For a few years back in the mid 70's, millions of people rode around wearing platform shoes and "fros" talking to others within a 15 mile radius on CB radios about, well, what they had for breakfast, where they were currently headed, and/or music.


Pretty much what we've now got on Twitter but with more "Good Buddies", "fer sures" and "you got your ears on?" thrown in for color.

I had one but quickly lost interest and took it out, as did the overwhelming majority of others who had CB radios. Given what was being said, having our ears on just didn't seem that important anymore.

But that won't happen with Twitter; what my posse says now is just too important to miss. Things like these two Tweets I received in the last hour:

"I like Guinness. Mmmmmmmmmm..."

"Call me a magician... but I TOTALLY made a WHOLE PIZZA disappear last night. What the deuce?"

I need to hear that fer sure Good Buddy!

What Would Lucy and Desi Say?

Back in the 50's and early 60's, TV and movie "husbands" and "wives" could not be in the same bed together, even those really married like Lucy and Desi. Obviously no unmarried's either.

To have done so was considered morally corrupt or at the very least, in bad taste and the censors were very busy making sure that didn't happen.

This billboard is just off the 55 freeway in Orange County California. It is advertising a product that will allegedly help women who, as the sign says, leak urine when they laugh or sneeze. According to the billboard, this is a problem for 1 out of 3 adult women.

Watch even just a little TV and you'll know that men have a related issue. Not a matter of leakage. For guys it's frequent urination, but as TV commercials coming from the makers of Dextrol, Enablex and Avodart tell us, they can help, and they repeatedly tell us they can during prime time TV.

The other thing you see a lot of on TV are ads for Sildenafil (Viagra), Tadalafil (Cialis) and Vardenafil (Levitra), all designed to treat Erectile Dysfunction.

Erectile Dysfunction.

Difficulty or total inability to get and maintain an erection sufficient for intercourse. Like the drugs that will reduce frequent urination, prime time TV ads tell us that is no longer a problem and while they don't actually show couples engaged in sex, they make it clear they are about to be.

So in a relative short time period we went from requiring that adults of the opposite sex not be filmed in the same bed, even if they were married, to they can as well as a whole lot more.

And when we decided that wasn't so bad we thought, "Hell, what's wrong with talking about things related to urination and flaccid penises in prime time?"


Whenever I see one of these ads I wonder what would Lucy and Desi say?

Euphemistically Speaking . . . You Were Totally Marginally Acceptable!

We all use euphemisms; things like "marginally acceptable" when responding to our partner who asked "How was it for you?" (a response you'll likely only get to use once.)

Again, only occasionally, unless you happen to be a politician, stock broker, lawyer or in public relations for just about anything. Then the ability to speak euphemistically is an occupational necessity.

Some of my favorites along with their translations include . . .

• "Over served": Suggesting the bar or restaurant waiter was just a little too attentive as the reason you don't recall being there nor asked to leave.
  

Translation: Shit faced (arguably itself a euphemism but only if we accept that euphemisms can be both negative and positive.)

• "Revenue enhancement": This euphemism works because we liberally use "revenue" and "enhancement" as synonyms for "taxes" and "increase", which, when connected, take on a significantly darker aura than when separate.
  

Translation: If it's my taxes enhancing the government's revenue, I got screwed. If it's yours, it's about time.

• "Down sizing" and the newer "right sizing": Mostly coming from PR types who write the press releases describing lay-offs and factory closings, which is what is going "down" and/or becoming "right."
  

Translation: We are firing people while still being able to keep the good corporate citizen bullet point in our framed "What We Stand For" plaque hanging in our lobby .

There's big money in euphemisms but you know where the real money is? It goes to those who create euphemistic sentences using otherwise non euphemistic words resulting in not just neutral reaction but ideally something viewed as positive.

Case in point the following quote from the March 26th edition of the Wall Street Journal, which, in turn was quoting an IBM press release.

"Some of these workers received a notice Wednesday indicating that nearly 2,000 workers in that group were due to be told they would be "participating in IBM's current resource reduction action.""

Nothing euphemistic about "participating", "in", "IBM's", "current", "resource", "reduction", "action", and, in fact, with the possible exception of "reduction", all those individual words are neutral to very positive.

However taken together, particularly with little thought as it is hoped negative news press releases will be read . . .

Translation: Don't let the door hit you in the ass!

Mutual Understanding: We Have A Long Way To Go

"A Somali girl who said she had been raped, has been stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery, a human rights group has said.

Amnesty International said in a press release on Friday that the victim, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, had been 13 years old - not 23 as earlier reports had suggested.

Duhulow was stoned to death on October 27 by dozens of men in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses.

The armed group in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, Amnesty said."

Al Jazeera March 24, 2009

"A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.

According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, "Fahd" and "Hadian."

Fahd told the policeman he had the right to be there because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman."

CNN
March 9, 2009

"Because she doesn't have a husband (she's widowed) and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendant of illegal mingling has been confirmed", the court verdict read."

MSNBC
March 9, 2009

Thirteen year old girls and 75 year old women are mistreated throughout the world, including in the US. That's not the story here. Nor is it that in each of these cases the crime, and that's what it is, was perpetrated by the country's government or, at the very least, tolerated by them.

We have a long way to go in this world before we will ever achieve anything approaching mutual understanding, and I have to tell you, stories like these don't make me think we will get there anytime soon.

That it happens is bad enough but when 1,000 spectators decide to attend a 13 year old girl's murder in a sports stadium, when citizens say this treatment of a 75 year old woman is "God's will", I realize how inadequate is my ability to comprehend the attitudes and opinions of others who see little or nothing wrong in such things.

And you know what's really sad? They no doubt feel the same about me and others who believe as I do.

The Circle of Life?

"When reproved on this awful subject, these undisciplined warriors justify their deeds of horror as more enlightened nations have attempted to justify theirs, by the law of retaliation."

"Today, scholars usually situate indigenous violence against colonial populations within a framework of resistance."

A couple of weeks ago, on a downtown Seattle street corner, I stood and watched as opposing groups waved their banners, shouting down each others shouted proclamations for and against Israel and the Palestinians.

The crux of the argument is this:

Israel is defending itself against Palestinian rocket attacks ("You fire a rocket at me, I will blow your house up!")

The Palestinians are resisting Israel's unlawful repression ("I fire rockets at you because you blow up my house.")

And so it continues.

The first quote in this post comes from David G. Burnet explaining what his Comanche hosts told him when he asked why they killed Mexican women and children during their raids into northern Mexico in the first half of the 19th century.

It was recorded in Brain DeLay's "War of a Thousand Deserts"; the 2008 story of the brutal fighting between Comanches, Kiowas, Kiowa Apaches, Apaches and Mexican settlers, in the same area during the early to mid 1800's. Mr. DeLay concludes many things, among them the thought expressed in the second quote.

The Comanche code of honor required that men killed during raids into Mexican territory must be avenged in next year's "raiding season." Inevitably the avenging raid would result in new deaths requiring a new avenging raid the year after, which in turn . . .




Indians and Mexicans in the 1800's . . .

Palestinians and Israelis in the new millennium.

The 13th Floor

I was walking up the stairs from my building's 5th floor exercise room to my home on the 21st floor, a round trip capping off my workout that I make 5 days a week whenever I am in Seattle.

Just passing the 12th floor I calculated I had 9 floors to go; a type of mental self-flagellation exercise I go though to make the already difficult stair climbing just that much less enjoyable.

But this time was different. When I got to the next floor marker I noted it was the 14th floor rather than the 13th as I expected.

Had I really lived in this building for 3+ years never realizing there was no 13th floor? Not once in all the elevator trips did I notice no "13" button. Five down the stairs and five ups to and from the exercise room each week, never noting no 13 floor sign??

All of this led to much contemplation about my discovery that day, as you can see by my need to share this with you now.

If there is no 13th floor then what does that say about those who think they live on the 14th floor? Do they know and just not care about the superstition implications or are they really safe because their floor marker says "14"?

You see this matters a lot because if they really do live on the 13th then that means I live on the 20th and not the 21st as I have believed I did ever since moving in.

My view is approximately 10 feet lower than I've assumed and I have 10 less feet to climb each day after working out.

I am 10 feet closer to whatever evil lurks on the 13th, aka 14th floor, assuming I am superstitious, which I am not.

Knock on wood.

Virtually Connected

Contrary to my fellow delusionals, I don't have voices in my head other than when wearing a wireless headset tethering me to my wireless phone.

(I purposely overused "wireless" because I think one day soon it will join other archaic words such as "talkies" describing movies with sound. I want to get my use in before it does.)

I do use one but only in private. I love the freedom of movement and as long as the two devices are much closer to each other than headset manufacturers say they need be, it works fine. But in public, no.

Now I realize other captains of industry do freely use theirs, seemingly anywhere, anytime including in public bathrooms, restaurants, while shopping and certainly walking down the street, which to me is the worst of all.

Why walking down the street worst of all?

I'm not sure but think it has something to do with the fact that that is where I see most who talk to themselves without a headset, holding forth. Public bathrooms are getting rarer each day so not there and they're not to be found in most restaurants or shopping areas I frequent.

The other day I was walking on a busy downtown Seattle street and came upon a well dressed late 30's business guy standing on a corner, talking loudly, gesturing, all by himself. Not 5 feet away was a homeless man who could have been much younger than he appeared, wearing torn, dirty clothes, doing the same thing.

The difference? One had his wireless headset on, the other didn't, each apparently oblivious to the irony of being so different while at the same time so similar.

I guess that's why I'm at best a lieutenant of industry.

The Unbroken Circle

After seeing Schuyler Fisk (daughter of Cissy Spacek) and Ben Taylor (son of Carly Simon and James Taylor) in concert the other night, I got to thinking about other second generation performers, musicians in particular.

Some are obvious including Hank Williams II and his son III, Frank Jr. and Nancy Sinatra, Liza Minelli (Judy Garland).

Others maybe not so obvious like Rosanna Cash (Johnny Cash), Lisa Marie Presley (Elvis), Julian Lennon (John), Wilson-Phillips (Beach Boy Brian Wilson's two daughters Carnie and Wendy and Mamas and Papas John and Michelle Phillips daughter Chynna).

For personal reasons one of my favorite examples is Hanna-McEuen (Jamie Hanna and Jonathan McEuen), sons of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band original members Jeff Hanna and John McEuen.

Favorite because I grew up with another founding member, Jimmie Fadden, and still see the band whenever I get the chance. And who better than NGDB prodigy given the question the title of their 1972 landmark album asked before many of these great second generation performers were even born?

Hanna-McEuen have a great sound, maybe in part because they are also first cousins (Jeff and John were at one time married to the boy's twin sister moms.) And another of John's six kids, Nathan McEuen, is also well worth your time to see and hear.

Let's see who else? Well Ziggy Marley (son of Bob), Jacob Dylan (son of Bob), twins Matthew and Gunner Nelson (son of Rick), Miley Cyrus (daughter of Billy Ray) and Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon), just to name a few.


Answering the question posed by the The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band back in 1972 . . .

. . . yes!

25: The New Big One??

Standing in line at Starbucks the other day, I overheard the following conversation between a mid 20's female customer and the SB Barista who appeared to be in her early 20's.

Female Customer: "This is the Big One; tomorrow I turn 25."

Early 20's SB Barista Girl: "You're only as old as you feel and it's not like you're 30."

"No", I silently sighed to myself, "it's not like I'm 30." Not even close to like that for a few decades now.

My God, if 25 is the new Big One and the consolation is not being 30 . . .

