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CSMonitor

A new high school in Philadelphia is more likely to be named after Wal-Mart than Walt Whitman.

That's because the public school district wants to sell the school name for a cool $5 million. Not only is the name for this state-of-the-art school up for sale, but so are names for separate classrooms, the auditorium, and other sections of the building. A school official says those additional naming rights could mean upwards of $15 million for the project. (On the plus side, no alcohol or tobacco companies are allowed to make bids.)

How much is too much when it comes to a commercial presence in public schools - especially when advertising already has pervaded those schools through vending machines, scoreboards, and banners?

Many school districts rely on state lotteries to help fund education costs - a less than reliable, or honorable, source of income. If corporations want to help schools, they should also be helping to show students that corporate citizenship doesn't have to involve crass marketing ploys, such as plastering a corporate name on a public building. Microsoft, for instance, is offering considerable expertise in building that new school in Philly, but not attaching its name to it.

Schools typically are named after Americans of extraordinary achievement - noted leaders, astronauts, athletes - or heroes who served as role models for kids. By selling naming rights to a company, a school unfortunately is sending the message that the heroes of tomorrow are the giant corporations of today, with students seen mostly as just a big marketing opportunity.

Schools should be places where learning takes precedence over advertising hype. And their funding should largely come from taxpaying citizens.

Okay, that's fairly calm. Now this, from the Philadelphia Inquirer, It's so sarcastic it's darn near shrill. In other words, I'm Lovin' it.®

Why stop at names? Go whole hog!

The Philadelphia School District thinks it can score $5 million by selling off the naming rights to a new public high school it is building in West Philadelphia.

Hey, why stop there?

Once you get the hang of auctioning your values to the highest bidder, it's addictive. Who knows how lucrative it might become? The woods are full of marketers eager to get their paws on the next generation of consumers as soon as they can.

No money to increase teacher pay? Not a problem. Just let educators market themselves to advertisers, keeping the fees they'd earn for plastering their shirts and sweaters with corporate logos just like a NASCAR driver or golf pro.

Today's health lesson brought to you by Fruit Gushers, kids. Today's Spanish exercise: Pretend you're a customer in a Taco Bell, and order a gordita. Today's lab experiment is sponsored by Dow Chemical. (And no one will mind, will they, if the good people from Dow get to edit that textbook chapter on the Vietnam War just a little bit?)

Come to think of it, the students themselves are a huge, unrealized marketing opportunity. Why not let corporations sponsor kids directly? The young already are used to wearing clothes slathered in logos. It's the logical next step. The latest Adam Sandler movie could sponsor the class clown; he could do a glowing movie review for Show and Tell. Def Jam could hire the baddest kid in 11th grade to front for its latest rap CD.

Really, this whole notion that public schools are some kind of sacred space, where the ideals of learning and citizenship should take precedence over the habits of mass consumption and marketing hype... well, it's just so 20th century.

So is that fuddy-duddy idea that schools should be named after civic heroes whom you'd want students to study and emulate. Who believes in heroes anymore? Civic values? Pfft. They don't help the bottom line, the district's or the nation's. What this economy needs are pliant consumers.

The public clearly doesn't want to pay for its so-called public schools, anyway, so why bother seeking fair funding through democratic process? It's such tedious, tiring work. You have to use the T word (taxes) and that irks the natives.

Just make the sale and collect the cash. It's the American way.

I've got ninety thousand pounds in my pyjamas,
I've got forty thousand french francs in my fridge.
I've got lots of lovely Lire,
Now the Deutschemark's getting dearer,
And my Dollar bills would buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Chorus: There is nothing quite as wonderful as money,
There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash.
Some people say it's folly,
But I'd rather have the lolly,
With money you can ma-ake a splash.

There is nothing quite wonderful as money,
There is nothing like a newly minted pound,
Everyone must hanker for the butchness of a banker,
It's accountancy that makes the world go round.
Round,round,round, round.

You can keep your Marxist ways
For it's only just a phase.
For it's money money money makes the world go rouuuund.
Money,money,money,money money,money,money,money
moneeeeeeeeeeeyyyy!

Python [Words] : money.mp3 - 163kb

---

BW-MSNBC

Warren Buffett is famous for two things. First, for amassing the second-biggest fortune in the U.S. as one of the most talented investors the world has ever known. Second, for an aversion to spending a dime of that $41 billion on anything but the strictly necessary. That includes declining to provide his kids with fortunes of their own, collecting yachts or racehorses, or giving large chunks of his wealth to worthy causes. Thus it may strike some as the supreme paradox that the man who is one of America's greatest misers in life will probably become one of its greatest philanthropists in death...

[But] Rather than hoard their GDP-sized fortunes, many in the Top 50 became more extravagant in their charity this year, urged on by a growing belief that the value of solving problems today is greater than bequeathing the money when they die. And by accelerating their giving and doling out large sums, they have a better chance of effecting change. "The realization is that it takes that much money to move the dial," says Paul Jansen, the director of McKinsey & Co.'s nonprofit practice.

As this belief spreads, experts say the ranks of the mega-givers are sure to grow, especially as the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history looms on the horizon, with at least $41 trillion estimated to change hands by 2052 -- $6 trillion of which is projected to go to charity, according to Boston College's John J. Havens and Paul. G. Schervish. Even the most youthful on the Top 50 are participating in the acceleration and mega-gift trends. Michael and Susan Dell, 39 and 40 respectively, followed pledges of nearly $300 million in 1999 and 2001 for children's causes with one that was more than twice that size last year. Says Cheryl Saban, 53, who with husband Haim Saban is ranked No. 46: "You get to a point where it makes you a lot happier to buy a defibrillator for a hospital than another piece of Lalique."

[snip]

No delay in giving
By throwing big bets at targeted causes, the mega-givers are a foil to U.S. foundations, which have been lambasted by critics and legislators for dispensing just 5% of their assets each year, including administrative costs. This enables them to maintain their "corpus," so they can operate in perpetuity, but critics say they could afford to give much more. Pointing to the delay in social benefit, a recent McKinsey study by Jansen and David Katz found that keeping all this cash on the sidelines rather than giving it out now diminishes its power to address problems by as much as 50%.

By donating virtually all of their assets to charity, and doing it during their lifetimes, many of the Top 50 also stand in contrast to their fellow wealth holders. On average, the nation's richest 1% -- who own two-fifths of U.S. wealth -- donate just 2% of their incomes each year, vs. 6% for families in the bottom income bracket. Fully 20% of the wealthiest estates leave absolutely nothing behind to charity. By contrast, AMF Bowling Chairman William Goodwin and his wife, Alice, have donated three-fifths of their wealth to cancer research and education; the Moores have given almost two-thirds of theirs to conservation and science; and American Century Cos. founder James E. Stowers Jr. and his wife, Virginia, have handed over more than two-thirds of their holdings to fund the Stowers Institute for medical research in Kansas City.

