The end of the year as we know it (and I feel fine!)

2012 did not meet Mayan or Hollywood prophecies of global doom, but it did it's awful best trying.

This month's massacre of 20 children and six school teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, however, was not out of character for a year that saw the murder of at least 20,000 Syrian civilians by its Russian and Iranian-backed president, the murder of a US Ambassador in Libya by terrorists, the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre, and so-on and so-on.  As my years go, 2012 sucked worse than any other I can recall.

2012 began fittingly with the (ahem) Friday the 13th of January Costa Concordia disaster that killed 32 people when the Captain, having ordered a close-by "salute" to locals on Isola Giglio, scraped the giant ship of 4000+ passengers and crew along the rocky shore at full-speed.

The rest of the year went accordingly bad.

I could go on (The great Facebook IPO, Whitney Houston's dying in a hotel bathtub, the CIA Director's affair with his wartime biographer) but I think most would agree, the sooner we get out of 2012 the safer we all will be.

The irony is that while humanity struck so many imponderable new lows in 2012, from the standpoint of science and objective accomplishments, 2012 was (no pun intended) a truly stellar year.  Who can say 2012 was a total loss when we managed to land an SUV loaded with science instruments on Mars, or that discovering the Higgs bosun was ho-hum science?

Source: Hubblesite.org

In May 2012 came the uncelebrated discovery by astronomers that an unavoidable collision of our Milky Way Galaxy with Andromeda four billion years from now will NOT result in the loss of our Sun or the destruction of Earth, proving one more time, how statistically insignificant our solar system is to the Universe at the same time demonstrating our permanence in it and the nobility of human curiosity.

It makes me wonder if it isn't, in fact, our warped sense of perspective that brought about the disasters of 2012.  Other than Hurricane Sandy, the tragedies that marred 2012 were the man-made, the result of a few humans' insanely twisted perception of their own self-importance.  From Bashar al-Assad to Kim Jong-un to Adam Lanza to Captain Schettino-- throughout 2012 we suffered and suffered again from the vapid hubris of leaders, gunmen, dictators, nameless or famous-- including those of us who abet them by living a voyeuristic lifestyle that worships "celebrity" while looking down upon ordinary good deeds.

In this admittedly "too-cosmic" sense, 2013 can only be better than 2012 if we embrace for a change our nano-scale insignificant existence versus clawing for "greatness."  Maybe by thinking "smaller" we can close the sanctuary given in recent years to those "too big to fail."  Maybe by looking more closely at each other, we can stop flipping channels on the "big picture," and instead fix what's in front of us with our own hands.

If you look at what worked in 2012-- take the Mars rover landing or the US Olympic team for examples-- you see grueling and tedious attention to detail, hours upon hours of training and practice, the momentous accumulation of one tiny effort set gently upon another.  So it may point towards a fresh perspective on our assembled human selves, including the many among us who are needy, not for public attention, but just for small doses of caring.

What if instead of harboring fantabulous expectations for the glorious New Year, we just paid better attention to the small things we do (and don't do) instead?  Oh, come on, what little difference could it make?

Lessons from 2012

                           Turnout               OBAMA           McCain/Romney

              2008      61.6%                 69,456,897            59,934,814

              2012      59.0%                 60,840,934         57,940,881 

Since President Obama’s re-election on Tuesday, I’ve been mindful that analysis paralysis may soon set in, so here’s my two-cent epiphany: Republicans lost big.

Rather than analyze Gov. Romney’s flip-flops, editorial missteps and inopportune remarks, or blame the rising tide of minority demographics, or even guess “what were people thinking???” we turn to the Obama playbook:

Give individual voters (not groups!) exactly what they want, remind them who gave it to them, and make them say “Thank you, Barack” on Election Day.

The Obama strategy isn’t new, really more like winning a high school student body election on a massive scale.  The issues were “small,” as pundits like to say, but to each voter who got a small gift from the arguably failed President, each was just enough reason to win each vote.  The fancy term for it became known as “micro-targeting.”  To the frustrated GOP, it was simple “pay for play.”

They don’t call politics the “second oldest profession” for nothing, now do they?  The difference in 2012 was the Obama campaign went retail.  It’s one thing to promise groups what they want and hope members of the group will show up and vote.  The Obama campaign went directly to the individual consumers of government largess, who benefited directly from its positions and policies (e.g., college loan recipients, food stamp recipients) and demanded their individual gratitude, as distinct from a "group" endorsement or financial support.

Republicans are no slouches when it comes to making promises and running up debt, mind you, but comparatively they have nothing to show for it.  The Obama campaign mastered the art of demanding thanks for its gestures while Republicans talked in the abstract about runaway government and taking the goodies away.  Through massive direct individual contact, the Obama campaign worked at making sure every recipient, no matter how small the gift was, got ushered to cast their ballot.  In hindsight, it’s a miracle the election was even close.

Now, you ask, why can’t Republicans do the same?  Lowering people’s taxes would seem to be just the kind of direct benefit that would win votes, right?  All Republicans need to do to win is contact individuals whose taxes were cut by the Republican Congress and get them to show up, right?

Sadly that’s not enough.  Apart from the repulsion most conservatives feel from selling government goodies for votes, the real take-away from the Obama victory was that the President and his supporters knew they had lost the election.  They knew that the President’s policies had failed, his ideas were rotten, and large numbers of people (over eight million!!) who voted for him in 2008 were not going to do so again.

Their solution was to harvest replacement voters.  That is, for each person who abandoned the Obama camp between 2008 and today, a new voter needed to be plucked from the sea of recipients.  And it was this systematic replacement of lost support proved to be the recipe for Obama’s electoral success.

That the considerably better-run, better-funded Romney 2012 campaign fell about two million votes short of John McCain’s 2008 turnout, proves my point.  Republicans were flying “blind,” it seems, unaware of how many voters it had to “replace” from 2008.  The only explanation I can think of for not doing so is Republicans banked too much on the idea that Obama was a failure, and refused to look at how its own voters saw the Republican nominee.

In short, unlike Obama’s strategists who knew they were falling short, the Republicans didn’t actually think they could be in trouble with voters until it was too late.

Between now and the next elections in 2014, the GOP has a lot of work to do.  Most of the discussion has been on wholesale marketing to make Republicans more acceptable to minorities, or to double-down on the hot-button social issues.  If 2012 proved anything, it’s that all politics is retail.  Where the GOP stumbled was by not bringing its proposals home, that is, into people’s homes.  Standing out on the street and screaming “stop federal spending” and other platitudes from the curb is one thing.  Getting inside the kitchen and dealing in voters’ reality is another.