But Barista Girl did also say, "You're only as old as you feel" and while she added that last part about 30, I could just ignore that.

"You're only as old as you feel!"

Hmmm, so how old do I feel??

Well, prior to hearing that exchange, not too old. I did get up at 4 that morning followed by an hour in the gym. And it was 5 the day before, running 4 miles.

How do I feel?

Like in the future, buying my coffee from someone whose age is at least twice the number of years she's spent in school; at most just a few years less than my waist size.

Someone who isn't referring to a 40 oz bottle of malt liquor when they say "40's are soo cool!"

What If RuPaul and Lance Armstrong Were to Race?

Days after each Lance Armstrong Tour de France victory, I would notice a significant increase in the number of people riding expensive bikes near where I live, wearing full-on bike racing clothes and gear.

Buying the bike I get, even an expensive one, but not the complete uniform, particularly since there is nothing subtle about the tight, shiny, way colorful outfits favored by real racers as well as the newly adorned weekenders in my neighborhood.

But I do support the interest in exercise even thought the vast majority were soon off the street and presumably off their $1,000 plus bikes after only a couple of weekend rides.

Note to psychologists: You should study this if you haven't already. You don't see an increase in the number of people wearing full football uniforms post Superbowl nor baseball uniforms just after the World Series and certainly there are more people interested in those sports than in biking.

So why the mini explosion of Lance-zoids?

Well at least it's just biking. I caught a bit of drag queen RuPaul's TV show the other night. If you can't imagine what it's about click on the title ("RuPaul's Drag Race") or just think about the fact that RuPaul is a drag queen and the show is about a "drag race" and no I'm not talking about really fast cars.

Kids, these are professionals, don't try this at home.




You know the guy whose picture I took in my Starbucks doesn't seem that strange to me now.

(Click picture to enlarge.)

I'm Offended!

"From King Rama to the Crown Prince, the nobility was renowned for their romantic entanglements and intrigues. The Crown Prince had many wives major and minor with a coterie of concubines for entertainment. One of his recent wives was exiled with her entire family, including a son they conceived together, for an undisclosed indiscretion. He subsequently remarried with another woman and fathered another child. It was rumored that if the prince fell in love with one of his minor wives and she betrayed him, she and her family would disappear with their name, familial lineage and all vestiges of their existence expunged forever."

"Verisimilitude"

Harry Nicoliades
Author

The above 103 words come from "Verisimilitude", a novel written by Australian national Harry Nicoliades. The last I knew the 2005 self-published book had sold a total of 7 copies so if you haven't heard of it you are among many.

But the government of Thailand did and more than just hear about it they decided these words defamed the Thai monarchy which caused them to arrest Mr Nicoliades as he tried to board a plane to Australia. This was followed by a trial under Thailand's lèse majesté statute resulting in conviction and a three year sentence for Nicoliades. 10.6 days in jail per word.

Salmond Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses" caused then Iranian Ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a Fatah calling on all good Muslims to kill Rushdie and his publishers, or at least to tell others where he is so they could kill him if they couldn't bring themselves to do it. Why? According to Khomeini the book was blasphemous towards Muhammad.

They never got to Rushdie who was forced into hiding with 24/7 police protection but Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book was murdered and two other translators survived attempted assassinations.

And of course there was the 2005 cartoon penned by Jyllands-Posten that, according to some Muslims, offended Islam because, they said, it defamed Muhammad. The response? Massive Muslim demonstrations resulting in over 100 deaths.

Whatever happened to sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? I think that worked pretty good didn't it? It really was the high road and put the alleged word/cartoon offender lower than their intended/accidental target.

If we could ask them, I would think that is what Jesus, Buddha, Bhagavan, Ishvara and even Muhammad would want don't you?

I don't know about the King of Thailand but if he didn't and the deities did, that would certainly make him look small I should think.


No offense intended.

You Want a Piece of Me?

NPR recently had an interesting interview with a Nevada senator regarding a proposal to increase state revenue.

The suggestion is to legalize prostitution in communities of more than 400,000 residents. It is now only legal in those with less, which makes it illegal in Las Vegas and Reno.

California listeners called in to talk about doing the same thing in California given our state's near bankrupt status.

Predictably many were opposed.

"It's dehumanizing."
"People should not prostitute themselves."

I listened to this emotionally charged discussion as I drove to a meeting; one where my client was paying for access to my brain. We'd spend an hour or so together in private after which I would be paid for services rendered.

(You know where I'm going with this don't you.)

I wondered what those who objected did for a living. Probably worked for someone else or possibly for themselves, trading their time, bodies and/or brains for money as I do.


I'll have to think about how I feel about legalizing prostitution but not just yet.



Right now I've got another meeting to go to.

The Numbers Do Not Lie!

Statistics at once tell you everything and nothing (a fact I know to be true 50% of the time.)

Consider the following:

• In 2007 the world's highest per capita cigarette consumption occurred in Greece (8.2 cigarettes per person, per day.)

• The most beer is drank by the Czechs; just under 82 liters per person per year which is about 50% more than in the US (number 8 on the list.)

• At 33 liters per person annually the big wine drinkers live in Portugal; three times what the Czechs drink (the US doesn't even make the top 22 list although I do my best to change this situation.)

• In 2004 Ecuador had the highest number of murders per 100,000 population (18.9) in the world.

• The US tops the list in terms of number of its citizens in prison per 100,000 population (751) followed by Russia (627), the US Virgin Islands (549) and Cuba (531).

What do you make of this and is this at all what you would have assumed to be true?

As for me, well, I think I'll visit Portugal with a stopover in the Czech Republic. I'll probably pass on Ecuador or at the very least be much more careful when there as I will next time in Russia and/or Cuba should I make it there any time soon.

What about the US?? I have no idea.

Our new watchword is "change" and with that the case, everything's going to be different anyway.

"If you remember the 60's you weren't there."

I remember a lot of 60's stuff.

For example . . .

• Chubby Checker and the Twist,
• The Beatles
• Chubby Checker and The Beatles on Ed Sullivan

I don't remember anything from the 70's, 80's or 90's though. Pretty much just slid right from "She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" all the way to 9-11, which, like everyone 10 or older that day, I recall in all too vivid detail.

So how'd I miss 30 years or so?

Well for starters I was very busy with a variety of things I've since forgot; a problem due in part to the increase in media's ability to assault me with an increasing number of things I was suppose to remember. So if there was the 70's-90's equivalent of a Chubby Checker, The Twist and/or The Beatles, I missed it.

Least you think otherwise this isn't one of those "back in my day" rants. The 60's were unique and part of why they were was because of Chubby, The Twist and just about everything The Beatles did.

They made the 60's and in return the 60's made them with a now greatly underrated amount of help from Ed, and the elements necessary to make all that happen again haven't existed since.

Robin Williams was referring to the drugs we all supposedly took back then when he said, if you remember the 60's you weren't there.

Well I know I didn't do drugs . . . or at least I don't remember that I did and the fact that I don't proves I was there!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

I "See" What You Mean

A picture may be worth 10,000 words but some word pictures are crystal clear just as they are. You hear the words and can see the meaning.

I suspect this is true in any language but in most cases I'll bet you need the perspective of culture to see them. For example what do you "see" when you read the following?

"When that old 5:15 pulls out tonight, I'm gonna be on it!"

To most all born and raised in the US, probably a train leaving the train station at 5:15 PM (and to those of you well versed in dirty jokes, the punchline to a great old story.)

How about?

"You're beating a dead horse!"

I don't actually picture whacking a dead horse when I hear that but I do when I force myself to think about it. I wonder what my non American born, English is a second language friends think when they hear it??

Country based sayings are the best. Things like . . .

"He's as busy as a one-armed paper hanger."

"It's hotter than a two peckered Billy Goat in heat."

"That dog won't hunt."

And I recently heard what is my current all time favorite.

"He was jumpin' and twichin' like a 3rd monkey on Noah's gangplank."

You'd have to have a bag full of hammers for brains not to see that picture.

My Grandparents Time

Home alone the other morning, sitting in the living room looking out the front window waiting for the newspaper to arrive, the only sound coming from the "key" clock hanging on the wall.

Tick, toc, tick, toc the seconds passed becoming minutes.

Too early for the sun and since I had not turned on a light, just my thoughts making images that began with the paper I waited to receive, quickly going way back to another place and time.

I had heard that sound before, in fact every day I've owned the clock, now some 25 years; however as far as I know, never alone when the sound it made was the only sound in a room almost too dark to see.

It was at my grandparents home. Over 50 years ago. I was maybe 7 or 8, visiting during summer vacation, in their living room waiting for them to get up, listening to their clock.

Tick, toc, tick toc, each second seem twice as long as would be when they got up; when the day really began.

I could see the room the furniture and once again I could smell the smells that were their lives just as I had over a half century before.

The paper arrived bringing me back from a place I missed more than I remembered.

But I will soon sit again listening to my clock.

Me and Red Buttons Didn't Get a Dinner!

I recently attended the retirement party for my good friend Greg from high school. Thirty-six years on the Los Angeles Police Department.

Sitting there listening to the speeches from his co-workers and various public officials who came to honor his service, I was struck by the fact that in all my business career I had never attended such an event.

At this point, for a long time now actually, government jobs are likely the last place a person could expect to spend their entire career. The days of working 20+ years in one private sector job or company are long gone. Looking at my own career I see that the longest I was in one company was 11 years and that was only because I owned it. No way that idiot CEO was downsizing me!

Unlike the past where you would go to work and (hopefully) build a retirement account, we now move through jobs (hopefully) taking our retirement savings with us building on it as we do. So you are probably not going to get, as Red Buttons use to say, a retirement "dinner" after just a few years. Nor is it likely you will at your last stop. Can you imagine how that would sound?

"We're here to honor Bill who has faithfully served this company for . . . let's see, 3 years, 6 months."

When I sold my 11 year old company, I was quickly on to a new venture which meant I would spend a lot of time in China including Hong Kong. On one of those trips I did get my retirement watch; a beautiful gold Girard Perregaux.

No dinner, no plaques or speeches from those telling me what a great job I had done. Just me looking out over Hong Kong harbor, occasionally looking down at that watch, slowly sipping a glass of 55 year old Macallans.

Somehow the fact that I paid for it all, including the watch, didn't bother me at all.

Got Milk? Well I Have, But Recently . . .

My favorite four drinks are (in order of preference):

1. Milk
2. Orange juice
3. Water
4. Beer

Yes, well I do like single malt scotch and wine as well. Also old school Coke, Coke Zero and Dr. Pepper, but I have to balance a number of things when making this list. Health, utility, Jimmy Buffet songs, cereal, really hot summer afternoons, PB&J sandwiches, cookies and headaches just to name a few.

All are good and interesting fluids in their own right but for me none more so than milk; a conclusion reinforced the other night as I listened to an NPR interview with Anne Mendelson, author of a new book entitled "Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages."

Listening to Anne I realized how little I know about milk even though I drink it most everyday. I mean I know there is whole, 2%, 1% and my choice, non fat (aka "skim") but that's about it. Oh yeah, chocolate too.

Exactly what "pasteurized" means . . . not sure. Likewise "homogenized" at least until I Googled it to learn it is a process that "makes a mixture the same throughout the entire substance." Ok. Sounds a little like high school.

But the more Anne talked about milk sources the more I grew uncomfortable with my love of milk. It all of a sudden seemed strange that I readily accept and drink a fluid that comes out of a cow whose stomach is, I learned from Anne, ruminant. But no other animal including my own species.

Especially my own species!