Still, these individual examples of largesse aren't enough to convince everyone that the rich are doing enough. Entertainment mogul Saban lambastes those who stand sentry over their piles. Although many in Hollywood do give, he thinks the entertainment industry needs to do much more. "I think a guy like [Viacom Inc. (VIA ) Chairman] Sumner M. Redstone, who's worth $8 billion, should get off the pot and start giving something rather than counting it from morning to night," says Saban during a phone interview from his Beverly Hills home. A Redstone spokesperson says: "Unlike some others, Mr. Redstone prefers to give privately. He is a significant contributor to the fights against HIV/AIDS and cancer, as well as burn-therapy programs." [More? (Hah!)]

...get off the pot and start giving something rather than counting it from morning to night? Ouch! And I thought Redstone was the crotchety-feisty one. Maybe Saban's Power Rangers® really are modelled after Robin Hood's Merry Men and similar band Archetypes of lore.

Yo, Strategic Communication Professionals!

Here's a market research document you can get your teeth into. It's about a brand suffering self-inflicted wounds of arrogance, myopia, stubborn resistance to changing demographics and willful ignorance of consumer desires. You know the phrase, " to the man who owns a hammer..."? There you go. I've synopsized some of the details:

• Marketing consists of tired cliches unironically and lackadaisically repackaged as fresh, relevant and compelling.

• Field reports and terminally high customer dissatisfaction numbers point out wholesale message failure. Headquarters response has been 'more of the same, louder this time."

• Strategic alliances and sympathetic franchisees are regularly given the impression of team membership and "open door" policy, only to be rebuffed when not meeting their practical and intended role as "rubber stamp" entities and helpful window dressing.

• Decisionmaking is chaotic and clustered amongst a few select mangerial elite, often leaving operations, distribution and marketing personnel struggling to rationalize the resultant unpredictable lurching and it's consequences to anxious subordinates and to a rapidly dwindling, disgruntled customer base. New initiatives and personnel come and go with much fanfare and little resulting follow-through, integration or benchmarking. Mid-level long-time direct-reports backchannel dismay at "imported" Senior executives placed in Divisional leadership positions outside their core experience, competence and interest.

• Underperforming Strategic Business Units in post-mature sectors receive the lion's share of management attention and corporate resources draining personnel, morale and cash from future revenue engines and untapped markets. Business development. and R&D is at a standstill excepting token efforts in the previously noted post-mature sectors. Brain drain soars, institutional memory and executional skill are seriously diminishing.

• Sales and promotion regimes and incentives are dictated top down and forego any localized adjustment to counter competitive claims or past company underperformance and underdelivery thereby seriously damaging salesforce credibility and negotiation power. (S.O.P is now exhorbitant 'give-backs'; rebates, refunds and spiffs merely to retain reluctant and suspicious customers to, in turn, maintan the appearance of a stable, albeit static market share.)

• As measured against the above marketplace realities, investment and ROI of capital, structures, vehicles and systems is past breakpoint and headed steeply south. Employee churn charts new highs, Brand "goodwill" is in freefall. Creditors, industry analysts and ratings agencies are using the words "crisis," "disaster and "willfull negligence" more and more, often in the same sentence.

Phew. It reads like other forensic organizational audits I've written, read or remediated, only worse--What a basketcase. And, what simple--i.e.: mindless mistakes. It's curative recommendations are, likewise, 8th-grade basic.

The company? Yours. Or, rather, you're a shareholder.

Introducing one hellaciously busted brand, America!™, as assessed by none other than the Defense Science Board of your Department of Defense. The document? Their 2004 Strategic Communications Audit [pdf - 1.7mb - 111pp] The group's bona fides? Here's a sampling of the kinds of whack-jobs they are:

Currently, the Board’s authorized strength is thirty-two members and seven ex officio members (the chairmen of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Policy, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and Defense Intelligence Agency advisory committees). The members are appointed for terms ranging from one to four years and are selected on the basis of their preeminence in the fields of science, technology and its application to military operations, research, engineering, manufacturing and acquisition process.

In case that 111 pages makes your head hurt, well, here's one of several meaty pieces in the executive summary that say, yes, we have a massive communication challenge, but it stems mostly from misguided strategic understanding and reactive, narrow-sweep policy skills. In other words, calling a cowchip a Lily of the Field may make you feel better about your product, but it leaves Flower Consumers feeling unfulfilled and reticent to recommend repeat purchase. Put even simpler, "You can't buff a turd."

The Task Force met with representatives from the National Security Council (NSC), White House Office of Global Communications, Department of State (DOS), Department of Defense (DOD), Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), and the private sector (the schedule of meetings, briefings and discussions is contained in Appendix C). Based on extensive interaction with a broad range of sectors in the government, commercial, and academic worlds, as well as a series of highly interactive internal debates, we have reached the following conclusions and recommendations.

This Task Force concludes that U.S. strategic communication must be transformed. America’s negative image in world opinion and diminished ability to persuade are consequences of factors other than failure to implement communications strategies.

Interests collide. Leadership counts. Policies matter. Mistakes dismay our friends and provide enemies with unintentional assistance. Strategic communication is notthe problem, but it is a problem.

Understanding the problem. Strategic communication is a vital component of U.S. national security. It is in crisis, and it must be transformed with a strength of purpose that matches our commitment to diplomacy, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security. Presidential leadership and the bipartisan political will of Congress are essential. Collaboration between government and the private sector on an unprecedented scale is imperative.

To succeed, we must understand the United States is engaged in a generational and global struggle about ideas, not a war between the West and Islam. It is more than a war against the tactic of terrorism. We must think in terms of global networks, both government and non-government. If we continue to concentrate primarily on states (“getting it right” in Iraq, managing the next state conflict better), we will fail. Chapter 2 of this report examines the complex nature of this new paradigm and implications for sustained and imaginative action.

Strategic communication requires a sophisticated method that maps perceptions and influence networks, identifies policy priorities, formulates objectives, focuses on “doable tasks,” develops themes and messages, employs relevant channels, leverages new strategic and tactical dynamics, and monitors success. This approach will build on in-depth knowledge of other cultures and factors that motivate human behavior. It will adapt techniques of skillful political campaigning, even as it avoids slogans, quick fixes, and mind sets of winners and losers. It will search out credible messengers and create message authority. It will seek to persuade within news cycles, weeks, and months. It will engage in a respectful dialogue of ideas that begins with listening and assumes decades of sustained effort. Just as importantly, through evaluation and feedback, it will enable political leaders and policymakers to make informed decisions on changes in strategy, policies, messages, and choices among instruments of statecraft. Chapter 3 of this report addresses ways in which strategic communication can be generated and managed with effect.