If Republicans want to save the country from the gift-giving co-dependent Democrats, they better focus on the tangible goods that its ideas deliver (or deliver us from, as the case may be), and drop the rhetoric down a size or two so it fits inside voters’ heads.  Am I the only one who noticed the difference it made, for example, when Mitt Romney stopped saying Obamacare will bankrupt the country, instead pointing out that Obamacare raided the existing Medicare program?  Romney saw near-instant improvement in his polling just by showing that Obamacare was not free.  That’s called retailing.

A lot more will be said about the end of civilization coming as a result of President Obama’s having the chance to act with impunity, now that the election is over.  It’s not a matter of compromising or accommodating the “new normal.”  There is much to fight against and fight we must.  But if voters don’t believe Republicans are talking about them specifically, or that the foretold dangers of Obama’s policies exist only in the abstract, 2012 proves they will not vote just on fear.

A lot of fresh thinking and in-depth research on who does not vote Republican is much in order.  The Karl Rove strategy of maximizing turning out the conservative “base” was disproved by the simple fact there were not enough of Tea Party folks voting to do the job.  Ascertaining a deeper understanding of large chunks of non-voters’ motivations and wants, starting with the two million or so who dropped off GOP radars from 2008, should be the second priority.

The first priority is knowing you were trounced.

Between a bubble and the cloud

The higher education finance bubble is here.  Unlike those icky derivatives on mortgage-backed securities, you can see this one in plain day.

Like the housing bubble, the cost of higher education has grown wildly inflated by the relatively easy access to student loans and grants over more than three generations.  And unfortunately for graduates burdened with ever-increasing levels of college debt, the economy has left them "upside-down" and "underwater" (like their parents houses?).

We got here almost the same way housing did.  Like home ownership, a college education had become so virtuous and culturally-standard, banks were pushed by government guarantees to lend to students regardless of either the student (borrower) or the institution (house price) or chosen major (neighborhood). Like mortgage lending, the bank gets paid for initiating and writing the mortgages, not servicing them.  College administrators get paid for selling an educational product, paid admissions, not for the value of the degrees-- which are deemed valuable on their face as long as someone else is paying.

College students are presumed smart-enough, right? But when it comes to their own education, students can be fallible and gullible consumers.  They trust in the notion that if they were accepted to a highly-competitive school, they must be getting an excellent product and will be able-- the social contract goes-- to repay whatever it cost them because they will be successful.

But what happens when the marketplace for their talents and degrees hits a recession?  Can they sell their degree at a loss to cover the loan?  Default on the mortgage on something that resides only in their heads?  What happens when the brain bubble bursts?

While the current President has proposed restructuring the mass of student debt, extending it or limiting payments to a percentage of earnings, the colleges and universities know very well that doing so avoids the root cause: the cost and street value ratio for a traditional brick and mortar college education is out of whack.  When money was cheap and easy, of course, the educational establishment could afford wages and salaries that surpassed the norm in the communities where they operated, provide the ultimate in job security, and cave in to union-like demands for both.  No self-respecting university president believes this can go on, which makes one wonder why the craven effort to salvage students' bad loans?

Instead, many smarter universities heeding their own favorite rallying cries for "sustainability" and have been, true to creed, open minded enough to see their circumstances from the outside-in, be analytical about themselves, and willing to experiment with new ways to serve students.  They are embracing the cloud, distance learning via computer, and lower priced tuition.

There are limits to what can be translated effectively via online lectures and course material without the in-person experiences and dynamics that college memories are made from.  Professors who put students to sleep in person can be assured of higher slumber scores teaching via Skype.  Students who kissed-up by asking nuanced questions to show their inquisitiveness, without proving their failure to read the material, will no longer be sneered at by their peers, they will be muted.  The cloud will have a silver lining.

Even the most traditional schools, like Harvard are giving the new cloud the old college try.  Why?  Because the cloud will rain money.  By opening their campuses through the cloud, more students can enroll at lower prices and still receive approximately the same educational product-- maximizing per-professor output and increasing demand at lower prices.  Moreover, the cloud lets students attend lectures they miss while they are at work, scaling-up the phenomena of a "go-as-you-pay" education, versus go as you pray (for a job). And what about that ultimate sacrilege: making Harvard and MIT classes free online?  Go as you learn!

The only way for the university cloud degree innovation to be killed mid-birth is the government bail-out the current President proposes (and very much like the one General Motors was forced to take that essentially protected the United Auto Workers contract, not the viability or value of GM cars).  If the higher education finance bubble is dealt with the same way as GM-- subsidizing the status-quot bloat, making innovation "risky," while the economy continues to languish under government regulation and debt-- there will be a race to the bottom, and the cloud will dissipate as a passing educational fad.

The Googled Age

In history's so-called "Gilded Age," the US in particular experienced tremendous economic growth and prosperity from the late 1860s until near the turn of the century, lifting a Northern industrial revolution from the ashes and spoils of the Civil War.  Among its characteristic achievements, the first transcontinental railway was built along with many other fortunes, including oil and mining.  Its excesses led, some say, to the American "Progressive Era" redistribution and class-warfare politics that mirrored the rise of European Communist movements.

In today's "Googled Age," a cultural and economic phenomena best known by the internet search engine verb species "Googling" or "to Google," whole industries have sprouted in media, entertainment and commerce.  We have integrated Google and other electronic and internet apps and tools so much in our daily life that our brains no longer need to store "ancillary" information such as phone numbers and addresses and directions for getting from point A to point B.  The massive amount of seemingly "ancillary" recall functions (e.g., "Oh, gee who was it that said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you...'") that can reside in the "cloud" versus retaining such information in our heads, is breathtaking.

One version of this Googled Age promises liberating us to use our brains to think better and more clearly about issues and ideas.  With our "ancillary memory" recall just a few search clicks away, tons of freed-up brain power can double-down solving mysteries and problems that have eluded us in the past.  As long as the cloud, chock full of "ancillary memory" remains quick and easy to access and retrieve from (far from being a guaranteed right) society will flourish as never before.

Yet just one byproduct of the Googled Age-- students who use search engines instead of their own recall of facts to do their homework-- points to disaster.  When information becomes unworthy of being retained in our heads, it's not just facts that "live" elsewhere, memories do, too.  The power of the human mind is its capacity to make associations and relationships, what ties facts with feelings.

Computers just can't do this.  Despite improvements in data-association, tagging, indexing and correlation that make the internet function so seemingly well, there's no app that feels shame or joy-- the kernels of memory and human feeling.  When the Googled Age does us great harm, it will be manifest in a generation perhaps three or four beyond now, where evil is no longer discernible from good because memories of evil consequences are irretrievable from a digital cloud, but do not reside either in the public mind.