Some sort of reverse Oedipus complex? Could be. You know I didn't much like Mom's cooking.

I think I'll poor myself a scotch, neat, and rethink this list.

The Fonze Would Know

Ruby's Diner is a 25 year old, primarily west coast (a few locations in Hawaii, Colorado and Pennsylvania) 50's style restaurant. The food is serviceable; not bad nor great. The wait staff is mostly high school or college girls in costumes Ritchie and the Fonze would recognize as well as appreciate. In keeping with the 50's fun theme each location has a Lusse Auto Scooter.

Not sure what that is?? How about bumper car? If you've ever been to an old school amusement park such as California's Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica or The Pike in Long Beach before they went away, or Coney Island NY, you know. Bumper cars were as sure to be found in places like that as was cotton candy and sailors.

Looking at one while having lunch the other day I assumed they must have been salvaged from some long defunct ride which may be true. However it is also possible that Ruby's bought theirs new from Lusse who still makes them as they have for over 70 years. And as if that weren't enough, there's a thriving business in Lusse parts on eBay and well as individuals who customize the cars all the way to making them street legal.

In this time of major business failures there is something comfortable about a company that has been around that long, still doing well today, all about fun.

I'll Bet Tony Doesn't Eat Cheerios!

My high cholesterol is hereditary; over 300 without medication, which I've now been on for close to 20 years. I remember the conversation with my doctor when he said "we" had to do something. Up until that time he just told me to "watch what I eat" which I did.

Not all that hard actually since I didn't care for much of what was bad for me. But that wasn't good enough so it was time to move on to drugs, which, along with diet and exercise gets me down around 200.

Now for those of you who eat a dozen eggs and a pound of bacon a week, all the burgers and pizza you want and still have cholesterol readings around 100, 200 is like bacon grease but for me 200 is a 33% drop.

One of my staples is Cheerios for breakfast but not for the reason you would likely guess (presuming you pay attention to what's on cereal boxes.) The fact that they've focused their marketing on the claim that eaten regularly Cheerios will lower your cholesterol.

Now when I say "focused their marketing" I mean so literally, from the box pictured above to their "take the challenge" website, which by the way, is quite well done.

I assume it's working because General Mills who makes Cheerios has been making the cholesterol claim for years now. All you need to do is eat 1 1/2 cups a day for 6 weeks and your cholesterol will drop . . . 4%.

4% after eating 32 pounds of Cheerios? Getting down to 200 would mean I would have to eat over 800 pounds??

Paraphrasing Tony, that's not at all Greaaaaaaaaaat!

I Need It For The Singapore Trip!

This will be a soul bearing post.

Like a surgeon operating on himself without anesthesia I will open me up; honestly as much as possible, examining my thoughts of interest to those who wish to sell me computers.

The facts:

• I want a MacBook Pro laptop
• I don't need it.
• If I get it I will transition my PC files from a Sony Vista laptop; a task that promises not to be easy, Apple's suggestions to the contrary notwithstanding.
• What I want will cost around $2500 or about 2.5 times what an equivalent new PC laptop would cost, which I would never buy anyway because as I've already said, I have one and don't need a new one.
  
• I will need to spend an additional $100 or so on 3rd party software to make everything work. Mind you, this is just to make the switch. Over and above this I will need to buy all sorts of Mac software to replace my Windows versions of the same software. Probably an additional $500 or so.
• I will buy and install Windows because some of what I need to do cannot be done on Mac. Yes that's right. I am talking about getting rid of a one year old Vista laptop replacing it with a Mac which I will then install Windows on so I can continue to do what I am already doing on the PC I want to replace.
  
• It is a product made by Apple; a company I am increasingly convinced is, along with the Military Industrial Complex, the Kennedy and 9/11 conspiracies and fluoridated water advocates, plotting to enslave us all.
  

Why? Let the marketer in me answer.

Because

It's as simple as that. Oh I have reasons but when you get right down to it, all BS, certainly nothing that would withstand scrutiny. No this is the type of purchase we unhesitatingly tell our children is not going to happen, along with them . . .

• bungee jumping off the garage roof.
• building a raft and riding the drainage ditch rain runoff to the ocean.
• duct taping pillows to their body to protect them during the BB war they plan to fight with their friends.
• working on a tramp steamer heading to Singapore this summer.
  

So I have split personality'd myself to write this.

One of me knows what's going on and is convinced the other me will ultimately get the damn thing. However that one is not so sure and is still searching for more plausible justification just in case.

All suggestions welcome.

If Not No Limits Than Maybe The Outer Limits!

I love cars and struggle to keep my enthusiasm in check regarding what I spend on them (a self-observed declaration of discipline some who know me would dispute.)

But even I have limits.
"Don't we all?" you say.
Well I suppose so but it's the definition of "limits" that is the stickler.

Case in point, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4.

• 0-60 MPH in 2.5 seconds (or about the time it took you to read the statement "0-60 MPH in 2.5 seconds")
• 0-130 MPH in 8.5 seconds
• 253 MPH top speed
• MPG: 8 City, 14 Highway
• 1010 horsepower
  
• Price: $1,657,700 base (some sources quote over $2,000,000)
• The cost of four replacement Michelin PAX Pilot tires: $25,000 or $70,000 if mounted on wheels which can only be done at the factory in France.
  

Just to be clear, we're not talking about a race car which could easily put up these performance numbers and cost what the Veyron costs. No, this is a car meant to be driven on your street, parked in your garage.

Just imagine. Your neighbor Ed walks out in his robe to pick up the Saturday paper and there you are, hose in hand, pail at the ready, washing last week's dirt off your Bugatti.

Ed: "Hey INSERT YOUR NAME, washin' the old Vette, huh?"
You: "Hi Ed. Well yes but its not a Corvette; it's a Bugatti Veyron 16.4.
Ed: "No kiddin'! A Boohalotty . . . what was that again?"

But more than the cost, how fast it will go, the (lack of) gas mileage, I am struck by other little things like the fact that it is shipped via Air France from the French factory at a cost of $100,000. Or that, according to Car and Driver magazine, one buyer spent an additional $72,500 on a custom leather interior. Or that you need to send Bugatti a deposit for $420,000 just to get in line to buy one of the 300 projected to be built.

And what company would you guess owns Bugatti? Originally an Italian mark the Veyron is built in Alsace France by corporate parent . . . Volkswagen.

So who buys these? Beats me. I know I haven't and as of yet I haven't seen any of my neighbors washing theirs but again according to Car and Driver, 240 of the 300 are already sold.

Maybe for some there really are no limits.

The University of Phoenix End Run

What do you think of when I say "The University of Phoenix"? What if I say "The University of Phoenix Stadium"?

First of all for those of you not sure, some background. The University of Phoenix is a for profit adult education institution offering on campus and online degrees in more than 100 fields. They have facilities in 39 states with an enrollment of over 340,000 students. Founded in 1976 they are currently owned by the Apollo Group, an S and P 500 NASDAQ listed company.

Back to the stadium. They don't have a football team nor any sports team for that matter so why a stadium?

Marketing Baby! Brilliant marketing!

The U of P bought naming rights to the new stadium built for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals for $155 million paid out over 20 years. So for less than $8 million a year their name is on an NFL stadium seen by millions who watch NFL football in addition to all the exposure they get from other events held there ranging from trade shows to Rolling Stones concerts to Super Bowl XLIII.

Being a soft drink or insurance company with a stadium named after you is fine; people see your brand. But that's not as good as the association that comes from being a brand whose product consumers expect to be associated with a stadium.

Without question for many watching last Monday night's NFL Cardinal/49er's game on TV, the image of the U of P improved significantly as a result of having repeatedly seen "The University of Phoenix Stadium" signs in camera shot after camera shot. You could almost see the non existent adjacent ivy covered campus.

Forget BCS drama, the expense to play competitive Division I football, the problems associated with all collegiate sports programs; to many those signs say the University of Phoenix is a player!

Brilliant!

Till Death Do Us Part . . . All Of Us!

I easily read 20 plus books a year; a lifelong habit but in all that no more than a handful of fiction and with few exceptions, all written by Michael Crichton beginning with 1969's The Andromeda Strain all the way to 2006's Next. Great stuff.

Reading his obituary today I was surprised to learn he had been married five times which got me thinking about the number of marriages for other famous people. Eight times to seven husbands for Liz (Richard Burton twice), nine for Zsa Zsa (side note: she and Liz were at different times each married to Conrad ("Nicky") Hilton, great grandpa to Paris and Nicky). In comparison Johnny Carson's four marriages makes him downright monogamous.

How about the not so famous? Well excluding marriages for religious reasons there's the boxer Kid McCoy (10), Calamity Jane (12), NYC socialite Tommy Manville (13 to 11 women), and Glynn Wolfe married 29 times, the shortest lasting 19 days the longest 7 years.

Glynn's son said his dad married a bunch because he didn't like living in sin with a woman.

He died in 1997, age 88, married although alone at the time (he and his last wife lived apart), I assume a pretty worn out guy.

Or Theresa Vaughan of England who was married to 61 different men. Can you imagine the conversation with most any of the about-to-be's past number 10 when they asked her "Have you been married before?"

Nothing once bit twice shy about any of them.

Coyote Insight Blog Listed on Alltop!

Need a way to sort through the (growing) number of blogs addressing absolutely every subject you can think of plus a bunch you never would have imagined?

Alltop

A blog aggregator; one that only lists the best of the best which is why I am so pleased to announce that they've added the Coyote Insight Blog just few days after including Business Wisdom.

Take some time to explore their lists; you won't be disappointed.

Laurel and Hardy Knew How to Work

Between 1920 and 1951 Laurel and Hardy were in 106 films together including 40 short sound pictures, 32 silent short films, 23 full feature length films and and additional 11 in which they made guest/cameo appearances.

Just short of 3.5 a year which is deceiving because between 1945 and 1950 they made none and "front loaded" a bunch in the mid to late 20's. How front loaded? An average of just over 12 per year 1927-29.

But even that production pales in comparison to their early solo stuff. For example in 1925 Stan Laurel was in 9 films, 12 in 1924 and in '23 a whopping 20! Pretty impressive until you consider the output of Oliver Hardy in 1914, 1915 and 1916 which was 39, 44 and 61, respectively. That's right in 1916 he averaged more than one movie per week. All toll, 270 not counting those with Stan Laurel.

For many of you, already more than you care to know about Laurel and Hardy but for the rest of you I highly recommend Simon Louvish's Stan and Ollie The Roots of Comedy, The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy.

Over 500 pages that not only details their solo and team careers but tells much of what is today the prime form of entertainment for the world.

The Power of (Misleading) Headlines

Sept. O. C. Home Buying Soars Record 62%

O. C. Register 10.21.08

Southern California Home Prices Continue to Slide

L. A. Times 10.21.08

Based on these two very different headlines that appeared the same day in two competing Southern California newspapers you might think the reporters were looking at two different sets of data. They weren't. Both quote statistics from the same report. If ever there was a case of "glass half empty/half full" this is it.

The Register was talking about sales which are up considerably from a year ago while the Times chose to focus on the continued decline in the prices of those homes that do sell. What do the readers of both these papers think about the SoCal real estate market? I can only imagine.

A day later the Wall Street Journal ran the following headline regarding the same set of statistics:

California Home Sales Revive But Not Without Intense Pain

The Register headline says the glass is half full, the Times, half empty. The Journal gets it right and needs no further comment.

The Greatest Rolling Stones Song You've (Probably) Never Heard!