Leadership from the top. A unifying vision of strategic communication starts with Presidential direction. Only White House leadership, with support from cabinet secretaries and Congress, can bring about the sweeping reforms that are required.

Nothing shapes U.S. policies and global perceptions of U.S. foreign and national security objectives more powerfully than the President’s statements and actions, and those of senior officials. Interests, not public opinion, should drive policies. But opinions must be taken into account when policy options are considered and implemented. At a minimum, we should not be surprised by public reactions to policy choices. Policies will not succeed unless they are communicated to global and domestic audiences in ways that are credible and allow them to make informed, independent judgments. Words in tone and substance should avoid offence where possible; messages should seek to reduce, not increase, perceptions of arrogance, opportunism, and double standards. These objectives mean officials must take full advantage of powerful tools to measure attitudes, understand cultures, and assess influence structures – not occasionally but as an iterative process. Policies and strategic communication cannot be separated.... [All emphasis theirs.]

G'head. It's a fun, clear and candid read from an unusual source. It reminds me that I won't ever appreciate the skills of George Bush, CEO, for the same reason I don't particularly enjoy the work of Al Dunlap or Dennis Kozlowski or Pauly Shore.

Wow. My last 12 months of blog-posts in 1533 words

Yep, I missed the anniversary date, October 25. Covered a lot of stuff since then, and thanks to all for reading and commenting and linking!, but as far as the political content of this jumble of typos goes, the following article emailed by a family friend wraps much of it up in a nice tight ball.

Michael Ventura writes the Letters At 3 A.M. column for the Austin Chronicle

Dancing in the dark

Joe Hill was a labor organizer executed on trumped-up charges in Utah in 1915. The night before his murder he telegrammed his comrades: "Don't waste your time in mourning. Organize."

I once shook the hand of a man who shook his hand. In the spirit of passing that handshake on, here are some thoughts the day after the election:

• It's after a defeat that you find out what you're made of. Cry if you must, cry it all out, but don't let the bastards sap your vitality.

• In 1964, arch-conservative Barry Goldwater was crushed at the polls. Everybody thought conservatism was forever politically dead in America. But conservatives regrouped, rethought, and organized patiently from the ground up; when fundamentalist religion became a force in the mid-Seventies, they were ready to take advantage of it. In 1980, they elected Reagan. Dig: It took them 16 years. American progressives seriously started mass-scale organizing only about a year ago. In just one year we came within reach of victory.

That's remarkable. Now is no time to quit.

• Iraq is a mess and it'll get worse. Our military is way overextended. To keep present troop levels, Bush will renege on his promise and institute a draft – probably next spring, so that he can recover by the midterm elections. Rural poor are already fighting this war; a draft won't change their vote (though continued failure in Iraq might). But the conservatives of the middle class will be hit hard by a draft; that will change the present equation considerably. Progressives must stay organized and ready to help them. Reach out to save their kids – and ours.

• Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said recently that he sees a 75% chance of "financial catastrophe" within five years. That's his polite Establishment way of saying that an economic shitstorm is on the horizon and could hit anytime. Any mix of oil hikes, credit trouble, unemployment, interest hikes, etc., could set it off. Also: The European Union, China, and Southern Asia have been hanging back, hoping we Americans would clean our own house and vote Bush out. We failed. They can't afford to hang back any longer. The U.S., thrown into heavy debt by Bush, now depends on these powers to buy our bonds. Their collective hand is on our financial spigot and they'll start turning it slowly toward "off." They'll do it carefully, but they'll do it, because it's the only check they have on Bush America. They needn't cut their investment much to make us hurt. Combine the two – our internal weaknesses and dependence on foreign financing – and we're in big trouble. Bitching about that won't be enough, as this election proved. Progressives must offer an analysis and alternatives, and present them in a way that badly educated people can understand.

• Since the mid-Sixties, progressives lost white working stiffs because we talked down to them. We dissed their work, their desires, their beliefs, their religions. We made them Other, matching their bigotries with a new one all our own. On Election Day 2004 we paid full price for that. No working man or woman is my enemy. Their struggle, their endurance, is to be respected. They may be foolish and desperate enough to follow people who lie to them, but they've got too much self-respect to follow people who look down on them. They're terrified. They're unequipped for the complexities and paradoxes of the 21st century and they know it, and they resent like hell all those who accept leaving them behind as the price of entering the 21st century. Progressives have got to accept what this election made painfully clear: Either we all proceed or none of us do. It's the greatest challenge and the biggest lesson of this election: We've got to learn how to talk to these people. They are our fellow sharers in America. They may not know or want that, but we must; and we must act and speak accordingly. Whitman must be our guide: "I will not have a single person slighted or left away."

• Don't demonize people who disagree with you. That's how Bush and Cheney behave. Behavior is more important than belief. What does belief matter, if your behavior apes your enemy's? Behavior shapes reality. Belief merely justifies reality. Demonization creates demons. Your enemies are as human as you are. If you treat them that way, the outcome may surprise you.

• Never underestimate the power of the Irrational. At every critical juncture of history, the Irrational has been a potent, often decisive force. At times whole peoples go insane – Europe in World War I, Germany throughout Hitler's reign, America during the Red Scare. This is one of those times. Realize that you're in the midst of it. Things may get so irrational that nothing will work. In that case, what's our job? To dedicate our lives to preserving and passing on what we love so that if things ever get sane again there'll be something left. Which may be a way of saying: Like Joe Hill, lose beautifully. That beauty may be something the future can build on.

This election was about identity. The concrete issues – Iraq, the economy – ultimately didn't matter. Bush didn't lose the debates, after all. He incessantly told his base that their wish to return to the national identity of the 1950s was personified in him. He reassured them that America was a force unto itself, an entity that could create its own reality, and that this reality was anything he said it was. He told them, through coded language that they well understood, that the 21st century would be the same as the 20th, and that being an American was identity enough. He was saying to the terrified and the left-behind: "You don't have to grow, you don't have to change, you don't have to be anything other than what you are – leave the rest to me. I will fill your emptiness, validate your God, still your terror."

Kerry's logic couldn't pierce that. His command of the facts threatened everyone intimidated by the very facts that seemed to win him the debates. They didn't want to hear it. Reasoned judgment versus passionate belief? Passion wins over reason every time. Democrats played reason, Republicans played passion. End of story. A progressive strategy? Never surrender reason, but remember: We're passionate, too. Passionate about genuine liberty and genuine justice for all. Compromise that – play to a now nonexistent middle ground – and all is lost.