Thinking of evils in the past such as the Holocaust or 9/11 will still be possible, of course, but lost will be the indelible sensations of anger and shame that propelled civilization to reject the perpetrators.  On a more fundamental scale, think of how society at large needs to parse the conflict between free speech and religious pluralism (to wit, the Arab protests against a YouTube video) without considering the heaviest of consequences.  In the Googled Age, of course, we can use search engines and online books to read history's legends and even its facts, but lost will be our sense of indignation if our personal convictions are enumerated in a digitized cloud of "facts" that are inevitably not retained in our minds.

While on the flip side, this Googled Age offers millions of channels granting access to incredible artistic riches and virtual experiences, we risk a lot by letting our minds and imaginations off the hook.  Our growing reliance on the "cloud," which makes it easy to hear or view creative works "on demand," makes retaining the good ideas and feelings evoked by them is less important-- perhaps meaningless.  In a world where anyone can publish and produce art and music, no doubt a positive phenomena, we might quickly forget what used to be remembered.

The Googled Age also presumes we humans retain an absolute right of perpetual access to the "cloud" where more and more of our less and less "ancillary" life elements get stored.  As we rely increasingly on instant retrieval (from smart phones' mobile cloud) rather than our own recollection, supposedly we're ahead; our brains can work on the more important stuff.  But what if this seeming "right" is corrupted, taxed or regulated, as easily as it can be?  What if the Googled Age is switched-off by a future tyrant who rises to power because the popular culture and the electorate can't remember-- relying on the almighty cloud for its facts-- what tyranny feels like?

I'm not the only one who has noticed that some of our present-day hallmarks-- tolerance for stupidity (e.g., billions lost in Iraq, the GSA convention in Vegas), immorality (e.g., President Clinton sodomizing a White House intern, pedophilia at Penn State, etc.), and armed extremism (e.g., nuclear Iran, North Korea, Islamist mobs)-- would in any other era be unforgivable, unjust, and severely punished.  No sane people would put up with these things, and so begs the question: what has so clouded (pun intended) our sanity and good judgement?

Lest I be misunderstood, I am not a Luddite and I do not fear the internet or the myriad conveniences it gives to a free society.  But as our mind-machine interfaces grow more and more indistinguishable, the human mind must remain ever more vigilant and dynamic beneath the cloud.  The unchecked excesses of the Gilded Age led (according to Wikipedia) to a socioeconomic revolt that, in turn, gave quarter to a new human tyranny, Marxism-Leninism.  The unchecked risks of this, the Googled Age are likewise worth our concern.

The shadow of your smile :-)

First image from Mars Curiosity Rover "hazcam" relayed back to Earth this morning by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter.

How cool is this?  For one who has seen his share of extreme loss and malfunction, the feat proves American exceptionalism is alive and well and living on Mars.

White House Science Adviser John Holdren was also quick to declare victory early this morning: "And if anybody has been harboring doubts about the status of US leadership in space, well there's a one-tonne automobile-sized piece of American ingenuity on ... And it's sitting on the surface of Mars right now and it should certainly put any such doubts to rest."

Before the Obama Administration wraps itself in the Curiosity success and marches onto the campaign trail with it, it bears noting mission model and design for this audacious high-risk mission was written long before the current occupant of the White House moved in.  Originally known as Mars Science Lab, Curiosity was conceived of in 2003 and its critical design review was completed in June, 2007)

All Americans should celebrate this achievement, whether they did as little as Holdren or as little as myself to make it happen.

Don't I know you?

The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado Friday morning is stupefying and shocking— that is, until you recall Columbine in 1999, Virginia Tech in 2007, Utoya (Oslo) 12 months ago, or Tucson just 18 months ago.

Each of the horrible events (as well as others less-recalled, but no less memorable) were each carried out by individuals remarkable only by their isolation and seeming invisibility to the rest of us.

The “profile” and demonic characteristics of these loners is better-understood than society cares to admit.  Other than reporters questioning of acquaintances of the perpetrator for “telltale signs” that habitually go unnoticed, the story of “how-can-this-happen?” is implausibly short-lived.

Do I think there are too many guns floating around?  Yes.  But I prefer not to console myself this way.

The “pivot” in the wake of such tragedy, from mourning the victims to stoking the politics of gun control is as routine and perhaps as deadly as the incidents themselves.  The uncomfortable notion that possibly a parent or a loved one, a co-worker or teacher, a Facebook acquaintance or a twitter follower might have “seen it coming”-- albeit without knowing what they were seeing or hearing-- is a harder concept to face compared to the ease of blaming and banning guns.

What about a shared, apolitical responsibility to prevent a future tragedy?  Do we even have one?  A society that lets loners such as these plot and plan in our midst isn’t to blame, but it’s not off the hook, either.  At some point we need to ask ourselves why, in the busy-body of our chaotic lives and daily breakneck routines, we can’t or don’t slow down long enough to spot these people?

And how has society communicated with all these would-be armed lunatics among us?  For those who don’t commit suicide on-the-spot, we coddle their delusions with instant celebrity, give them historical footnotes, and surrounded them with psychiatrists who dote on their every word while taking copious notes at each ridiculous utterance.  If you happen to crazy, this is like winning the Powerball.

Surely the premeditation shown in these many cases over the years would tell us sane people to reward the assailants with the death penalty.  Yet somehow we’re the ones so fascinated by what they were thinking that we refuse to.  The argument given against executing mass killers is that the death penalty would not have deterred them “anyway,” and keeping them alive to “study” could prevent future tragedies.

How’s that one working out for you in Littleton, Tucson, and Aurora?

Does anyone doubt our latest celebrity nutcase didn’t think that one through?  Unless they plan to take their own life, they know from brooding and planning as they meticulously do, that the chance of dying in the commission of the mass hysteria and bloodshed is slim, but the chance of dying from being punished for it is zero.

So without giving Aurora’s diabolical madman more credit than he deserves (And note that I have refused to grant him the use of his name), consider this spectacle… Once his booby-trapped apartment is entered and his computer hard drive is dissected by the FBI, we’ll find ourselves staring at the fitting final diversion: The whitewashed face of the “Joker,” aiming gun control in our faces as he again flees responsibility and death.