Regardless of what you think of the Rolling Stones, even better if you don't like them, do yourself a favor and listen to "2120 South Michigan Avenue" ideally off the re-mastered "12X5" CD (or abbreviated version at http://tinyurl.com/4rykum to get a rough idea. Click play in box, upper right.) Recorded in Chess Studios, located at the song's title, Chicago June 1964, it is the best known among little known Stones instrumentals.

From the very beginning drummer Charlie Watts tells you how it's gonna be (yes I know, plagiarized from another Stones gem) with a "you're gonna listen to me" beat. At 8 seconds led by Ian Stewart on Hammond organ the others join in. At 1 minute 10 seconds either Mick Jagger or Brian Jones (different sources attribute it to each) comes on with a blistering harmonica. I've never heard Mick play that well and on the strength of that alone I would guess it was Brian but who knows?

At 2 minutes it sounds like things are ending but 13 seconds later Keith Richards comes on with a great pre-drug stupor guitar solo sounding like a new version of the song you thought was ending. This goes on another minute with Charlie driving it all until the real end at 3 minutes 40 seconds. A song within a song.

The youngest Stone from the original group is now 66, the oldest, bassist Bill Wyman who retired some years ago, 70 next spring. Still fun to watch more so than to listen to their new stuff.

But if you want the real deal take a trip to 2120 South Michigan Avenue; you won't be disappointed.

Taking the Time

Hindra, 18, owns a wristwatch but he rarely uses it.

“A wristwatch is too much trouble,” he said. “To actually buy a watch or even waste valuable battery power on something you already have built-in in your phone, it’s pointless.”

That quote came from a Columbia School of Journalism article that asks the question "Are wristwatches becoming obsolete?"

There have been many articles talking about the same thing just as the need for newspapers is called into question given alternative electronic news sources not to mention better uses of our trees.

The arguments they make simultaneously true while missing the point.

There is ritual in my morning read of the Wall Street Journal and LA Times (for some reason the NY Times when I travel) that goes way beyond getting up to date on things. I look forward to turning the pages, reading what I wish, ignoring what I don't; a respite from whatever lays ahead in my day.

Likewise I don't need a watch or a cell phone for that matter to tell time . My watches are a connection to earlier times and people (I collect and most are 50 years or more old, many 75+). I look at them watching them mark my time as they have done for others for decades thinking about where they've been and where they will be 75 years from now.

And by the way Hindra there are watches that do not run on batteries. It was in all the papers.

I Couldn't Have Said it Better

The full story http://mig-25.blogspot.com/

If Everybody Had an Ocean . . .

Southern California in the 50's and 60's; a very special place. Like Paris in the 20's, San Francisco in the 60's, geography; culture and time aligning with magical results.

(Special thanks to tubadylan http://www.youtube.com/user/tubadylan)

Relative Fame

I was having dinner in a Seattle restaurant two days prior to Paul Newman's passing, sitting near a group who appeared to be in their late 20's/early 30's. My interest in their conversation picked up based on the following:

Guy: "Have you guys heard of Paul Newman?"

Others in His Group: "The guy who makes salad dressing?"

Guy: "Yes but apparently he was an actor too. I saw him in an old TV interview and he did the coolest thing pulling a cigarette out of his breast pocket with his mouth."

"Apparently he was an actor"?? It did not appear that any in this group of young urban professionals knew that Newman was more than salad dressing. A top movie draw throughout the 60's and 70's; right up there with Sean Connery, Marilyn Monroe and Marlin Brando and all they knew was his salad dressing.

Which only goes to show, fame is fleeting and "what have you done for me lately" rules the roost. Who will people remember from our time 50 years in the future and what does it take to be remembered?

But I guess I understand it. I wasn't around in the 20's and have no first hand exposure to Rudy Vallee however from what I can see he was his generation's Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra, Guns n Roses, Rolling Stones, etc. Each generation seems to have at least one, often more although the degree to which they command attention and the longevity of their fame varies greatly (Guns was never the Beatles and far fewer know of them today.)

Paul McCarthy knows a thing or two about this and tells a story about once being asked by a then teenage fan (in the late 90's) if he had ever met any of the Beatles.

Time . . . Relatively Speaking

"If men of that century, who washed semiannually and rarely used toilet paper, found the smell offensive, then . . . it must have been an odor of Biblical proportions."

Richard Zacks

The Pirate Hunter

"The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a machine which will measure events that happen within a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second."

The Economist

September 13, 2008

The first quote describes the reaction within Old Bailey Courthouse on the morning of Thursday May 8, 1701 when Captain Kidd and nine fellow prisoners were brought into court to face charges of piracy after being held for over a year in Newgate Prison without a change of clothes or water in which to wash.

The second quote is from an article describing the super collider soon to open near Geneva Switzerland whose mission will be smashing protons together after traveling round a 27 KM ring at velocity approaching the speed of light.

I'm not sure why but I think making a decision to bathe only twice a year is in some way related to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. (I say I'm not sure because I don't understand the theory nor much else that Einstein had to say.) Maybe 6 months was to people of that time what 24 hours is to most of us today (the bathing habits of the citizens of certain unnamed countries notwithstanding.)

It might be related because in 1700 "fast" was slower than it is today. "Fast" would have been what, a running horse? Or possibly because most people did not have a sense of time passage as we do living with timing devices strapped to us. The average life expectancy was around 35, less than half what it is today but that aside I'll bet few even thought of their longevity relative to others and certainly fewer still in terms of "average."

"A millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second."

Huh. I'll have to take a bath and think about that.

Unfathomable Madness

"Those without beards, those who drive on the left like the British, those who sell shaving kits, make-up or bras will be killed."

Letter to Newspaper Editor in Mingora Pakistan from Taliban

China Tires: Where The Rubber Hits The Road

Just short of a year ago I hit a Secaucus NJ class pot hole with my Audi S4 Cabrio resulting in a terminal right front flat tire. And not just any tire either. In keeping with the car's aggressive image Audi chose to equip it with low profile, high cost Michelin tires certified for over 200 MPH. Never mind that the average speed in Southern California is less than 35 MPH (according to the vehicle's trip computer), me and Audi figured I needed tires that could do 200 MPH because, well, just because. How "high cost"? $285 plus mounting, balance, alignment and taxes.

Last Friday I happened to look at that tire and noticed a nail. Once at the tire store we also found a bubble on the sidewall which meant it was toast. A further examination of the other three indicated they should be replaced as well. There was still tread but all four had rounded and there was no way I could make it the last year of my three year lease without replacing them.

The question was with what? Four new Michelins would be around $1500 out the door. As an alternative the Firestone dealer suggested their house brand; a tire made in China they call Primewell at a total cost of less than $750. While I assumed the Michelins would be better the question was how much so in that I only have a year left on the lease and don't plan to be driving 200 MPH anytime soon (or probably much over the 35 MPH average to date.)

I searched on line for users ratings of both concerned that my Primewell deal may be too good to be true. Maybe too much road noise or a bad ride or they might not last as long as the Michelins. If any of that happened how bad would it be to have to buy another new set before turning the car in a year from now? And I have to admit the fact that the Primewells were made in China was not helping things. Why? I don't know. Probably just ill defined consumer brand voo doo as we use to routinely apply to products made in Japan or more recently cars made in the US. But not completely unfounded given headlines such as this from June 27, 2007 edition of Wired Magazine.

Up to 450,000 Chinese Tires May Contain Fatal Defect

But then it hit me that my Michelins were nothing to write home about. Last year's new tire had only gone a little more than 8,000 miles and the nail notwithstanding, did not appear any newer than the other three which had been driven twice as far. And what about that? 16,000 miles and they need to be replaced? I realize that low profile, high performance tires do not last as along as regular passenger car tires but only 16,000 miles on a car going 35 MPH??

So here I am three days later with my new Primewells and I know this much for certain. There is no excessive road noise; if anything they may be a bit quieter than the Michelins. They also ride just fine. All that remains is whether there will be enough tread left on them one year from now, about 8,000 miles from now, when it comes time to turn the car back to Audi and in that regard they can't do any worse then the twice expensive Michelins.

Which leaves us with the fact they were made in China. I don't know what "fatal defect" Wired was referring to but at twice the price the Michelin's was just too obvious to ignore.

2nd Ladders: Going It Alone

With one 11 month exception I've worked in my own companies for the last 25 years (the 11 months was when I agreed to work for the company that bought one of my companies.) Going back to the beginning I remember wanting to be an "entrepreneur"; a relative new concept back then in pre internet/cell phone/fax machine/voice mail days.

It's worked out well. I've generally (but not always) enjoyed what I was doing and in the long run (but not always at the moment) was well compensated. But boy has it been different than I thought it would be!

A growing number of individuals who did or still do work in my client companies are either nearing a retirement they do not want and/or work in companies that are downsizing with the possibility of them losing their job. Like it or not, financially ready or not, a good many are faced with the possibility of being out of work at an age and in an economy that is less than optimum.

And so I get calls asking me about what I do and how they too might work independently of the corporate world. I don't mind and in fact have wondered why some (not a large number) have spent as much time as they have working hard, making money for someone else. Moreover being the serial entrepreneur that I am I never know where one of these conversations will lead. My next business venture could come from someone asking me about their future.

The shorthand advice is this:

• Working independent of the traditional corporate world is very different from working within. Many of the tools that made you successful in a structured corporate job will not serve you well as an independent (and vice-a-versa.)
  


• It can be extremely rewarding . . . or it can ruin you financially.
  


• Wanting to do whatever it is you want to do is not enough to insure success. In fact wanting to do it too much may cause you to lose your objectivity.
  

Like everything in this world, the devil is in the details but if you see your future more independent than your past, stop and think about this and more. And call if you want to talk; I'd be happy to help.

Winning Hearts and Minds

"I think it really exposes that we live in a police state," said a woman who gave her name as Loaf Owls, her age as 20 years old, and said she was a professional clown."

"We'll protest the grass being green," shouted Robert Wilson, 45, who said he is homeless. "I love protesting. My favorite cologne is pepper spray."

Los Angeles Times, September 4, 2008

Ms. Owls and Mr Wilson were interviewed in front of the "theater headquarters" of a group calling itself the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee. The article says that the group's decisions are made by a consensus of member opinion resulting from what the group calls a "spokescouncil".

Some of the tactics used by this group included spitting on Connecticut delegates as well as throwing bleach on at least six who were trying to get into the convention.

It would be interesting to have attended the "spokescouncil" which resulted in the decision that the best way to get folks to agree with the group was to spit and throw bleach on them.

Hmmm, I wonder if that was Loaf Owls idea?? She's such a clown!

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The August 3rd passing of Alexander Solzhenitsyn brought back a flood of memories from the months back in the 70's I spent reading some of his work including "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", "The First Circle", "Cancer Ward", "August 1914" and probably most famous of all the three volume "The Gulag Archipelago".

His writing style reflected his life which in turn was a microcosm of the lives of most USSR citizens; grim struggle and sacrifice for "the good of the state." I not only struggled to read it but more importantly to comprehend the meaning often telling myself that if he could mange to live through it the least I could do was to read what he wrote.

His obituary in The Economist advanced a possibility I had not considered; that he was jealous of Boris Yeltsin, the first elected President of post-USSR Russia. Jealous that Yeltsin and not him was chosen to lead the new Russia to its democratic future. That in turn made me wonder why he had not been center stage in Russian politics during the early days of its democratic comeback (however silly that now appears given Putin "democracy".)

After all you could say he was "tan and rested", ready to go should his country call just as South Africa's first elected president was Nelson Mandela after 27 years in political prisons for speaking out against apartheid. Like Mandela, Solzhenitsyn embodied the suffering that was the norm for millions of USSR citizens during the 69 years of the country's existence (it seemed longer didn't it?) Who better to first lead the country into democracy than the icon of its repression?