• Let's say this loud: THE ISSUE OF GAY MARRIAGE DID NOT DOOM THIS ELECTION. You may measure the unhappiness of heterosexual marriage by the ferocity of the opposition to gay marriage. Listen to the country music that rural red counties listen to: The hits are about the failure of males and females to get together. In trailer park or penthouse, half the marriages end in divorce and many that don't are shameful compromises. Marriage, in America, is in a state of unbridled panic. That panic, not gay rights, helped doom this election – the panic of people trying to hold on to something that really isn't there anymore. Progressives must stand passionately with all who seek their fair share of the Bill of Rights.

• My friend Deborah said today: "Bush manipulated through fear, and the people who voted for him are filled with fear. We're buying into it somehow. He generated it, we voted against it, but now we're creating it. That's something that leaves us vulnerable. We're not any different from the other people." She's right. Bush's re-election has driven many into a despairing fear. Which is just where he wants you to be. That fear you feel inside – that's Bush himself, inside you. Act out of fear and the fear will increase. Courage doesn't mean not being afraid; courage means doing what's necessary in spite of your fear, even because of it.

Remember: We've only been organizing on a mass scale for about a year, and we almost won. If more of the poor, the endangered, and the young had voted, we would have won. We must keep those we organized and reach out to those we failed to organize. The poor and the endangered don't have many computers; they're not on the Net. Politics is still local. Organizing from the ground up means from the ground up, face to face, speaking words that people can understand, showing them how they can have a chance to change things and helping them take that chance. It's only a chance, but it's not a delusion. Election Day is not set in stone. Our world is in ferocious flux. In that flux, in the very thing that frightens us most, is our chance.

Just one more thing: Nothing is less appealing or more boring than solemnity. The old-time lefties who gave us Social Security, the civil rights movement, the 35-hour week, and the original (now shredded) social safety net – they partied, sang, danced, feted, all the damn time. They were famous for it. These are dark days and they're going to get darker, but the dark side of the day has always been my favorite time for dancing.

Great moments in Redundancy: "Mood Music."

Jon, over at Business Evolutionist has a great post on the Future of Radio. I like his conclusion: Genre is limiting, Mood programming is the real end product, because feel is why we buy music:

Now, I think that radio needs to better understand what people want. Some radio stations will exist longer than others, there will always be demand for Top 40 or news, those stations will last the longest - regardless of the underlying technology infrastructure delivering the music (satellite, etc). But the radio stations that want to be in business 10 years from now will need to better understand how consumers choose music. Let me give you an example, we just got a new radio station in my area - Smooth Jazz 92.7, they play (shockingly) smooth jazz (FULL DISCLOSURE: I know one of the DJs). It isn't that I like or even know half the artists on the station, but the music is essentially all the same and I know how I will feel when I listen to it, actually, they've transcended "genre" and they're offering "mood". The radio station that can do that, does have a future, albeit a short one. Genre can be all over the map, mood is a much better programming method. If a radio station decides that they will go this route, they'll have to understand that they will give up listeners because not everyone will be in that mood all the time (yikes, did I just write that?). For instance, I listen to the Jazz station mostly in the evening, when I'm reading, etc. When I'm driving to work, for instance, I don't want to listen to Stairway to Heaven - I want Master of Puppets. On the drive home however, I want to know about traffic and Master of Puppets isn't quite right... perhaps some Jeff Buckley or Alicia Keys.

Think about it, radio stations program their music by genre, but most peoples CD collection is all over the map. Right? Our CD collection, currently around 400, is so diverse and eclectic that it defies categorization. Sure, there are some CDs of mine that my wife will never listen to... and some of hers that I will never, ever listen to, but it is all over the map - from ABBA to Zebra - and there is probably no radio station in the world that has played songs from both of those artists.

Got ABBA. Got Air. Got Aerosmith and Argent. But no Zebra. Does Buckwheat Zydeco count? My .02: Wow. Right on with the idea of transmitting mood. That's how I select and program my own "radio station"--my collection of mp3s on PC and those self-burned CDs. If "it's the experience economy, stupid" (and it is is, right?), why the hell are so many industries that should really know better repeating the past *rudimentary* mistakes of the IBMs and the Railroads and you name its? Never mind, I'm sure we all know the answer. The weird part is, marketers have known since the advent of reel-to-reel and cassettes that people do program their own collections into compilations themed around feeling states--a jump start for the heart or a cool down, if you will--high school, college, 'mellow,' 'raging,' or whathaveyou. They even sell products like the minidisc or iPod showing handwritten "labels" made by art directors for the product shoots with names like "Sunday Morning Papers" or "Beach or Bust."

Who are the A&R people researching these evocative moments and creating the understanding of what makes one different from the other? And what we get from them? That's Golden Goose territory.

Jon's got more on the topic, as well as some interesting comments, some from inside the radio biz.

Happy Thanksgiving

Tom Terez loses a special person

And captures the ongoing meaning of legacy. From Tom's email newsletter: Tom's

ON A PERSONAL NOTE...

I've been receiving lots of e-mails and calls from concerned
people asking whether I've packed up and shipped off to some
new vocation. Many of the inquiries have been from long-time
subscribers to this e-letter. They've noticed that after more
than two years of consistent delivery, the e-letter stopped
showing up in their in-box. So what's going on?

The short answer is that life and death intervened. My 84-year-
old father, who had been living in a wonderful assisted-living
residence close to my house, came down with pneumonia. He
spent time in the hospital, followed by seven weeks at a skilled-
nursing facility, followed by three touch-and-go weeks back in
assisted living. Then he fell, apparently from a stroke, and
was rushed back to the hospital. He held on for three weeks,
but each day brought new problems -- and he passed away on
October 18.

I spent much of that time with him. When I wasn't with him I
was consulting with doctors, nurses, therapists, ministers,
family members, and others. After his death, I devoted myself
to the funeral and our family gatherings. Only now am I getting
back to my pre-summer priorities, one of which is this e-letter.
Thank you for your understanding...and expect to receive the
"Better Workplace Now" e-letter once again on a regular basis.

LIFE AND LEGACY

My Dad was a tremendous person in every way: a nurturing
father, a loving husband, a great neighbor, an empowering
manager at work, a brilliant inventor and engineer, and a
compassionate person all around.

Two years ago, I wrote an article about his life. It's really an
article about legacy, with important and inspiring lessons for
all of us who want to make a difference.

The full article is directly below.

LEAVING A BRIGHT LEGACY

by Tom Terez (September 2002)

Whenever I flick on a light these days, I think about invention and
pride. I find myself asking questions like, "What have I created
today?" "What have I done that's meaningful?" "What am I leaving
behind?"

It's all because of my father, Clarence Terez. He's 82 years old
now, shaky from a stroke he had 10 years ago. But for 43 years,
until his retirement in 1983, he worked as a mechanical engineer
and machine designer for GE's lamp division. He and his colleagues
invented machines that produced incandescent lamps that brought
light to homes and offices throughout the world....

Finish reading this great piece here

Gossage.