Governor Romney Speaks the the NAACP

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney addresses the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) annual convention in Houston, TX on Wednesday, July 11.  Here is what Mr. Romney should say (or should have said):

Greetings to my fellow American citizens.  Thank you, Chairman [Roslyn M.] Brock and President [Benjamin Todd] Jealous-- to the NAACP Board, and to all of you for the invitation to speak and for welcoming me here on a hot summer day in the great City of Houston where "global warming" is nothing to fear, but is actually a way-of-life.  Nobody has ever accused me of being cool, except for with respect to the heat of this election season.

And I also want to give my thanks to the many, many corporate sponsors of the NAACP and this convention; I see we do have a great deal in common, after all.

The theme of this gathering is "Your Power, Your Decision, Your Vote."  And I would like to just take a few minutes on "your power" and "your decision," before concluding and asking you for your vote.

Like all Americans, but particularly for Americans of color, your power has been severely diminished by the sitting US President and the policies and actions of his administration.

Whether it's the power of holding a job or finding a new job, or the power of expanding your business by getting a loan, or the power of owning your home, or the power of sending your child to a school that teaches-- the day-to-day things that empower all people of color and all people of liberty-- all that power is gone for now.  You see it, you feel it, and you know it.

Yet, there are some in this audience who will argue with me, saying they never experienced that power in the first place, or that the people they serve in our communities and inner-city neighborhoods only dream about having the kinds of problems I just talked about.  There are some who will never believe that a Republican will restore the power they have never really had-- because generations of Democrats that they so urgently believed in until now, have actually taken the power away.

Don't take my word for it.  Look around your neighborhoods and cities, the boarded-up businesses, crime in the streets, people idled by an economic crisis they did not create, with no end in sight after four years under an inexperienced President who has not understood that "government power" is not the same as "people power."

We have a vast and powerful government to be sure.  When the economic crisis began in 2008, the critical emergency response of government was to assure liquidity and credit for the financial system.  It did so swiftly and forcefully, and I don't know anyone who believes it was a mistake for the government to act.

But everything else that followed-- the stimulus, the bail-outs of specific companies, the passing of mandatory health insurance, the heavy subsidies to unproven energy companies with political clout-- are not just matters for debate and discussion, they are really just about taking power out of your hands, and giving it to Washington functionaries.

But I am personally angry with the sitting President because I believe he squandered money and opportunity by making bad policies.  It's way too easy for me to list the things I would not do as President.  So here are a few things I will do instead, that will put power back where it belongs-- in our cities and among our people:

[INSERT SPECIFIC PROMISES HERE]

So as never before in our lifetimes, your power, and the power of all America's citizens, is exactly and really the only thing, bottom-line, that this election is all about.  If you want power returned to your communities and businesses to rebuild your cities and restore your dreams, your decision will be to vote for me.

Yet while I happen to think your decision is simple, I know it's complicated by powerful symbols and old-school allegiances that are hard to relinquish.  It can't be an easy decision for many in the NAACP.  It may be the first time you have voted for a Republican.  There will be pressure to show support and loyalty for the first African-American US President, even if his policies have failed and failed African-Americans the most.

And then, there's the unfairness of it all.  Those who have been fortunate, such as myself and other "one-percenters," can actually afford the economic disaster we have under this President.  We don't like it, but unlike most Americans, the rich can suffer through and go on as we have, mostly unhurt by his policies.

Yet to middle-income earners, the working poor, and the poor poor, on the other hand, his policies and job-killing tax programs have been ruthlessly cruel.

Instead, rich people can afford to oppose the President's policies on moral grounds, saying as we do, that we're sincerely afraid the "American Way of Life" is at stake. But if you've never experienced the "American Way of Life" as the so-called "well-off" have, it's a damn meaningless argument-- and probably why Republican candidates have not won support from people of color, except from those among you who have succeeded economically.

So when the President talks as he does so often about "basic fairness," I wonder who he is talking about.  I know he's not talking about me.  But is he really talking about you?

Does anyone here believe that raising taxes to pay for the same Washington-led failed programs is more fair than cutting taxes on small businesses and creating jobs, or using block-grants instead of bureaucracies to solve local problems?

Is the President talking about your communities when he says those making over $250,000 a year should pay more taxes?  Does anyone here believe they will see that money, other than as it leaves your city and the person who earned it has to let an employee go?

Does anyone believe that taking a dollar out of Chicago or Queens, NY or East LA, or New Orleans and sending it to the bureaucracy in Washington is more fair to the people of Chicago, New York, LA or New Orleans than keeping the money home and creating jobs?

When the President talks about "basic fairness" in our upcoming debates, believe me, I will too.

Your decision is about who gets your power.  Make no mistake, it is not your vote that's at stake, it's your power.  And it's not just "black power" that's at stake in this election, the power of all citizens is pitted against the machinery of bureaucracy and bloated, dysfunctional government.  At this moment of crisis for our country, where the balance of power can be seen as having reached a "tipping point" after which the government becomes a ruling class of its own-- there can be no black and white, no rich and poor; our struggle is joined.

On the other hand, if you still believe your power belongs in Washington, is safer and better-off in Washington, the sitting President will take your vote, your money, and your power so you can come see it at rallies on the Mall and your children can visit it along with all the other monuments in Washington.

It's your power, it's your decision.

So in asking you for your vote, I humbly offer this suggestion: If government power has helped you, has strengthened you, has protected you, has supported your family-- Ask yourself, why is it you still don't feel powerful?

And if you believe-- after thinking about "your power" and "your decision" throughout this convention and when you return home-- that government has exceeded its ability to help our cities and our neighborhoods because through its excessive policies and regulations and mandates, it limits the ability of your friends and families and your children to succeed-- it's time to join me.

Thank you very much.  May God continue to bless the citizens of our great nation.

The Choice

Obama

Romney

The candidates have spoken.  Whose family vacation memories will Americans choose in November?

Memo to Mitt

How dare you blow this election!

The country has never needed a new president more than it does today.  I could list all the reasons why President Obama has failed on jobs and the economy, defense and national security, leadership and international prestige-- but you've been doing that ad-nauseum, and it's still not broken Barack Obama's lead in the polls.

As you head into your coronation in Tampa as the Republican Party Nominee, you've got to shift gears.  Rupert Murdoch said it first, the Wall Street Journal second, and your own biggest blogger-backers are telling you: It's time to clear your throat.

I am not among those who want you to "humanize" who you are, or "show your likable angles" to the voters.  In fact the voters could care less.  In 2008, they went with their gut and hired the guy they liked best, and onto whom they imbued and assigned their best hopes without any reason to do so.

Your astute and charming wife has sought to solve your "likability" shortfall by saying cute things about you you shouldn't say yourself.  The voters may really like Ann Romney, but they could care less if you are fun to be around when they don't have time to shoot the breeze like they used to.