It may have had something to do with Mandela's air of optimism which was in direct contrast to Solzhenitsyn's bitterness not only at the successive regimes that oppressed him but towards the west as well which he found too decedent.

No doubt about it, Al was a downer and no matter how right he might have been about things most people don't like like to dwell on the negative most of the time.

Dear Bruce, Bob and John . . .

Remember the Bob Seeger song, "Like a Rock"? Basically a guy in his 30's looking back to when he was 18 and "like a rock"; capable (or believing he was) of anything just as any self-respecting 18 year old should be. I am about Bob's age give or take and loved that song understanding its meaning when I was in my 30's.

Later Bruce Springsteen sang a similar theme in "Glory Days", a song about a guy who hears older guys reminiscing about their past, hoping he doesn't do the same, concluding "but I probably will." That one I didn't like so much but once again I understood the message.




Dylan sneaks up on this with "Not Dark Yet" which is arguably about a lost love but could well be as I think is the case just a man recognizing his end is near.


The one that is most "the end is near" is also one of the newest. John Mellencamp's "Longest Days". How's this for angst?

All I got here is a rear view mirror reflections of where I've been
So you tell yourself I'll be back up on top some day
But you know there's nothing waiting up there for you anyway

Ouch!

Jesus guys, enough, you're bustin' my balls! Yes I know you are older and that these days the only things hard about you are your arteries but deal with it! I'm 60, most all my friends are 50 or more, the ones you rocked 30 years ago. The ones who still want to rock today and we don't want to hear about our imminent demise.

You don't hear Mick whining about the end being near and for God's sake he's 65 ! And what about his mate Keith Richards, also 65 and seemingly dead for the last 15 years? You don't see Keith on the floor curled up in the fetal position, crying for his mommy (well actually you occasionally do but for completely different reasons.)

Go back to what we really want which is sex, drugs, rock and roll and if you need a refresher as to what that is, listen to Jimmy Buffet's "Let's Get Drunk and Screw".

So barmaid bring a pitcher another round of brew
Honey why don't we get drunk and screw

We may not be able to do that as well or as often as in the past but God help us if we ever stop trying. This is about choices one of which is not how old we are.

The only age related choice we have is how well we live whatever age we are at and if we do that better than most our age, we win.

Going Back Forward Again

Monday morning my younger son and I will leave on what for me will be a week long road trip from Southern California to Stillwater Oklahoma where I will leave him to visit his girlfriend for a few days before he continues on to his senior year in college. We've made a similar drive the last two years and while he is perfectly capable of going alone, I wouldn't miss it for the world. We'll arrive late Wednesday have dinner and I will begin the drive back in my rental car early Thursday.

I know long distance driving isn't every one's thing but it is mine particularly through the Southwest states of Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New Mexico. Endless miles through the remnants of small towns that look much as they did in the 50's when as a kid I drove through them with my family on the way to visit Wisconsin relatives. Places whose primary function now seems to be the ability to transport people like me back in time.

These trips always include audio books; this time on the way there, Jack Kerouac's 1951 classic "On the Road"; a book I read years earlier and listened to last year on another road trip with my older son. The imagery is strong but even more so when actually driving the roads through the towns visited by the book's Sal Paradise and his buddy Dean Moriarty; precursors to the Beat Generation who in turn paved the way for the 60's Hippies.

Paraphrasing Sal to Dean there's always something to go to further down the road:

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

On the road again.

Cheers!

I enjoy wine but am far, far from being a wine aficionado. Years ago I briefly flirted with increasing my wine knowledge. I bought a couple of books, read a few articles, took a few notes regarding what I did and did not like but quickly found it all much too tedious. Ever since I find the less I know the more I enjoy. However there are some boundaries one of which is price.

Let's say we're at a restaurant and the bottles of Cabernet range from $22 to $97 with numerous stops in between. I'll probably pick something in the $35 to $45 range. Likewise with glasses of wine ranging between $5 and $15. Most likely I'll opt for $8 to $11 however the $15 option is not, you will excuse the expression, off the table because in the end it is only $7 to $4 more than my range. A significant difference as a percent but we don't pay restaurant bills with percentages do we?

Consider Wine Spectator's recent ratings for five bottles of Spanish wine ranging in price from $10 to $57. The low end gets you a wine with an 86 rating on a 100 point scale, $14, 89 points, $15, 89 points, $22, 90 points and for $57 we go all the way to 92 points, which according to Wine Spectator is "Outstanding; a wine of superior character and style". But going all the way back to $10 they tell us what we buy will be "Very Good; a wine with special qualities."

In almost all cases I assume I will like the higher priced wine more but how much so? To go from "Very Good" to "Outstanding", from "special qualities" to "superior character and style" I need to pay more, which I understand but just short of six times as much?? While it may be "superior" unfortunately my taste buds are not or certainly won't be by the time I get to the second glass. And even were that not the case, I can get "superior" from a wine costing less than half while only giving up a mere 2 points.

I'll drink to that.

Communism

The reaction people have to "communism" is really quite visceral. These days most any amateur economist can cite plenty of reasons why in the real world communism does not work but I am more struck by the knee jerk reaction of most to the word, which is, in a word, evil. Really, really evil!

If as Newton postulated for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction then we should expect people to view capitalism as good as they see communism bad and while many do many more are at best neutral if they even connect the two at all.

This is partly so because many mistakenly believe communism is a form of government which it is not. Communism is an economic system; one that could come from a democratically elected government just as it has historically come from dictatorships. And likewise the same is true for capitalism.

While the famous examples of communism are almost always associated with revolutionary dictatorships (Stalin, Mao, Castro) there are examples of citizens electing a communist economic system or at least electing leaders who then impose one on them. The most recent and well known being Venezuela's extreme socialism (communism "light") brought about by the country's democratically elected president Hugo Chavez.

Most Americans cherish our democratic form of government and along with it our capitalistic economic system but whether or not they realize it we are not free of the ongoing debate concerning the merits of communism and capitalism. We just don't call it that.

Almost like clockwork every 4 to 12 years max, we too swing our political pendulum left or right of the opposite direction from which we have just come although not with the same wide arc as is true in other governments. Do we "free" the people from "oppressive government control" or "save" them from the "greedy rich"?

Political debate focuses on the need to increase/decrease our progressive graduated income tax, increase/decrease/eliminate inheritance tax which relate directly to the second and third of ten planks in the Communist Manifesto co-written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848.

National health insurance, right to work laws, wealth redistribution, free school lunch programs, social security, unemployment insurance are all just some of the sanitized terms we use in our version of humankind's economic debate; a debate that is as old as humans themselves.

Strip away the rhetoric particularly in political season and what you have is the debate regarding communism/capitalism albeit without the extremes, using nicer language.

To The End And Beyond

"Pirates were a unique race, born of the sea and of a brutal dream, a free people, detached from other human societies and from the future, without children and without old people, without homes and without cemeteries, without hope but not without audacity, a people for whom atrocity was a career choice and death a certitude of the day after tomorrow."

So Hubert Deschamps describes the pirate life in his book Les Pirates a Madagascar. 17th century, "privateers" to some legitimized by governments to hunt pirates, capturing or killing them when found, taking whatever wealth they possessed to be shared with the sponsoring state.

All that you've probably come to expect but for me it is the list of things they don't have including home, children, old people and cemeteries that is chilling in the way you feel when walking alone someplace you don't typically go, and in that there is a lesson for us all.

". . . without hope but not without audacity . . ."

That is what sets apart the few from the many even more so because without the former the latter is more difficult; for those who sailed to pillage over 300 years ago, for those who strive to achieve today. Good or evil, no matter. The ability to continue when all physically and mentally says to stop or worse, to never begin.

Take a walk, a long walk to somewhere beyond your limit. No home, children, old people or cemeteries; just you to say you can't and you to answer "But I will!"

Never Ever Wear A Button Down Shirt With A Double Breast Jacket

One of the benefits of getting old(er) is that society excuses you from participating in cultural direction shifts, some of which, fashion for example, occur quite frequently. The July 20th edition of the LA Times provides an example of what I no longer need concern myself with; the annual changes in fashion.

However even though I am not the target of this sage advice, good that I saw it because while exempt we are so only by virtue of an unspoken agreement that we the old(er) will not accidentally or otherwise deviate from our expected place in fashion which is best described as "neutered beige." Nothing provocative; just simple middle of the road. Yes good that I saw this because I was so skull and crossbones track suits!

Actually I transitioned quite easily to this from the days when I needed to be more fashion conscious. Such as it was my style then was "Didn't You Get The Memo?" sometimes lapsing into "You Certainly Got Your Money Out Of That!"  Oh, occasionally I did show up sartorially attired in "You've Got To Be Kidding", once or twice "No Way!" even but more often than not I then as now just let the fashion parade go by without me.

But not everyone does or will and I expect my generation will produce more of those outliers than any before it. People who either don't see themselves and their personal style as the majority do or absolutely do and simply enjoy the attention it brings them.

Either way, it works.

The Declining CD Sales Tsunami Will Get Everyone's Beach Wet!

When it comes to buying music which I often do, I am now just about officially neutral in terms of whether I get it digitally on line or in hard form CD. I didn't think this day would come but it has and if it has for me it has or soon will for countless others like me and therein lies a major tsunami paradigm shift whose implications go far beyond the music business.

For those less interested in the state of the music business, to date there have been two camps; those who insist on possessing an original CD copy of whatever music they buy and those who are happy downloading a digital copy to their PC. Obviously with the first you get the album artwork and liner notes in the CD's jewel case and don't with the second. Until recently I was staunchly in the first group for reasons I won't go into now but that gets harder to do given the diminishing retail space devoted to CD's. And even if that were not true it's just easier to browse music on line if not as satisfying as actually poking through racks of recordings as I used to do at Tower Records and more recently Borders.

So other than the CD makers who cares?

Well it obviously matters to the artists and record companies and these days to those who distribute on line as well. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (I know, I misread their title at first too) physical sales of CD's dropped 13% last year and are expected to be down even more this year. At the same time the sale of downloaded music and ring tones has increased 34% however from a much lower base. So they care but so too does or should others whose business is indirectly affected by the sale of music regardless of format.

My change in attitude brought about other changes in my behavior as well; much that would not likely have occurred had I not seen things differently. Things that affect companies that are not directly if at all involved with music. For example I significantly upgraded my "civilian" (non work) computer to better align with my new music buying ways. A terabyte Mac replacing my otherwise serviceable XP desktop and you know that matters a bunch to both Apple and the PC crowd.

And I no longer visit Borders as much as I used to, browsing CD's, mostly because they don't carry as much selection as they used to. So less chance that I will pick up the latest copy of Car and Driver as I often did on those CD exploration trips. Finally I will not insist on an in-dash CD player in my next lease vehicle but will demand some form of convenient connectivity to my Mac based 9,286 digital music library.

It is easy to focus on whatever business we finds ourselves in thinking that is all we need consider but doing so is very dangerous.

Audi, while I've loved your cars the last three leases . . . are you listening??

What Price Ego?

The July 1 Wall Street Journal carried a story describing the price some people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) pay for vanity license plates. I guarantee that if you didn’t read that story and haven’t heard of this elsewhere you will (or should be) shocked. Ready?

$120,000 US for a plate which says “430” and is displayed on a Ferrari F430; itself costing a mere $60,000 US more than the plate itself.

Not so much you say?