Gossage. Gossage. Gossage. Of the many people I revere, Howard Gossage maintains a special role. His ideas and attitude and insight gave me hope when I was considering leaving "sales" for "marketing." Oddly enough, when I 'arrived' in 'advertising', I found a group of people who, for the large part, hadn't heard of Gossage. And it showed. In many aspects of their execution and realization. The beauty of Gossage was that he spent time with people -- he wandered amongst the masses and accrued the similarities rather than collecting the miniscule practical diffferences.

Here's an excellent site on the man, put together by Meenakshi Gautam, who seems to have been an advertising student at the time.

Art imitates life?

Was doublechecking my understanding of some recent neuromarketing research on Coke as the quintessential American bonding-brand as reported by Britain's The Times and what should I see as a banner ad but this....



AAL.UK

Lovely. Two creatives, sitting around digging for ideas--"Lower fares? Travel for less? To the US? Less, smaller, reduced? Yes! America reduced--with Lady Liberty! In a snow globe! High five!"

See, the problem is that this pretty much approximates the declension of America's "star" in the global universe, especially the "Old Europe" parts that love opportunities to point out the feet of clay attached to said Green Lady holding a very large Bic.

"America reduced? Tell us something we don't know, love. Try petty and Napoleonic, next time."

Stupid idea. Counterproductive idea for a Multi-national corporation like AAL Bad ad. Kick the Creative Director and Client marketer in the ass.

I'll take Black, Performance White, Screaming Yellow or Sonic Blue

But, puhleeze, where's the shaker scoop? And the hood stripe? I needs my stripe! And better wheels! And a..

Via metacool: NYT

...The release of the new Mustang has set off a stampede of interest across the country. Many point to its retro style, three years in the making, with cues from the 1960's and 70's. Some cite the upgraded V8 engine, with greater horsepower than last year's model. There's the fairly affordable price, starting at $19,410 for the V-6 and $24,995 for the V-8 GT. But Ford appears to have tapped into something else: an emotional reaction strong enough to turn some buyers into auto stalkers.

"They're physically following the truck in and saying, `I'll take that car,' " said Brian Carlson, fleet sales manager at Earnhardt Ford in Tempe, Ariz. The dealership received and sold 10 Mustangs in two weeks. The cars that did not sell right off the carrier were on the lot for two days at most.

Kathy West, a computer support technician from Hope Mills, N.C., was driving to a furniture store one evening last month with her husband, Ryan, when they spotted a yellow V-6 at a dealership. "Ryan said, `Turn around! Turn around!' " she recalled.

Less than three hours later, they had traded in her Ford Explorer S.U.V., bought the Mustang and driven it home — a purchase that Ms. West, 33, hadn't even considered until she saw the car. She did take a test drive before buying, but they didn't leave the lot to make a decision. "We both knew it wouldn't be there when we came back," she said. The only problem: "It was really dirty. Everybody had their fingerprints on it."

She was lucky to find a Mustang. McCarville Ford in Centereach, N.Y., has presold its entire allotment of Mustangs through January — just 15 cars. "I could sell a lot more if I could get them," said Mike McCarville, the owner. To make sure he has something to show the dozen or so gawkers who turn up every day, he doesn't let the new owners take their cars home until the next shipment comes in.

With supply limited so far, buying early has disadvantages. Forget about making a deal on the price. Paul Russell, a marketing manager at Ford, said that many cars are selling for $1,500 over the sticker price. Last week, nearly 20 dealers were auctioning new models at eBay Motors for thousands more than manufacturer's suggested retail price.

Over the last two decades, Mustang's annual sales have fluctuated — 225,290 in 1980, down to 80,247 in 1991 and back to the mid-100,000 range for the last four years, according to Autodata, an auto market research firm. As of last week, Mr. Russell said, dealers had already ordered 42,000 Mustangs for this model year.

The cars should be more available in the next few months, and shoppers will have the option of a convertible this spring, as well as different trim levels and more engine choices.

Interest in the new Mustang has been building for some time. Early drawings and photos appeared in car magazines and on car-related Web sites by late 2002. In 2003, concept models of the coupe and the convertible made the rounds at auto shows around the country, generating plenty of interest. "Some of the regional shows were upset because we didn't have enough of the prototypes to go around," Mr. Russell said. "It was our most requested vehicle."A production model appeared at the shows in January of this year, and that same month, interest was high enough for dealers to begin taking orders.

OF course, Mustang also has the benefit of a 40-year history — and a corps of romantics who have always loved the car for its early image of power and adventure.

"People go to showrooms just to see the Mustang," said Joe Barker, a manager at the auto research firm CSM Worldwide, "even if they're not a serious buyer." [more]

Way cool. Very R-complex. High drool factor. The same whiplash effect as when Mazda whapped America with the Miata in the mid-80s--"Hey, a tingly-car!" But knowing how and why, that's the key. Slingshot into your idealized future using the idealized past as your jetpack. If you're older, a metaphorical do-over. If you're younger, a do-it-right-the-first-time, with muscle, not priss. Car = Arrrr! Now, imagine if the rest of the business world would get their butts in gear and splash around in the limbic well to find the true nature of their product and the intrinsic power and identity in their craft. Wait. What am I saying? That would be silly. Duh. Where was I? Oh, yeah--Vroooom! Brah-brah-brah-brah-Vrooom!

CEO Pr0n

PWC

Why not take a look at the results of the prestigious Financial Times/PricewaterhouseCoopers World's Most Respected Companies survey to discover:

• Which companies senior executives have voted the most respected in the world?
• Who in the eyes of their peers are the top business leaders?
• What are the names of the companies creating most value for their shareholders?
• Where can you find the companies that display the most integrity, commitment to corporate governance and corporate social responsibility?
• Why is innovation seen to be so important and which companies are displaying it?

PWC's 2004 World's Most Respected Companies



PWC's 2004 World's Most Respected Leaders

Fearless Ferrets flummoxed

Well, after a long day of demos, more demos, judges interviews and presentation this past Saturday, our Fearless Ferrets are forlorn. Fuzzy, their robot, performed well in development but when the chips were down he flaked out. Near as our post-op diagnostics can determine we fell prey to errant infrared signals from other teams beaming programs to their bots while we were doing the same from our laptop. Once we figured out the reason for the ghosts in our machine, we were at the 3rd, final round of tasks and a change of batteries was called for. We had a choice: tear the robot apart to install fresh batteries to power motors and movement sequences that had been tweaked to compensate for diminishing power (and confusion). Or, take our chances. Since the kids figured Fuzzy probably would have flipped himself into orbit or smashed though the LEGO table he was supposed to be placing a tray of LEGO "food" on, we figured we'd leave well enough alone. Too bad. Fuzzy's best round managed 2 of the 5 tasks he was programmed for, the first two rounds managing none and then one. That put us too far down in the points to send us to State finals at Virginia Tech in December, no matter how well we did on the other segments of the day.