Pure and simple, the voters have not "latched" to you because at this ripe stage of the campaign cycle you are still talking about the problem-- President Obama.  Tell us something we don't know!  Unusual as it sounds to the legions of political image makers who surround you and muffle your voice, this election is only about your solutions to our nation's mounting problems.

Allow me a brief illustration.  There's a current flowing out of your campaign that says you'd be a better president because of your business experience, that you've met a payroll and made tough decisions.  That isn't a bad "narrative," mind you, but it's a "why" not a "what."  People who voted for Obama in 2008 now tell us it was because he had a "compelling narrative."

Compelling narratives are only compelling if voters are in the mood for a fairy tale-- which they were in 2008-- not when they're still struggling four years later, still out of work, unable to pay their debts, and can't make retirement decisions.

Folks don't want a compelling narrative in 2012, they just want answers.

When the bereft opposition moans about Bain Capital, don't apologize.  But don't explain, either.  Instead say, "It's true, I have gotten rich by fixing failed managements.  I come before you with my offer to fix the failed Obama government.  Here is exactly what I will do..."

So instead of telling voters why they should vote for you, next time you open your mouth, tell them what you will do-- to jump-start the moribund economy, encourage banks to lend again, and assure businesses they are safe to hire again.  Tell us what you will do to regulatory agencies that have strangled and punished small business.  Tell us which taxes you will cut, not why you like tax cuts.  Tell us which programs you will end, not why you don't like them.  See the difference?

As long as I'm giving advice on what to say, don't say another word about healthcare or the Supreme Court unless you tell what changes you will make to it.  Saying you will "repeal and replace" doesn't cut it, and the less time you spend sprucing-up the Obama agenda, the better-off you will be.

For that matter, don't say another word about any subject if you are not telling us what you will do about it.  Voters are past being told, "I understand, here's a(nother) problem..."  Trust me, they know.  All they want to hear from you is what you will do.  You still have their attention, barely.  Now use short, specific sentences with clear verbs and you will notice a huge difference in the polls.

A matter of interpretation

Luckily, my comments written in haste (see previous post) immediately following the Supreme Court of the United States' ruling on Obamacare, were not changed by the many meticulous readings of Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion.  More interesting now, a few days following the decision to uphold the Obamacare law, is the realization by liberals that throughout the ruling is a near 180-degree turn against previously generous interpretations of the Commerce Clause, i.e., the power of Congress to compel individuals and states to do as they are told.

Not being a lawyer, let alone a Constitutional scholar, if the conspiracy theorists are correct saying that "turncoat" Justice Roberts switched his vote at the last minute, Roberts (and true conservatives) clearly made off with the booty.  If, as the story goes, Roberts decided to change his vote merely to protect the Court from recriminations of partisanship for tossing out the law in its entirety, he extracted from the Justices to his left, a wicked (to them) price.

But I digress.  The importance of the ruling cannot be seen merely through either political or Constitutional lenses.  Let's remember, the most awesome of the Supreme Court's powers is the power to decide what cases it will hear and rule on.  To those disappointed by the ruling, this begs the question why did the Court take it up at all?

The Supremes took the case because of one thing: Ruling on it would give the nation at large an overdue "learning moment" in CITIZENSHIP too juicy to pass up:

First, when a confusing, complex, and punitive law passed in the name of making X more affordable by forcing Y and Z to pay for it, no matter how bad or objectionable, the Court system is not a political janitor; sloppy citizenship begets sloppy lawmaking and sloppy government, but "it ain't my job."

Second, for citizens to believe that appointed Justices owe their political patrons loyalty when making decisions does greater harm to political life and public discourse (and the exercise of freedom under the Constitution) than for citizens to depend on the Courts to protect them from politicians who change their minds and loyalties to the people who elect them.

Third, by making politically unpopular Rulings that are nevertheless Constitutional, we (the Supremes) challenge elected politicians to write laws that are more popular and just from their inception, and challenge citizens and voters to decide matters (more actively, please) accordingly.

Finally, the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the federal bench in general, is not a mini- or even super- "Congress of last resort."  The Court's job is not to protect politicians or even voters, it is to protect the Constitution so it stays potent for CITIZENS.

Though many of my friends will suffer financially and otherwise from the upholding of Obamacare, our children and grandchildren will undoubtedly benefit by the disposition of the Obama presidency in November, and live to appreciate the rude awakening given by the Court to the American citizenry to take ownership of their rights and responsibilities, and not surrender their political judgement to others' interpretations.

Way better than a super-PAC

Not being a legal scholar, I can say with zero authority that the Supreme Court of the United States ruling today on the Affordable Care Act of 2009 (aka Obamacare) was as expected.

While a few commentators will blame Chief Justice John Roberts, whose appointment by conservative President George W. Bush will be analyzed for weeks, I can only imagine the delight with which the Chief Justice exposed President Obama's deception that the individual mandate was not a tax, and having done so, hand the ugly baby back to the White House to explain and defend.  Though some at 1600 Pennsylvania are undoubtedly celebrating the Court's decision, the moment will dawn on them shortly that far from endorsing the onerous Obamacare law, the Supremes called their bluff.

A tax by any other name is still a tax.  Opponents of Obamacare now have the ruling of the US Supreme Court behind them to prove that Obamacare means raising taxes-- mostly on small businesses and self-employed earners, and burdening states with higher costs to provide Medicare.  In other words, by ruling in favor of the President, the Supremes have stripped away any pretense of good-versus-evil, exposing the skeleton of Obamacare as the unlimited taxation power grab that it always was.

The easy question is if Obamacare was so bad, why didn't the Supremes just do the honors and dispose of it?  The easy answer is, that's the job of Congress.  And in defense of Chief Justice Roberts, whose "political loyalty" will be attacked forevermore, I must say his majority opinion was the most conservative decision of the Court in many years for its explicit message that the Court will not legislate for those who legislate however poorly-- "It's not our job," so said the Court.

Finally, the Supremes could not have acted any better to energize the conservative political base in a hotly-contested election year, and for this alone Mitt Romney must be eternally grateful.  Unable himself to generate enough excitement or momentum for his candidacy, the Supremes have made a donation to his campaign far more valuable than any super-PAC.  Now Mr. Romney will enjoy the spoils of Obama's legal victory-- becoming at last the vehicle for a cause greater than himself.

Houston, we've got company

The Chinese make it look easy in this well-edited video of the events taking place this week above us.  Congratulations are deserved, but just a few years ago, this was so hard to imagine.