How about the price paid for “9”? Bidding (plates are sold via auctions) began at $700,000 US and within 2 minutes topped $2,000,000 US eventually selling for $4,200,000 US.

What about $9 million US for a plate that simply says “5”? Or the Guinness Book of World Records price of $14,000,000 US paid by Abu Dhabi businessman Saeed Kouri for the plate “1”. Saeed’s cousin, stock broker Talal Khouri is the guy who paid $9,000,000 US for “5” and based on that I would imagine Saeed is unbearable around the family’s Thanksgiving dinner table.

But maybe the craziest was the $530,000 US paid by 15-year-old Ahmad Al-Ketbi for “29” which will ultimately grace his ride . . . in three years when he reaches driving age.

Hmmmmm, $530,000.

Let’s see that works out to1,766,666 times the price of my first car.

High Priced Oil's Silver Lining

Like you I cringe filling up my vehicles these days. The cheapest is still $65 and most who know more about such things than me believe that will likely exceed $100 within the next two years at most.

We’re not talking about cartel price inflation as was true in the mid 70’s oil embargo; a time when the oil producers held back on production to create higher prices. Today prices are where they are because, fortunately, there are large rising middle classes in China, India and elsewhere who want the middle class lifestyle we’ve long enjoyed. Their explosive growth has created runaway demand for everything from material to build their new homes to the food they will put on their new tables to the fuel for the new cars and trucks they will soon buy. Higher demand means higher prices. Econ 101.

But in that cloud there is a silver lining.

Like it or not today we really do live in a global economy with all and more the competitive pressures that exist in our individual national economies, and that’s not a bad thing. Those Chinese, Indian and other middle classes I referred to are no longer content to work for $1 a day as was the case not so long ago. Like you and me they want to earn more so they too can buy for their families what we buy for ours. The result: A lessening wage gap between their workers and ours slowing job exportation from the US.

The cost of fuel is four times what it was two years ago and heading even higher. Even if the wages paid to workers in other countries were to remain low (which they will not) the cost to transport those cheap goods to the US is rising significantly. The result: A lessening of the cost of goods sold gap between those far away low(er) wage countries and those in North America which again equates to more jobs here. And by the way, a side benefit of more jobs south of the US border where many jobs returning from Asia will go means less incentive to illegally immigrate to the US.


But you know what is best of all? This time I’m convinced that real change in the future of energy is in the wind (excuse the pun and no I do not own stock in wind power energy companies.) The world will find new, affordable, cleaner, sustainable sources of energy and if it takes paying $10 a gallon of gas to get us there sooner, sign me up.

To learn more read

The Future of Energy
China's Export Machine Threatened by Rising Costs
The Case For and Against Nuclear Power

(Another) Once In A Lifetime Opportunity

All the post Enron regulation notwithstanding, based on the following experience I don’t think we’re yet out of the woods when it comes to shady guys doing shady deals.

I was walking through Home Depot the other day when my phone rang (vibrated actually.) The conversation went something like this:

Me: “This is Bill.”

John: “Hello Mr. (he pronounced it May-theese as opposed to Math-eese as my father intended telling me we were not exactly well acquainted), my name is John and I work for (unintelligible company name) located in the financial district of New York City (my interpretation . . . a Brooklyn phone room). My company has prescreened you as being a qualified investor; one I might add of a select few and as a result we want to let you in on a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity.”

Me: “Cool! But now’s not a good time to talk John, I’ve just been arrested and am waiting to be booked. They’ll no doubt take my phone any moment.”

Noticeable pause on the other end followed by:

John: “No way! For what?”

(As an aside, exclamations of “no way” are fairly common financial MBA speak although I couldn’t tell from just that if he was Harvard or Wharton.)

Me: “Fraud but they’re always bustin’ my balls for some damn thing. You say this is a good investment? Can we talk the middle of next week?”

John: “When do you think you’ll be out?”

Me: “Well if it’s like the last time I’ll be arraigned probably late tomorrow and should be able to make bail no later than Wednesday. How about Thursday AM?”

John: “Ok, I’ll call you Thursday. Good luck!”

Other than the pause when I said I was in jail, John did not sound put off by my circumstance and appeared ready to keep me as a “possible” “qualified investor”. We’ll see come Thursday but I’m betting he calls.

I often get calls from people like John representing deals that are “once-in-a-lifetime”. I used to just hang up but anymore I find them entertaining. The things they call about are a home grown version of the heirs-of-a-dead-African-potentate-wants-me-to-have-$8 million emails we all get from God knows where. Deals I and only a few select others can invest in such as underwater power generating technology that will bring the Arabs to their knees or a pill that will not only cause one to lose all their unwanted weight but will at the same time build muscle, all within days. (That one made me wonder how the pill knew which weight was “unwanted” versus “wanted” as well as what women would think about their new found muscles.)

Clearly Sarbanes-Oxley did not address “investment” companies like the one John works for making such unsolicited calls and now that I think about it, I plan to mention that to the judge when I see him at my arraignment.

It's The Little Things That Matter

Intoxicating is one of those gender related adjectives albeit probably more by tradition than rule. You know, words like vivacious and divine for women, magnetic and urbane for men. Not that they can’t be used cross gender but in practice they’re generally not. I don’t believe women describe men as intoxicating as often as men do so women (although to be honest these days not many men use the word either and certainly none in the crowd I frequent.)

Intoxicating!

It has a vague exotic flair to it don’t you think suggesting a power not all can possess.

As often happens in language consider how completely different the meaning with only the slightest alteration of letters; say dropping “ing” adding “ed”.

“She’s intoxicating.” “She’s intoxicated.”

Not the same are they?

Intoxicated is definitely not a gender based adjective. Very equal opportunity and women certainly use it to describe men; however probably not with certain other descriptors. For example, little chance of hearing “Not only is he intoxicated; the car he drives is hot!”

Somewhat oxymoronic but under certain circumstances, it could happen. A policewoman might say that after arresting some guy who totally flunks his field sobriety test AND is driving a stolen car.

See it’s the small stuff that makes the difference.

Intoxicating, intoxicated.

There but for the grace of ed go ing.

Hot Off The Press!

I was sitting in a Seattle café overlooking Puget Sound having breakfast this morning. For you movie buffs, according to the sign in the window, the one featured in Tom Hanks’ “Sleepless in Seattle.” It was early, around 6:30 and other than one other customer, just me and about a half dozen employees beginning our day.

Pretty routine until someone noticed a car fire in the alley right below us. Some poor guy’s not so late model something-or-other becoming fully engulfed in flames in less than the 7 minutes it took the fire department to arrive. My window seat which moments before had me focused on the beautiful non sunrise (another rainy Seattle morning) now a vantage point for watching the demise of this vehicle.

As people tend to do the comments of those around me centered on the obvious; things like “that’s a lot of smoke”, “look at the flames” and “the firemen are here” when we all saw the you-can’t-miss-it big red fire truck arrive on scene. And as if reporting it to each other was not enough, about half those watching pulled out their cell phones calling friends or family to let them know what was happening, all said in reporter speak. "Yes I can see it clearly the firemen are definitely putting the fire out."

Have you noticed that people also do that (call others to report the obvious) when landing after a flight? Almost before all wheels are on the ground you can predict that many around you will be on their cell phone telling friends and family “we just landed and are taxing to the gate. I think we will be there in a couple of minutes; I can see the terminal. Once there I will get my bags and be on my way.” Now I know some of that is necessary information for those meeting flights but often you can tell the calls go back to people left behind as opposed to those locally.

Why is that? I don’t know, maybe we have a “reporter gene” urging us to tell someone, anyone about what we are experiencing no matter how mundane it might be. However not me. No cell phone calls to anyone alerting them to the car fires I see or certainly not to report yet another safe landing. Nope, if you ask me that’s a lot of talk about nothing and I’m too cool for that not to mention busy keeping you all up to date on my meanderings with this blog.

Oh and by the way, my next flight is Thursday. I expect it to take off and land followed by taxing to the terminal then leaving the airport.

Freeman and Geneva Odell

As the father of two young adult men, as a mentor to two brothers in the Big Brother program I sometimes look at my parenting skills seeing much I could have done better along with the things I did well. Certainly room for improvement but overall not bad particularly in light of the really bad cases of parenting we all know are out there.

If instead of parenting we were talking about being a soldier and the degree to which I conducted myself heroically, maybe a Bronze Star. Somewhat more heroic than average, far from a Congressional Medal of Honor but certainly no running in the face of the enemy either. But there are parents who do rise to a level the rest of us can’t even fathom. For example, Freeman and Geneva Odell.

The Odell’s 61 year old daughter Dianne recently died after spending 58 years in an iron lung the result of contracting polio at age 3. You can’t discuss heroics without considering what that must have been like for Dianne and while she didn’t have a choice in the matter she did choose to live each day as positively as anyone in that situation ever could. I am in awe of her for that but even more so, her parents.

Her personal care and well being became their life for each of the more than 21,000 days she lived with them in their small Tennessee home in that 750 pound machine. Not one day of vacation, no family drives, dinners out; none of the rewards most parents come to expect as the payoff for all the time they spend doing their best to raise their children the right way. For Freeman and Geneva, from the day 3 year old Dianne entered that machine until the day she came out well over a half century later, only certainty that each new day would be as the one before.

I don’t know the Odells but based on what I read about them I doubt they see themselves or Dianne as heroic, their lives tragic. Whether consciously or not when they became parents they simply knew what they must do regardless of the circumstance they found themselves in and at the end of Dianne’s life it is clear to all who know their story, this they did to a degree the rest of us can only imagine.

The Better Way

Business tradition says we “gather” employees with a theoretical common goal in an office where all who work for that company are expected to go each day. Ok many do need to physically be together to do their jobs but everyone, all the time?

No, so why has management resisted what the April 10^nd edition of The Economist called the trend toward a nomadic work force? Individuals who utilizing connectivity technology can almost literally work anywhere anytime. I don’t know. Fear that workers not seen will be workers that do not work I suppose. Maybe because they’ve never been forced to consider alternatives.

Given the relentless increase in cost to provide a suitable working environment you would think management would be happy to push more of that associated expense to someone else. For example Starbucks where I start most work days regardless of where I am, coffee and Wall Street Journal in hand, nestled in an overstuffed leather chair, WiFi T-Mobile phone at the ready receiving and responding to the day’s first email. Unfortunately most employees don’t have that option and are required to be at their “work place” at the appointed hour. So what may change this?

The Price of Gas

As of today the cost of a gallon of gas in the US is 9% higher than it was last month, 23% higher than a year ago and as bad as we think we have it don’t even consider complaining to a European many of which pay over $8 a gallon, close to $10 in the Netherlands.

How bad is it? If you’ve got a 20 gallon tank you can expect to pay in the neighborhood of $80 to fill up and if you drive 40 miles round trip to work and get 20 miles to a gallon you will fill up every 10 days or 7.5 days should you only get 15 MPG. And that assumes you drive nowhere else. Moreover no one who understands the economics of today’s oil realities expect fuel prices to go anywhere but up.

Memo to Management:

Want happy, productive employees? Give them an annual $500 bonus that won’t cost you a cent; an amount that will increase as the price of fuel goes up. And while you're at it cut 40% off their weekly commute time.

When you do this you will significantly reduce traffic congestion, improving the environment helping to make us less dependent on foreign oil in the process; all in addition to being able to delay the cost of providing new work space as you grow.

How? Simple, just allow all your employees who can work elsewhere to do so two days a week. Based on 2007 DOT statistics they will save $534 a year (even more given today's prices) in fuel commuting to and from work with all the other benefits listed here happening as well.