And therein lay the day's bright spot: As mentioned, we thought our research and presentation rocked, and so did the judges. Altough Fisher's real mascot is a Flamingo (yeah, I know) they decided on Ferrets for this event for reasons of resourcefulness inquisitiveness and, yes, fearless wayfinding and pushing of boundaries. They wove a great and uplifting rationale with fact and story and found the heroic in being physically challenged without being maudlin or patronizing. And, out of the 22 teams, they pulled Second Place! Yay, Ferrets! Not bad at all for a team of dog-and-pony novices in a very experienced field.

But fear not, and don't cry for them, Argentina Falkland Islands....(sorry) ....still full of fight and fortitude, a new Fisher Team (Fruitbats? Fungi? Fungoes?), and maybe a Fuzzy 2.0, will be back. And this time, it's personal! (What am I saying? It's always personal.)

Return of the UnderDogFerret

Interesting week so far. Begins with a new client looking to turn the post-9-11 Security Industry on its head. An underdog, with heart and talent and energy. Our kind of people. And it ends this weekend with yet another test of wits for our always-favorite underdogs--Fisher Model School.

Different group of kids, different competition from last April's come-from-nowhere Richmond City Mind Games® Champs. This time, it's the regionals of the national First LEGO® League. It's a robotics- and research-oriented competition themed "No Limits" for this year, focusing on the physically challenged. The kids had to design, build and program a robotic vehicle to tackle seemingly simple tasks such as opening doors, picking up a CD and finding your way without sight in a visual-centric world. 2 minutes 30 seconds for their programmed robot to perform as many tasks as possible, for points. Then, a presentation and Judges Q & A to compete for the remaining 75 points. Their presentation rocks.

It's been a very cool and very fun 8 weeks. These kids have learned about sequencing and movement by assembling the frames of their own silent movie and by personally interviewing Special Needs teachers and a variety of disabled people. They get the idea of systems thinking and the power of small adjustments. They know rudimentary sign language and are using it on each other in the hallways (the first txt msgs?). Best of all, they've reduced the perceptive difference between themselves and people they once couldn't understand or hadn't really thought about. Oh, and yeah, that freedom isn't an abstract concept. In their words, their robot "'fuzzy' is about ability, the thing everbody wants and deserves." Wow. Fourth Grade and they already understand that leadership isn't inspiring others to achieve, but helping them to self-inspire. You didn't hear it from me, but who cares if they win... Mission Accomplished.

[UPDATE: Forgot to mention the all-important interviews and "ethnography" above.

How 'Dungeons' changed the world

Boston Globe

How 'Dungeons' changed the world

FOR A WHILE, it seemed, I was part of a generation with no discernable qualities, no great contribution to American culture. Too young to be boomers, too old to be "Gen X," this generation was a product of the burned out excess of the seventies married to the surface glow of the eighties. But here in 2004, I realize I belong to the luckiest generation, and not only that, I am part of the luckiest sub-culture within. Maybe we didn't give the world the Beatles or John Updike, but we gave the world Dungeons and Dragons....

A nice piece from the Globe. We spent our time reading Vonnegut and Heinlein when we weren't pretending to be Elvis Costello or watching Kurosawa and Roger Corman flicks, so I never really got the bug, although one friend disappeared seemingly for weeks at a time. But the mythology? Still makes perfect sense.

Paranoia will destroi-ya. We become that which we claim to hate

Zbigniew Brzezinski, October 28, 2003

Since the tragedy of 9/11... we have increasingly embraced ... a phrase repeatedly used at the highest level, "he who is not with us is against us." I say repeatedly because actually some months ago I did a computer check to see how often it's been used at the very highest level in public statements.

The count then quite literally was 99. So it's a phrase which obviously reflects a deeply felt perception. I strongly suspect the person who uses that phrase doesn't know its historical or intellectual origins. It is a phrase popularized by Lenin when he attacked the social democrats on the grounds that they were anti-Bolshevik and therefore he who is not with us is against us and can be handled accordingly.

Paranoia will destroi-ya. Sure it will. And the vortex created spindles and mutilates everything you once believed, and your children's legacy is the wreckage of a future you create, but will not recognize and will be ashamed to admit to in public places. You will do violence to your self and friends to avoid that ownership of a hope gone hideously awry. You will have "become Death, the destroyer of worlds"

Too dramatic? Nah, "worlds" are not just physical things but also spaces in your heart and your head. Death by loneliness or rage or confusion as easily as by bullet, bomb or bludgeon. The vortex whirls... Talk radio is eviscerating Colin Powell as I type this. My Republican friends are oddly mute about this election. The birds ain't singin'. The Purges begin... Dallas Morning News

The elephant in the room: GOP schism

Many moderates say they no longer feel invited to the party

A win doesn't mean that all is well in the Republican Party.

Though their candidate came out ahead on Nov. 2, some moderate Republicans are as despondent as Democrats. While Christian conservatives have been credited with turning out like-minded voters in crucial swing states, many moderates say they have been marginalized.

"There is no future for moderate and progressive Republicans in the Republican Party," said Jim Scarantino, president of the centrist GOP group Mainstream 2004. "The far right wing and the fanatics have seized control."

Mr. Scarantino isn't sure where his brand of Republican politics fits into the GOP. Some Christian conservatives say it doesn't.

"If they can't agree and support the president and the platform, then they ought to go over to the Democrats," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for the conservative group Concerned Women for America.

After President Bush's re-election, evangelicals were quickly branded the "it" political group. They have taken a two-week victory lap, appearing around the clock on cable news networks while touting a conservative social agenda.

Out of the spotlight and largely overlooked, some moderates said they feel like politicians without a party....

After laboring behind the scenes for years, [devout] conservatives are front and center. And they want the president to move quickly to address their agenda.

The to-do list includes defending traditional marriage, banning human cloning, reforming Social Security, passing more-restrictive abortion laws and stepping up enforcement of obscenity laws, said Ms. LaRue of Concerned Women for America.

And if moderates don't agree with those objectives, perhaps they don't belong in the GOP, she said.

Ms. LaRue calls Mr. Specter a RINO – Republican In Name Only – and questions why politicians such as Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island remain in the Republican Party when they didn't even vote for Mr. Bush.

"Get real," she said. "These are Democrats in Republican clothing."More

The Customer is always right. The Customer isn't always American. Ooops.

Business would b so much easier if it weren't for people and their damned feelings and opinions.

James Wolcott

...Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Marlboro, and GM were all revealing problems echoing those "already faced by Disney, Wal-Mart and Gap."

Corporate chiefs dismissed the connection between falling sales and rising anti-Americanism.