A space thoroughbred wins the Triple Crown

In a matter of days, Space Exploration Technologies, Inc. (aka SpaceX) has managed to win the Kentucky Derby (a flawless Falcon 9 rocket launch on May 22), followed by the Preakness (successfully berthing its Dragon space capsule to the International Space Station on May 25), and the Belmont (de-orbit of the Dragon capsule and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on May 31).

If this sequence of mission events sounds familiar to space fans, it's only because SpaceX has replicated NASA and Russian low-Earth orbit tasks that ought to be fairly routine after nearly 50 years of human space flight.

What makes SpaceX a thoroughbred race horse is that it has reached this "plateau" at a tiny fraction of the cost customarily appropriated by governments to do the job.  It's an amazing feat given the complexity of the tasks and engineered systems themselves, but a phenomenal event because doing so has broken the space access monopoly held by governments since the dawn of the space age.

No good deed goes unpunished, however.  Having exceeded all expectations for the Falcon/Dragon "test mission" at a fraction of the cost NASA would otherwise have paid, SpaceX will face stiff headwinds from political forces who are reluctant to cede access to the International Space Station to "for profit" uses and ventures that were unimaginable when governments controlled the territory known as Earth-orbital space.

As the debate unfolds, perhaps even in the presidential election season, over what private investments can be allowed to advance into space and share facilities like the space station or to visit the Moon, one must simply remember that space is-- above all else-- a human endeavor.  What makes humans tick is the desire to manifest their inventions and creativity in places they have not been before, and by the way, reap all the heavenly financial and spiritual rewards they deserve.

It would be absurd to promote freedom and economic liberty on Earth only to leave our cherished principles behind simply because we break the bonds of gravity.  As a "teaching moment" to politicians and economists, let the SpaceX Triple Crown achievements this month serve to inspire expanding the idea of human freedom into the cosmos.

Re-Nuance

In my haste to connect the Secret Service prostitution scandal to the GSA Las Vegas scandal, I did not elaborate well on the broad political implications of both.

Watching the Sunday talk shows today, guests have tended to say the GSA's spendthrift ways could or should stick to President Obama, while Secret Service philandering should not.  There's a clear distinction being made between an episode of drunken misconduct by law enforcement officers with a history of heroism and the General Services Administration, which basically acts as the federal government's "back office," issuing checks to pay the light bill and trim grass around federal office buildings.

In my earlier post, I made a leap from the two scandals to talk about the war in Wisconsin between Governor Scott Walker and public employee unions over Republican legislation that passed last year to curtail public employee collective bargaining rights, increase their pension and benefit contributions, and make payroll deductions for union dues voluntary.  I said that taxpayers and voters in Wisconsin were right to ask public employees pay more for their health and pension benefits, just as the now-infamous prostitute in Colombia was within her rights to scream about being ripped-off by that Secret Service agent who had refused to pay her fees, if for no other reason than to keep things quiet.

But if I may take myself seriously, I stand behind my original if hasty analysis.  There is a growing cultural gap between citizens and the government employees who work for them.  The GSA and Secret Service scandals should not be brushed aside as aberrations, but examined closely as symptoms of a deeply-ingrained, widespread collective dissonance.  True, it may not be correct to say the GSA party planners were maliciously and purposely boosting the tab for their Vegas convention to show taxpayers who's boss.  And it would go beyond the pale to suggest the Secret Service agents hired prostitutes for any other purpose than what they were intended for.

What caused these two entirely separate scandals to occur, shares a common but subtle root.  Government has simply grown so large and so complex that now large numbers of public employees in thankless or invisible jobs no longer perceive they hold a public trust.  For example, the belief that a GSA real estate broker should distinguish themselves from private commercial brokers doing similar work is lost.  That the government, from the local level to state and national levels, is the workplace for a startling 17% of all persons employed makes it harder for them to see their jobs as "special" in some way, let alone owed to a public trust.  As government employment has grown more commonplace, the idea of being held or holding themselves to a higher standard naturally erodes.

In fact, the vast majority of government employees see themselves as dedicated professionals, no different from their private sector counterparts doing the same kinds of work.  True, it's unfair for taxpayers to treat government employees as less deserving of their jobs, but equally true, government employees should expect to be held to the same standards of ethics and propriety as expected in the private sector.  And while the GSA and Secret Service scandals are extreme in nature and publicity, how can the public really be assured these were "isolated incidents" when the government is so vast and growing?

To sharpen matters, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has taken on the issue of public employees' cash-outs for unused sick leave and vacation benefits that had been allowed to accumulate in his state.  Commonly called "boat money" because retiring public employees find their unused leave payments sizable enough to buy boats for their retirement, Christie is wondering aloud how most ordinary private sector workers never find themselves eligible for such enormous bonuses at retirement.  Of course public employee unions defend the boat money payments because the accumulation of leave payments is a "benefit" earned under the union contracts it fought for and won on behalf of state employees.

But simple questions of fairness between private and public employment "classes" like those raised by Governors Walker and Christie will grow in importance if left unchecked, for the simple reasons states can not afford the premium packages and pay for the cash-outs without raising income and property taxes to cover their outlays.  As pressure builds in the political arena to choose between raising taxes "out of respect" for government workers' promised entitlements, or cutting taxes to spur private sector growth to escape the current recession, the lack of respect-- even contempt-- shown by the Vegas GSA party crew makes it hard for taxpayers to vote for any politician who is sympathetic for what clearly has become a special government employee "class" in American society.

When the election starts to unfold as a choice between "raising taxes on the rich," as President Obama prefers to call it, or "cutting taxes on job creators" as Mr. Romney will call it, the real class warfare going on across the country between public and private sector classes of employment won't be lost on voters.  The idea that Secret Service agents had been traveling the world toting guns and consorting with prostitutes and the GSA's pencil-pushers were attending team-building confabs over exotic buffets at lavish resorts makes it clear just who got to soak the hard-working middle class while the President goes on about making the rich "pay their fair share."

For America to have come to a point where working in the public sector (or in jobs entirely dependent on government contracts) is the preferred way to support a family and live a middle class standard of living should be of broad concern.  Let's hope the scandals will spur a serious discourse on how to re-balance and re-nuance the nation's political and economic interests.  As further scandals unfold and it becomes clear the "isolated incidents" were neither isolated nor incidental, the idea that agencies merely need to "clean house" will falter in favor, I hope, of a serious examination of the growing gap, not between rich and poor, but between public have-mores and private have-lesses.

For my $47

Is it time to scream like a Colombian hooker?

Just thinking that a $47 dispute over a Colombian prostitute's fees unleashed a scandal on the US Secret Service (that will easily cost taxpayers millions to investigate and punish the guilty) makes you wonder, where was that cheap bastard when the Government Services Agency needed him counting pennies back in Las Vegas?