Tough times require creative solutions and this is one you will soon wonder why you didn't do years before.

Help the Pekingese!

The other day I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt with the simple inscription “Pekingeses Are Human Too” written across the front. It made me think of the struggle of so many beginning with the Japanese, Taiwanese, Koreanese, Vietnamese, Chinese and now it would appear the Pekingese. A struggle to take their rightful place in the developing world; this woman’s T-shirt reminding us they are there.

I don’t know much about the Pekingese. I haven’t visited Pekin, don’t speak Pekin, haven’t even eaten at a Pekingese restaurant but I do understand their plight. I envision a small poor land locked country struggling to lift themselves out of poverty fighting just to not be lost among the more well known nations that surround them sucking up the world’s reserve of compassion. How hard it must be for them denied even the basic right to board rickety boats (what with being landlocked and all) in attempts to float their way to a better life.

And what awaits them were they able to make their way across vast oceans as so many of their Asian brethren and sisteren have done before them? Well certainly ridicule if a Google search of Pekingese is any indication. Over 1,700,000 sites and while I didn’t read any of it most appear to associate the Pekingese with dogs in some way. Shame on you Google!

Come November I don’t know for certain who we will have to vote for but whoever it is will hopefully be dogged by the question, “Senator, if elected President what will you do to help the Pekingese?”

Can You Hear Me Now? Unfortunately Yes

There is a growing list of new software that is to many, straight out of Orwell’s 1984 albeit arriving some 24 years later. “Capability” that just a few years if not months earlier would have been impossible to envision by any other than the usually early 20 something Stanford dropouts who come up with so much of it. Them and the not too much older venture capitalists who fund them. A recent case in point: Loopt. 

What is Loopt? (you’re showing your age by asking) Briefly, when you and others you know subscribe to Loopt they and you can know where each of you are at any time by simply looking at your Loopt enabled phones. Like so many ATM’s on a GPS POI screen, you and your friends and family will appear as blinking dots on a map allowing you to track each other as you move through your day and night. Loopt calls this your “social compass” and says they are “perfecting the state of the art of connecting people and places.” Sure I can see that. Or how about just another invasion of my already shrinking privacy?

Back in 2002 (God it seems much longer than that) Verizon began what has been their unquestionably successful “Can you hear me now?” advertising campaign. Played by actor Paul Marcarelli, the so-called (by Verizon and no one else) “Test Man” leads a small army of Verizon technicians following Verizon subscribers everywhere they go insuring their mobile voice and data connectivity. Verizon’s intended message: We’re with you 24/7. The message I get: Jeeze they’re with me 24/7. Maybe that’s why I’m a T-Mobile customer.

Negative Connectivity Zone

At some point the connectivity law of diminishing returns kicks in and while when that happens will vary depending on who you are, for me it was back somewhere in pre social network times. You know, really, really way back time. To a growing number we’ve entered the negative connectivity zone and as well intentioned as the new “enabling” services want to be I find much of it just too much. Moreover being told my seat mate on airplanes will soon be chattering away on their cell phone while we fly does not help one bit. As one Blackberry user quoted in a May 2007 Forbes article addressing similar issues said, “I don't have enough time alone with my mind.”

While sad as a song lyric, when it comes to being connected its getting to the point where “I’m losing you” is not such a bad thing.

The Battle of Information Overload

The excellent book Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides along with the equally well done 2005 Miramax movie The Great Raid inadvertantly has a message for all in charge of corporate marketing. Here’s a brief synopsis of what occurred:

In January 1945 127 US Army 6th Rangers and Alamo Scouts hiked 30 miles behind Japanese lines where they were joined by approximately 200 Philippine insurgents. Collectively they launched a surprise attack on the Japanese POW prison at Cabanatuan holding just over 500 POW’s many of which were Bataan Death March survivors. Guarding the camp were over 700 Japanese soldiers with another 7,000 to 8,000 in the immediate vicinity including armored forces.

After successfully liberating the camp killing over 500 Japanese soldiers in the process (by some estimates, closer to 1,000) they loaded the emaciated now ex-POW’s into carts pulled by water buffalo belonging to local farmers and walked back to their lines. The cost in terms of lives lost: 2 Rangers and 1 ex-POW who died of malaria related causes just after arriving back on the US side.

Pretty amazing huh? But what’s even more amazing is that unless you happen to have read the book and/or seen the movie you probably never even knew this happened and in that you are not alone. Relatively few know of what is arguably one of the greatest adventures of WWII. How could that be? How can so many know so much about other significant events such as the Normandy Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge and yet not have even heard about Cabanatuan?

In two words, information overload.

Between this happening in January 1945 and Japan’s surrender less than 6 months later the Marines invaded and took Iwo Jima, the US Army invaded and took Okinawa, Roosevelt died in office, Germany surrendered ending the war in Europe and atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While just about everyone in the country knew about the success of the Cabanatuan raid just after it happened it did not cement in the public’s consciousness. There was simply too much else to think about.

The next time you’re planning a marketing campaign, one with the goal of raising lasting awareness among your target consumers, remember that you are competing with a tsunami of messages aimed at the same individuals you want to reach. If a story such as this does not stick in the minds of all who hear it you know you have your work cut out for you.

The Cost of Health Care: Our National Heart Attack

Just had my annual physical a week or so ago followed today by an echocardiograph stress test ordered by my primary physician. As the RN was getting me ready she asked if the reason I was having the test had to do with chest pain, fainting and/or dizziness.

When I said no, it was just something my doctor wanted me to do she quietly said it would be best were I to pick one from the list because if I didn’t my insurance would not cover the cost. So chest pains it was which was not all that far from the truth after hearing the words “your insurance will not cover this.”

Once again we're told we will soon be forced to address the cost of providing health care to us all and I’m glad no one will look to me for answers. While I understand the problem I have no idea what to do. It would seem that whatever the solution the answer lays in “controlling cost” but which cost? Yes blatant fraud but certainly not my echo test! Of course lets penalize those who routinely go to their doctors demanding services, drugs, etc. they really don’t need but for God's sake don’t mess with my insurance subsidized cholesterol drug.

The Government Accounting Office estimated that $1 out of every $7 Medicare dollars is lost to fraud and abuse; a $100 billion annual sinkhole. Just short of 15% wasted all adding up to some very big numbers. In 2007 we spent $2.7 trillion on health care expected to rise to $4.6 trillion in 2016. My calculator doesn’t have enough decimal places to do the math but it’s in the neighborhood of $400 billion lost each year, heading north.

There will be no clear, black and white solution to this growing problem. Deciding whose ox to gore is tough because the problem is so complex all the more so by what is now an almost institutionalized national view that we have a God given right to state-of-the-art medical care. Few will be content with run of the mill socialized medicine for anyone other than the next guy and he ain’t buying it either. Moreover we not only think this is so but also believe it should be paid for by anyone but us. Can you think of any other product or service where this is true?

Only a trusting sole, which when it comes to expectations regarding the government taking decisive action I am not, likely believes a new administration will bring about a magic wand solution to the health care problem. But there are countless folks who will vote with their heart, echocardiograph tested or not, as opposed to their head, ready to believe the best “you deserve the best and by God I will get it for you for only a $10 office visit co-pay” story coming out of this fall’s political season.

I need to see my Doc; I'm feelin' sickly.

Smoking Technology Dope

“Nomads at Last” was the lead story/opinion in the April 10 edition of The Economist Special Report addressing the affects of all the mobile technology available to us today. As with everything else The Economist does, well written and informative.

The gist is we now have technology that allows us to lead “nomadic” lives free from office or home ties; able to download/upload most anything we need/want anywhere, anytime. Being increasingly nomadic we will take only what is necessary to “survive” leaving behind yesterday’s tired, wired technology.

The article includes a table of data from Pew Research Centre that would seem to support this conclusion based on the fact that so many of us of all ages are doing things we’d probably like to do more of . . . or so it is implied.

Reports like this encourage the technologists among us to build even cooler more capable devices believing grandma will soon want to text grandpa or that my 49 year old technology phobic neighbor will finally understand that Bluetooth is not an aberrant dental condition.

There are many reasons they haven’t already done these things and as the article points out, making things simpler is a good thing encouraging more use beyond the wild early adapter fringe. But at the head of the list is need and the fact remains that for the great majority being able to send/receive email and text messages, access the internet and/or watch video on a phone/PDA is just not high priority.

I get it in part because I am a nomad but as one who moderates countless focus groups take it from me. If you’re in the technology business don’t smoke your own "technology dope" when forecasting demand for your newest and greatest thing. When it comes to much of the wonderful enabling technology offered for sale the response from many more than not is:

“And I would want to do that why??”

Time To Think About It!

Ok without looking at the pictures in this post think about the pictures of watches you’ve seen for sale in magazines, newspapers, on websites (excluding previously owned watches. More on that in a minute.) What time do the overwhelming majority of them say? No cheating.

Unless you’re a watch enthusiast you probably don’t know. Like everything else you pay little to no attention to things that don’t interest you and even if you are interested in watches you may not have noticed this small detail.

The time is 10:09 or 10:11 on those with analog hands with most digitals showing between 10 and 11; the majority being 10:09, 10:28 or 10:58 with a couple of 12:34’s thrown in for good measure.

No one I’ve asked knows why this is so. No horology rule mandating that watch ads all show one time nor evidence of a secret industry meeting at which it was agreed to be consistent in watch advertising (although that would make sense given that time keeping is suppose to be precise.)

The best explanation I’ve heard is that approximately 10:10 analog has “positive” (the hands point up as opposed to down) symmetry, which I can see but why not exactly 10:10? And what about the digitals? I think I like the varied shapes of the numbers,10:58 in particular but maybe I’m just talking myself into that as an explanation.

Whatever the case this rule is not strictly followed on websites that specialize in previously owned watches; websites I might add that are generally run by a watch enthusiasts who most certainly knows the apparently unwritten rules of new watch advertising.

Unless . . .

You don’t think this has anything to do with the Kennedy assassination/9-11/DP Cooper/Marilyn/Elvis conspiracies do you?? I mean they all happened in time and watches keep time so it could be.

I feel a chill!

Totally!

Oh-My-God!!

Like we all have our pet peeves and like I’m so that way too. I mean totally way so. You know, stuff that like drives you crazy and for me it is sooooo when people talk like they were taught in some cool school way except it’s not cool, you know? And so many do it just mimicking each other so how could it be cool? Way, totally or otherwise?

Like that is sooooo not cool but way too many people are so totally about talking that way I mean OH-MY-GOD!

“Oh-My-God!” is a phrase oft used to emphasize things that really don't require summoning God. You know just as things are not really as "awesome" as often as awesome is used to describe how awesome things are?

I also notice that people will often make a statement but end inflecting their voice up as if to put a question mark at the end? Like I just did in the last sentence and again in this one? As if to say “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Today’s version is like not EVEN unique. It’s just a bastardized version of 20 year old Val Speak (short for San Fernando Valley girl way of talking in the ‘80s). Oh-my-God like they can’t EVEN come up with their own way to totally be different while being the same? It was irritating then and it is again today.

Oh-My-God!!

Like I feel totally better having gotten that off my chest. Totally!

The Bedsheet Did It!

The National Safety Council does good work but apparently they have some folks with a lot of time on their hands. Enough time to create a lengthy table entitled “The odds of dying from . . .”, a compendium of the likelihood of one dying from everything from a “cataclysmic storm” (1 in 338,554) to death by “inhalation of gastric contents” (1 in 888,576. Isn’t that what got Mama Cass Elliott?)