"But the timing of the decline lends credence to warnings by a marketing and advertising group after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that US brands could face trouble. 'My sense is we are seeing a transfer of anger and resentment from foreign polices to things American,' said Keith Reinhard, chairman of DDB Worldwide, an advertisting agency owned by Omnicon."

Flash-forward to this morning's FT, and its front page story "Coke chief promises 'dramatic' changes."

Coke's chairman Neville Isdell acknowledged deep problems besetting Coke, including "continued weakness" in Germany and France, attributable in part to consumers shifting from sugary carbonated drinks to bottled water, etc.

But only in part.

"Kevin Roberts, chief executive of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, expects US brands such as Coca-Cola to face 'growing resistance from Europe and Asia' because of opposition to US political policies. [Seymour Hersh, as far from an ad exec as you can get, makes the same point in a recent campus talk.]

"He said: 'Consumers are going to be pissed off at having Brand America rammed down their throats.'" He said that US multinationals would have do develop a advertising camouflage campaign, tailoring their marketing to local markets and deemphasizing the American connection.

In a related story in this morning's NY Times, Coke's chief marketing officer indicated the opposite, saying that Coke would do less "tactical" local advertising and devote more attention to Coke's broad appeal.

"We want to promote the bigger global ideas that are based on universal human insights."

Aye, but here's the rub... More

Surprised? Vous? Moi? Non.

Bailing Sideways: Colin "What Doctrine?" Powell
Failing Upwards: Condoleeza "two lines" Rice

CNN

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has submitted his resignation to President Bush, the White House said on Monday.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice is the "likely" choice to succeed Powell, a senior U.S. official told CNN.

Rice is "the president's choice," and an announcement is likely this week, another senior U.S. official said.

Hey, It's "The CEO Administration.™" The parody wouldn't be complete without the requisite "failing upwards." Condi's a Peter Principal®!

04.09.04

RICE: Dick Clarke had told me, I think in a memorandum -- I remember it as being only a line or two -- that there were Al Qaeda cells in the United States.



Fineman, MSNBC:

Does Rice really know her role?
How national security adviser's testimony hurt Bush

...A self-proclaimed expert at understanding "structural" change in large institutions, Rice wasn't aware — may still not be aware — that the nature of her job had changed by the time she took over as national security adviser in January 2001. Reared in the Cold War era, she saw herself following in the footsteps of Henry Kissinger. "National security" was largely a matter of global state-to-state diplomacy.

In fact, as her predecessor in effect warned her when he was turning over the keys, the model was no longer so much Kissinger as it was, say, Elliott Ness or J. Edgar Hoover...

Asked at the hearing why she hadn't pressed the FBI more closely about what it knew, or didn't know, about domestic terrorist threats, she acted as though the question was an odd one: It wasn't her job. Well, in retrospect, it was and now certainly is.

Guardian

Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row

A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.

Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations. The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz....

Oh yeah, The grown-ups are in charge.

Worse than a crime, it was a blunder. - Talleyrand

From Arianna's Blog

My friend Adam Werbach, the former President of the Sierra Club and co-founder of the Apollo Alliance, will be posting the "November 3 Theses" on the door of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters on Monday, November 15 at 7:30 AM.

November 3rd Theses

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
- Benjamin Franklin

I. The 2004 presidential election was lost not by John Kerry over the last several months but by the Democratic Party over the last several decades. Democrats have lost control of all three branches of government for the foreseeable future. We are now a minority party.

II. When the Senate Democratic leader is defeated while spending $16 million attempting to get the majority of 500,000 votes, the problem is not a lack of funding or effort.

III. The failure of the Democratic Party to connect with America's desire for fulfillment is political death.

IV. Democrats are now history's spectators, Republicans its actors.

V. The obsession with denouncing the radical conservative project as a "lie" has become a useful substitute for vision.

VI. Renovating Democratic politics is not a question of moving to the right or talking more about religion. It is about creating a framework that once again communicates to the core needs of the American people.

VII. America is not now, and never was, simply "the economy, stupid." What the American people want is a deeper sense of personal meaning, a national mission, and passion in times of fear.

VIII. Returning the Democratic Party to majority status will require a political realignment no less sweeping than that which was accomplished by conservatives over the last 40 years.

IX. Only the breath of a serious and new moral-intellectual vision will be sufficient to resuscitate the Democratic Party.

X. Democratic candidates will continue to lose as long as they treat Americans as rational actors who vote their "self-interest" after weighing competing offers for health care, jobs, and security.

XI. Conservatives have spent the last 40 years getting clear about the values they represent. They have even developed a "family values" brand to represent a framework that coheres traditional prejudices around prayer in school, gun rights, restricting abortion, and restricting gay rights.

XII. By contrast, liberal or 'progressive' groups and Democrats have spent the same period of time defining themselves against conservative values, even 'morality' in general.

XIII. If resources continue to flow to the same leaders who have failed to construct a new vision and have thus left the Democratic Party in ruins then we can expect more of the same. And worse.

XIV. Those who resist the process to create a new vision will be left behind.

XV. Candidates who intend to win should no longer hire consultants who repeatedly lose. Those who counsel caution when dealing with the indifferent, the disaffected, and the undecided do not understand American history. Consultants who advise their clients against offering a clear and compelling vision in fear that it will be attacked should find themselves without a home in the Democratic Party. The sooner they retire, the better.

XVI. Unconnected at a values level, the Democratic Party∂s laundry list of policy proposals is a confusing and alienating hodgepodge of special interests bound together by a vague sense that 'we're all on the same side.' Such a conflation demands no critical self-examination of the interest groups whose turf, and very identities, are treated as inviolable by Party chieftains.

XVII. The progressive vision must be a direct challenge to fundamentalism in all of its forms: political, religious and economic. It must match fundamentalism's power without replicating its authoritarianism. It must appeal to the values of liberty, equality, community, justice, unconditional love, shared prosperity, and ecological restoration, among many others.

XVIII. Democrats serious about returning to majority status must:

· Retire any leader who believes that we are currently on a winning path that simply needs more money and effort.
· Define and articulate a coherent set of values of our base, and be willing to lose those allies who do not share these values.
· Fight battles, win or lose, that define and advance our values and expand our political base.

XIX. In despair and defeat lie the seeds of triumph and victory. In that loss lies the opportunity to define a new progressive politics for the new century.

Purple Places Majesty



Project for Public Spaces:

A way forward for America beyond red and blue.

When we raise the idea of place these days, many people's first question is: Is it a red-state place or a blue-state place? The election results show us a country that is close to evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Common ground hardly seems to exist anymore.