The GSA is under fire for spending lavishly (~$850,000) on a 300-employee morale-building event it put on at a posh resort in Las Vegas in 2010.  If only they had been guided in planning this circus by that parsimonious Secret Service agent, a certain mind reader hired to entertain the GSA bureaucrats might have been shorted her reported $3,100 fee and called the cops-- as apparently did a certain "working girl" in Cartagena after being shorted $47 for services rendered just before President Obama was due to there arrive for the Summit of the Americas.

On first glance there's no relation between these two scandals.  Mischief by officers in Cartagena sworn  to protect the US president and cavorting by once-faceless bureaucrats in Las Vegas have little in common except for the supreme embarrassment these incidents have caused.

But there is a common thread-- albeit thin and threadlike-- that in the public mind connects the vapid stupidity shown by these incidents:  When did public employees get so friggin arrogant?

The US economy is still in its worst rut since the Great Depression while the federal budget (annual deficits, national debt, unfunded obligations) have all mushroomed radically.  The shift of economic power from private sector productivity to public payrolls in the past decade is terrifying to most people who wake up each morning and go to work just to pay for local, state, and federal government employees-- not including so-called private sector jobs like defense contractors and road construction companies entirely dependent on state and federal spending.

In the last few years you can feel the tilt and almost see the US map tipping like a giant table-top towards Washington DC, where all the hard-earned money from across the country slides rapidly across into a giant hole.

In Wisconsin a kind of civil war is unfolding between the private and public employment sectors that began when their new governor and elected legislature decided to tilt the scales back in the direction of non-government workers by having the audacity to ask public employees to pay a larger share of their pension and health insurance premiums.  Governor Scott Walker's sense of fairness was deemed so offensive to public employee unions, they launched a recall campaign against him and several legislators-- a fight Walker is sure to win, thanks in no small part to the GSA spectacle of glowing contempt shown for the public that pays its way.

The Wisconsin saga is emblematic of the public's disgust with a deepening haves versus have-nots chasm between those who work to pay for government expenditures and those who live off the taxpayer at a higher standard of living with fewer worries.

Put another way, when us ordinary citizens no longer can receive simple fairness, say an extra $47 for spending the night getting screwed by our government, they will fight back like the hooker in Cartagena and unleash much more than a giant scandal.

Those magnifcent flying machines

I stood on the banks of the Potomac River this morning to take my last glimpse at one of America's least-appreciated, most astounding technological achievements-- the Space Shuttle Orbiter Discovery, in a low-altitude flyover of the nation's capital before it came to rest, "wheel stop," at the Dulles Airport wing of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The decision to scuttle the shuttle fleet was made following the Columbia spaceflight tragedy in 2003.  Columbia, laden with precursor research experiments of the kind that would be performed on the International Space Station, was returning home to Kennedy Space Center from its long-duration space mission when a crack on the leading edge of its left wing permitted the hot plasma flows from re-encountering Earth's atmosphere to travel rapid-fire through its wing and under-belly, incinerating its internal systems and causing the orbiter to break violently apart over Texas.

The "failure mode" which destroyed Columbia and her crew of seven dedicated astronauts had caught NASA by surprise.  While a theory of her potential demise did, in fact, circulate briefly among engineers at mission control in Houston upon examining videotapes that showed icy chunks of foam from its giant external fuel tank striking the leading edge of the orbiter wing, a high-level review afterwards concluded that even if NASA had acted on the information, few practical options existed to save the crew.

Few practical options existed, too, for saving the program.  That same review drew the conclusion that flying the space shuttles beyond 2010 or thereabouts was, ultimately begging further death.  The space shuttle, the panel pointed out, had never achieved status as a truly operational system.  Because each flight was so system-specific and unique, despite repetitive success, each mission was an experimental flight, costing an average of $500 million apiece.  Moreover, the sheer complexity of the shuttle systems had aged in 30+ years unevenly and unpredictably, perhaps exceeding NASA engineers' ability to analyze and maintain them much longer.

But what a miracle it was.  Just thinking about the number of successful missions, set against the statistically stratospheric odds of disaster-- millions of inspections and opportunities for human error on every flight-- flying the space shuttle was an epic engineering and managerial feat of the highest order.  For persons who witnessed the entire shuttle program, from its inception in the 1970s until today's landing of the 747 carrier aircraft at Dulles will not see another orchestration of imagination, skill, guts and talent of this magnitude ever again.

The People's Court

Last I checked, the US is not a third-world country. One of the first things to go on the road to serfdom is our ability to uphold the rule of law, which now teeters perilously over the abyss of mob rule in the Trayvon Martin tragedy.

It’s time for George Zimmerman to clear his name.

Yes, you heard me.  After many weeks observing the aftermath of the shooting in Sanford, Fla., I believe the only way to learn the truth of what happened on Feb. 26 is for Mr. Zimmerman to be charged with manslaughter and defend himself vigorously in a court of law.

That police authorities took Mr. Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense at face-value and chose not to charge him with a crime is what lays at the heart of protest marches and public calls for “justice.”  Until either the police or Mr. Zimmerman is challenged to appear in a court of law, the mobs will grow on both sides, leading exactly to nowhere.

For Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, putting the police on trial is far better than learning what really happened.  As far as they are concerned, they’ll stand on young Trayvon Martin’s corpse shaking their fists for as long as possible and deep-down do not want the truth of what occurred to ruin their political moment.

Had Mr. Zimmerman been arrested the night of the incident, the odds are quite good that he would have been cleared by our system of jurisprudence of wrongdoing a month ago and Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson would not be on our televisions baiting the mob to hang Mr. Zimmerman in the court of public opinion.

Inasmuch as this sad event has grown out of proportion and become a national media feeding frenzy, saying that Mr. Zimmerman should face charges now would seem to be giving into the mob.  Many people who support the police and their decision to not charge Mr. Zimmerman have grown so rigid in the public opinion battle that they appear to not trust that the court system would render a fair verdict, either—that is, no more than Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson.

With passions this pitched, the two opposite sides have become indistinguishable.  Both are attempting to conduct the trial of Zimmerman v. Martin in the public square.  But that's what the courts are for.  And if, as I have heard from Florida, the courts cannot be trusted with Mr. Zimmerman's fate, perhaps we have no system left at all.  Once a society as large and diverse as ours no longer abides by community norms such as the right to trial under the rule of law, it has few steps left to go before it careens into the abyss where civil unrest turns to civic collapse.