There are some interesting manners of death I hadn’t previously considered. For example, what do you think are the odds of dying from “being caught between objects” (which objects they don’t say)? Or how about dying as a result of a “fall involving bed, chair, other furniture”? Do you lay awake at night wondering if you will soon die due to “exposure from nonopioid analgesics, antipyretics, and antirheumatics” (shouldn’t that be “and/or”?? Surely I won’t be simultaneously exposed to all that whatever all that is will I?) What about checking out as a result of “legal execution”?

Well if you did wonder according to the NSC your chances for each are 1 out of 2,872,776, 329,139, 1,309,274 and 5,479,554 respectively.

My ability and I judge that of most people to comprehend how I will die is quite limited and unimaginative continually changing as my time in life changes. For example when I was in Vietnam I knew there was a chance I would be killed but being 19 I never seriously thought it would be me. And if I were to be killed I assumed I would probably be “shot” or just “hit” with little or no thought about what would do the “shooting” or “hitting”.

But I’ll bet the NSC would have thought about it and come up with a long list of very descriptive if not always clearly understandable things by which I could be “shot” and/or “hit.” Now at let’s say older than 19 I see increasingly more possibilities for my demise including all sorts of cancers, accidents and the lot but all still so mundane in comparison to the NSC’s varied list.

Too much to ponder, too depressing. I’m just gonna keep on livin’ life large, not giving a damn about how my bucket will ultimately be kicked. That’s how I roll. Let the hour glass of life take care of itself! Well except for maybe death by “accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed” (1 in 516,398). That one’s got me spooked, rightfully so I think.

Philosphical Differences

“Suppose after all that should prove to be right and it all ends in your butterflies and morlocks. That doesn’t matter now. The effort’s real. It’s worth going on with. It’s worth it even then.”

And so President Theodore Roosevelt replied to H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine during their 1907 meeting in the White House. Wells had asked if Roosevelt felt there was any permanence to man’s creative endeavors. In particular large engineering projects such as the hall of dynamos at Niagara Falls, the Suez Canal or Roosevelt’s own soon-to-be legacy the then under construction Panama Canal.

David McCullough describes this exchange in his excellent book The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914. The canal took 44 years to build (counting the time of the French), approximately 25,000 lives (no one knows for certain exactly how many) which works out to around 500 for every mile. The price? Just over $13 billion in today’s dollars. The “cost" to create a really good novel, in the case of The Time Machine actually a novella, cannot be as easily quantified but the impact is no less impressive and lasting as a result.

But Wells and Roosevelt were not talking about the grandeur of the canal; what it would mean to the world nor the literary value of The Time Machine. Instead they talked about the philosophical implications of man’s attempts to create such colossus. As reported by McCullough, “. . . he (Wells) had grave misgivings about the long-range human consequences of science and technology.” Based on Roosevelt’s reported response he obviously felt otherwise.

At that point in time with 7 more years of construction still ahead, 37 years after construction began, their discussion had at its core the philosophy behind their lives as opposed to the lives themselves. People then and since talk about what it took to build the canal, how good a president Roosevelt was, how well written The Time Machine is, how good an author was Wells. But for them it was their conflicting philosophy that required them to be the so completely different men they were that was the point of the discussion.

In a dimension by themselves.

You Don't Say!

“Drinking is bad for you.”/“Drinking is good for you.”

“Eating eggs will give you high cholesterol.”/“Eating eggs will not hurt you.”

“Sunshine is good for you.”/“Sunshine will give you cancer.”

Just about the time I think I’ve got something figured out along comes an opinion contrary to what I thought was the truth often suggesting I stop/start some behavior I do/don’t want to do. Usually minor things like when I found out that continued use of certain nose drops actually created congestion after initially relieving it. Ok, so I don’t do that anymore. And sometimes it works in my favor like being told that moderate drinking is probably good for my heart (let’s just not define “moderate” shall we?)

Sometimes things start out one way, turn a different direction and then go back to where they originally were. For example I grew up being told eggs were an important source of protein which in fact they are followed by the revelation that they will wreak havoc with my already naturally high cholesterol. And now guess what? That’s right, according to the March 8 Wellness Newsletter published by the University of California at Berkley it’s not only ok to eat eggs turns out they may be good for my heart:

“Eggs have a bad reputation because of their high cholesterol content: 210 milligrams in the yolk of a large egg. But, in fact, they do not raise blood cholesterol in most people—and they may even be good for your heart in some ways.”

So once again I get to have an occasional egg sandwich.

Unlike eggs I would bet that smoking will stay dead with little or no possibility of being rehabbed. But who knows? Camel once touted the health benefit of smoking as you can see in this 1937 ad so maybe we’ll be lighting up again after all.

The one thing I thought was a given just turned out to not be at least to the degree I thought was true. I’d heard all the stories about how over the long haul you make money investing in stocks; the occasional downturn notwithstanding.

I’ve done alright or at least so says my investment advisor; the guy who makes his living getting others to buy stocks. But maybe not as much as I thought based on the March 26 edition of the Wall Street Journal. From them I learned that $10,000 invested in the S and P 500 10 years ago is now worth just under $10,000 when adjusted for inflation.

Sigh. Maybe I’ll smoke my egg sandwich.

A Nation of Right Brain Consumers

A client asked me what I thought was in the consumer psyche that causes them to view one price as “low” versus another as “high” and how all that relates to a perception or lack thereof of “value”.

Whatever that thought process it is useless to assume it is always the same; that it does not change one product to the next or over time. The person who believes that $75,000 is a “low price, good value” for a particular new car may not believe that $1,000 is “low” or “good value” for a 55” HDTV. Or they may not today but might in a year when presumably their TV “sticker shock” is less than is currently the case.

I recently completed a project designed to determine the role price plays in the consumer’s perception of value. To do that we studied numerous products and services including gas learning in the process that consumers believe:

• The price of gas is “high.”
• Gas does not represent “good value” relative to in the past.
• $3.00 or more per gallon is “high”, under $3.00 “low.”
• A year ago, $2.50 per gallon was viewed as “high”.
• Saving $.10 or more per gallon is “good value.”
• Driving 10 miles to save $.10 per gallon was acceptable to a majority (whether or not they actually would do so being a different matter.)

The above was from a quantitative methodology however it checked out with companion focus group research. In other words when you ask people to what extent they feel going somewhat out of their way to save $.10 a gallon represented “good value”, most agreed it was. They were reacting from a “right brain” perspective judging a $.10 per gallon savings as “good value” rather than using the “left brain” proving it was or was not. Then we provided the following and boy did things change.

“Assuming one drives 15,000 miles a year in a vehicle that averages 20 miles per gallon, the annual savings resulting from paying $.10 less per gallon is $75.”

All of a sudden a savings of $.10 was no longer a “good value” and certainly not when we added the fact that the stations that sell it for less may not accept credit cards.

Quite often we will at best do “right brain” analysis of what we buy and while we like to tell researchers we exhaustively compare prices, there is ample evidence to the contrary. Those who sell us things have to be competitive charging within or close to a range of whatever is the norm but it is not a given that we know what that is nor believe that the lowest price represents the highest value.

The average consumer debt is now over $8,000 for every one of the 300+ million men, women and children in the US.

Our right brains talked us into buying all that stuff leaving our apparently much less powerful left brains to worry about how to pay for it.

Democratic Primaries: Stuck Like Glue

Iranian politics are a curious mix of fledgling democratic and authoritarian religious dictatorship elements. While Iranians do vote for their leaders, who they can vote for (those permitted to run for office) is first vetted by the Council of Guardians. Consisting of six theologians selected by the Supreme Leader, a position created by Ayatollah Khomeini, in addition to six jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by parliament, the Council decides who is and is not qualified to run for office. These days that is generally only those who share their conservative religious views. So, democracy but one that only permits choice among candidates predetermined to think and act as the ruling religious hunta wishes them to.

In contrast stands the political systems of true democracies throughout the world and at the top of that list is the United States of America. Or so it would seem the US of A possibly excluding the Democratic Party when it selects one of its own to run for president in 2008. I refer of course to the Super Delegates not to be confused with Superman, Super Glue or Super Duper.

As near as I can tell (I’m not really sure about this and don’t think anyone else is either) like Superman the Super Delegate (SD) has super powers but not in the faster than a speeding bullet/can stop a speeding train sort of way. Acting in concert (something not generally associated with Democrats) SD’s can overturn popular vote results; a feat heretofore only possible by the Electoral College and on occasion the Mafia and/or the Florida and US Supreme Courts. How they do that is the subject for some other forum but bottom line is that those who voted for, (let’s call him) “candidate O” in the primaries and state caucuses, the candidate who got the most votes, may wake up to find the SD’s have decided it will be better to go with, oh I don’t know, “candidate C” just to continue arbitrary use of the alphabet in this hypothetical example. Now that's super!

I prefer to live in the US in part because of our form of government but when it comes to this primary thing I like the Iranian system better. More honest to say “Here’s the list; pick whoever you want” as opposed to saying “Vote for whoever you want and we’ll decide later if you got it right.” At least with them I know who the Supreme Leader is.

The Political Rear View Mirror

Google “political polls” and you will get north of 1.2 million web sites that in some way offer something to do with things relating to the “research” candidates pay for hoping to get inside our heads.

And well they (the candidates) should. They’re spending like drunken sailors and you have to assume they expect to get something in return for all that spin money. (Hmmm “drunken sailors"??? I wonder if Hillary has any tattoos.) How will they know how to pander to us if they don’t first attempt to find out what we think?

But wait! I said they do that (pay for polls) to make sense of things but what the polls tell them is at best where things are, at worst where they’ve been and making decisions solely on that is like driving only looking in the rear view mirror. Doing that could result in a lot of aimless wandering or worse, really bad accidents.

You know, I think I’m beginning to understand the political process.

Accidental Obfuscation

Language is at once lengthy detail of what we need/want to communicate as well as much shorthand when brevity is required, with a lot of space between the two extremes. And I mean a lot of space. For example while there are many claims to the world’s longest English sentence some of the more interesting come from literature including one 13,955 word contender in Jonathan Coe’s novel, The Rotters’ Club. Or a 510,000 word monster representing 20% of the 2.5 million word longest novel published in English (Marienbad My Love) written by Mark Leach. And then of course there is the opposite; shorter declaratives such as “no” when what we want to say can be summed up in as few as one word.

Short is not only good but necessary when time is of the essence; which it often is and as a result we use shorthand for any number of things from occupation titles to made up generic names for products, new technologies in particular. For example, one who teaches children part of what they need to know is a “teacher.” One who writes books a “writer.” One who paints buildings a “painter.” Or should that last one be a “building painter” or maybe a “house painter” so as not to confuse them with those who paint pictures? And now that I think about it maybe “writer” should be “book writer” because those who write for newspapers are also writers are they not? Or are they “reporters” so we don’t confuse them with “writers”? What about police who write tickets??

DLink, a Cisco company who makes a lot of the wireless networking equipment used by many of us in our homes has a product category they call “media players” having started life as “media servers.” Actually a growing line of very useful products whose function is to move “media” such as photos, music and video from our computers to our TV’s and stereos; all with model names that begin “DSM”. Hmmm, DSM as opposed to say MP (media player) or possibly DMS (digital media server) presuming a link to what they were in the beginning. Even TTPYS (thing that plays your stuff) would probably suggest more to most about what the product will do than does DMS.

Short or long our words should communicate and when they don't all we have is can phone talk with a broken line.

Now that I understand.