Under our system, the only way to end this spectacle and get all the combatants back on the same page of the US Constitution is the trial of Mr. Zimmerman.  If Mr. Zimmerman’s eventual acquittal on self-defense grounds results in putting the police (or various statutes) involved on trial, too, so be it.  At least the venue for ascertaining the truth will be one established to do so, not based on heresay and public opinion polls.

What every citizen should want is that justice be served, not wrestled for by mobs in the town square.  That Mr. Zimmerman must face charges and defend himself in court in order for society to repair itself is a small sacrifice, but nonetheless befitting a man who so proudly has served his fellow citizens as the captain of his neighborhood watch.

Teeter-Totter

Risky as it is to make sweeping generalities in the midst of a crisis... The stand-off in a north Toulouse suburb between French authorities and a 24 year-old French-Algerian gunman proves extremism in the pursuit of civil liberties begets neither.

As details unfold about the suspect, Mohammed Merah, whose pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda led him to massacre students at a Jewish school and kill French soldiers a week beforehand, serious questions must be asked of French Interior Ministry officials who appear suddenly to have known quite a lot for quite a long time about Mr. Merah and his predilection for terror and did NOTHING.

There's not a doubt in my mind had someone in the US, say living in Southfield Detroit, had amassed an FBI profile merely approaching that of Mr. Merah's in France, he would have been spirited away in the night to Guantanamo.  French officials claim to know much about Mr. Merah and his preparations for the crimes he committed.  Trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan were clocked by authorities.  According to reports today, it's highly likely his phone was tapped and his bank accounts monitored at various times over the past two years.

From the NYT today:

The suspect had traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan and called himself a mujahedeen, or freedom fighter, and had been under surveillance by the French domestic intelligence service for several years, Mr. Guéant said, “though nothing whatsoever allowed us to think he was at the point of committing a criminal act.” He became a suspect on Monday afternoon, after investigators traced an IP address, used in connection with the killing of the first paratrooper 10 days ago, to the suspect’s mother, according to Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for Mr. Guéant.

So how was a creature like this not apprehended and interrogated before he could act?  The only explanation would seem to be French political correctness.

The debate in the US concerning post-9-11 civil liberties will surely get strong instruction from the tragic events in Toulouse and the more tragical lack of action by French officials to proactively disrupt terrorism.  The generally proactive US doctrine for discovering terrorist and disrupting their activities before they become crimes has been sharply debated, and for legitimate reasons of privacy and upholding the rule of law.

Pay close attention now to the facts behind Mr. Merah's capture and prosecution.  I suspect it will be repulsive to find out how much was known about his plans and intentions, and equally disturbing to discover what French political sensitivities prevented authorities from stopping these heinous acts before they happened.  American critics of proactive law enforcement, surveillance and interception will have some answering to do, too.

The (really) oldest profession

Before the written word, before caveman art or the first alphabet— all news, history, and wisdom worth “broadcasting” had to be told by the spoken word alone.  The Ancient— and we’re really talking about pre-Ancient— art and craft of story-telling was long ago the first and only “mass media.”  Long before anyone scratched a stick figure on the wall of a cave, humans communicated through who knows how many generations simply by telling stories to their children.

I imagine that by a certain time, just before cave drawing began, a person in the tribe who could remember and retell the tribe’s history in such a way so that listeners would remember and retell it just as vividly themselves, was an extremely important person.  Of necessity, these pre-Ancient storytellers had to be trusted, convincing, and above-all, memorable.  The evolution to cave drawing and the invention of words and an alphabet came untold centuries later, perhaps out of necessity; as tribes survived longer and grew larger, it became impossible to remember everything without “written” notes.

In this sense, caveman art was our first “recording media,” preceding writing on animal skins, parchment, the printing press, magnetic tape, computers, CDs, flash drives and smart-phones.  Yet, the original human media— the telling of a memorable story— was never made obsolete.  As highly successful movie producer, Peter Guber, writes in his book, “Tell to Win,” telling stories like Aesop fables or Biblical miracles motivate people in ways ordinary management dictates do not.  Guber’s book is full of stories about how telling a story is the one fool-proof way to communicate and persuade.

Arguably, Guber’s thesis is rooted in human genetics and evolution since the first two people met on Earth.  That untold numbers of centuries before the first attempt to write or draw were filled only by the spoken word, might explain humans’ innate preference for the well-spoken story.  Guber’s argument is compelling, too, because the “information age” is chock-full of gibberish, words and snippets, so often without meaning, “getting back to the story” makes practical sense.

Recently I met with a top-tier media relations group at a major multibillion dollar company.  The company’s relationship with the public is critical to business operations and public safety, to say nothing of its bottom line.  So after a number of winded exchanges about “best practices,” “reputation management,” and “audience,” I finally asked—“Ok, so what’s your story?”

The blank stare and the long, unfilled silence were not unexpected.  But after a long pause and a few sputtered thoughts, I realized that public relations and “corporate communications” has become such a rigid profession that it no longer hears what it is saying or how it is being heard.

Admittedly, my bias for the story and story-telling stems from my observations of the movie industry which generates billions of dollars out of thin air, simply by telling stories.  Before the TV rights, the DVD sales, before the box office, before the posters and the hype, before computer-generated special effects, before actors said a word, before the director, before the studio bought, before the producers lifted a finger— there was just the story (in the form of something called a script).  Everything in Hollywood happens because of the story.  The story/script is the tiny seed from which billion-dollar film franchises and other blockbusters bloom.

So if it’s good enough for pre-Ancient cavemen and post-Industrial, information-age media moguls, why is the story so unworthy of effort these days?

The simple reason is that with literally almost a million channels available now—from broadcast TV and radio to cable, to web sites, to blogs and micro-blogs, twitter and text messages— there’s such a scramble for “attention,” something that is too easily confused with “audience.”  In other words, for advertisers, marketers, and others desperate to break through the noise and back-scatter, the meaning of a story counts for less than counting “hits” or “impressions.”

Ironically, it’s this scramble for attention that makes telling a story that much more prescient.  With so many snippets and factoids zooming around, there’s a fresh opportunity for those who can make interpretations, or in today’s political vernacular, give “the narrative.”  It’s not strange to me that political pundits now refer constantly to a campaign’s or a candidate’s “narrative,” when they attempt to interpret the election year horse race.  Listen to the commentators talk about “the narrative for Rick, Newt, Ron, Mitt, Barack…”

If only the candidates themselves would tell their stories rather than let pundits interpret "the narrative."

Politics has long been called the “second-oldest profession” after you-know-what.  But given the span of civilization and its love affair with story-telling and what being the story-teller meant in societies and tribes for centuries before the written word was invented, I simply disagree.