The issues and rhetoric of the presidential campaign left many people feeling afraid, angry, divided, or isolated. If America stays that way, we'll all be losers coming out of this election. It's easy to forget that progressives, right-wingers, and everyone in between share common ground every day--literally. They cross paths in parks, commercial streets, coffee shops, markets, libraries, houses of worship, trains and buses, community centers. Public places are the heart of our democracy -- not only where we vote in November, but where we meet neighbors and exchange ideas the rest of the year. ...

We've seen over and over again how a community-oriented process to create or improve public places--we call it "placemaking"--can bring people together in new ways. We've found this to be true in areas more deeply divided than the United States, through our work in Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro.

Placemaking is a practical method to discover common ground in a community by encouraging a diversity of opinion toward the goal of building a better place for everyone. This same spirit can guide our national political conversation. What makes places great, makes nations great -- and makes the world more peaceful and prosperous. ...

To help raise placemaking as a new subject in our national conversation, we are launching the Great Cities Initiative, which gathers all of PPS's services into a united program of community-building. We are also planning a series of workshops, initiated by PPS Board member Ron Sher, to explore the promise of placemaking as a strategy for mending and strengthening American culture. The first workshop will take place this February in Seattle with additional ones planned for New York and Midwestern cities. These will lead up to a landmark placemaking conference or "chautauqua" in 2006, which we believe will spark a powerful placemaking movement the same way that Earth Day did for environmental concerns.

Please help us bring placemaking to the table as a significant social and political issue by joining PPS as a member and becoming a placemaking activist in your own community. America needs placemaking, and we need you to help placemaking succeed.

Shared Air is a precious, magical thing. And powerful too. Check 'em out: Project for Public Spaces

The Aquent|AMA Compensation Survey of Marketing Professionals 2005

Welcome to the most comprehensive survey of its kind ever conducted. Drawing upon data sampled from more than 70,000 marketing professionals throughout the United States, it provides the most in-depth look ever at marketers' salaries and responsibilities across a wide range of titles, markets, and industries....

[p.s.: make sure you read all the copy on the spash page...you'll see what I mean.]

Blue and Red. Values. And Values!™*

* Not including tax and tags. Subject to availabiltiy. Offer not binding in AL, AK, AZ, CO, FL, GA, KS, KY, LA, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NM, NV, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, WV, WY. See dealer for details.

Pretty stupid, huh? Bumper-sticker culture cheats itself as it beats itself as it eats itself. (Hey, a trifecta! Assonance, alliteration and anomie. Er--I thinks that's anomie. Maybe it's enemy. Whatever.) Anyway, hello, bait and switch... NYT:

On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide

....There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be the undisputed king of the red cultural elite, Rupert Murdoch. Fox News is a rising profit center within his News Corporation, and each red-state dollar that it makes can be plowed back into the rest of Fox's very blue entertainment portfolio. The Murdoch cultural stable includes recent books like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," which have both been synergistically, even joyously, promoted on Fox News by willing hosts like Rita Cosby and, needless to say, Mr. O'Reilly. There are "real fun parts and exciting parts," said Ms. Cosby to Ms. Jameson on Fox News's "Big Story Weekend," an encounter broadcast on Saturday at 9 p.m., assuring its maximum exposure to unsupervised kids....

The WTO tackles the big issues

...but papers over numbers 1 and 2. Via Incite by Design we hear rumblings of movement on a global scale

World Toilet Organization
A Preview on World Toilet Summit 2004

* A Global Perspective - Relationship between Toilets & Quality of Human Life
* World Class Tourism & Toilets
* Entrepreneurship: Social & Economic Returns on Investments
* Maintenance - Good Toilets Improve Heartland Community Living
* Design - The Challenges and Considerations in Establishing the Code of Practice for Toilets.
* Catering to the diversity of Culture - toilets for different cultures
* Water Conservation: The Cost Effective Use of a Valuable Resource, Water
* Toilet - The Past, Present and Future of Public Toilets in Beijing
* Many more….

No word on the catering.

Arafat dead. Yassir, don't mean maybe.


©Jan Op De Beek

"a new... truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

"Though each may hope to convert the other to his way of seeing... neither may hope to prove his case. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proof." - Thomas Kuhn

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn, 1962) is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift.

11:11:11/11


©eugene kuo

[Duh. Published to "Drafts," not "Blog."]

"Okay, smart guy, show me."

Got an email from a reader saying, essentially, the above.

Okay, I will. But first, two clarifciations.

1. We are dealing with the impression of "morality" not it's actual practice. As they say, it's not a principle unless it costs you something. Heretofore, nobody on the "morality" side is giving up a damn thing.

2. Understand that when I'm referencing morality as viewed through politics, or business, much of what get's said is framed in bumper-sticker-simple assertions. As practiced, it's hit and run spirituality--points scoring--that doesn't wait around for the practical evidence to catch up to the emotional response and the inevitable conclusion that comes from comparing the two: You talk a good game, but you are insincere.

I wrote the following stuff over at Digby's blog (link dissappeared) back around the time of Rush's Oxycontin confession:

The rules of the game currently being drawn in the coming '04 hairpull and carefully cultivated to the media (to, not in, the media--they're being re-conditioned in prep, again), is that right wing complaint is constructive to the fabric of discourse. Left wing observations of the Right are destructive. (David Brooks -NYT) And that right wing fallibility is evidence of commitment, albeit with natural human imperfection. (David Drier - Arnold Campaign Co-chair). In business you might call this emphasizing Brand Identity over Quality Assurance.

What's this mean? Simple. The reason that Righties do so well in the face of seemingly inexcusable failings is that they often place people before ideas, absolute group identity before absolute individual consistency. People identify far more deeply and resonantly with other people than with abstracts like "ideas". Some of us enjoy the jui-jitsu of wrestling with patterns, dynamics and reasons why? For most of us though, it makes our brains hurt: We say, "My conclusions could be wrong and then I'd look dumb. Or people may disagree, and then I'd be ostracized."

Look at Rush or Arnie and the response of true-identifying-believers: Patting someone on the head and bringing them a covered dish is easier than wrestling with working consistent ideas that accommodate drug addiction or serially groping women.

In a way, the old "Love the sinner, hate the sin" construct is at work. But following the theme that ideas are abstract, it's far easier on the ego and the faculties to just declare yourself a sinner, buy someone else's laminated list of predetermined "sins", and get on witht the *fun* part: belonging to a group of people. In a way, for certain parts of the humanity, specifics of ideology is the icing on the cake. A repeated and general and vague affirmation of the general principle of US versus THEM is what they worry about most, because it secures their cake--group membership, and the security blanket it offers in an increasingly fluid world--most effectively.

Okay. Enough talk, I love role plays.

Know your audience. An example.

For righteous people, personal inconsistency is the secret weapon. There's a tremendous amount of cherrypicking that goes on when it comes time for evangelicals to dole out their outrage. A la carte Pauls, many. I referenced evangelical firm, Barna Research on this blog back in February. Here's an example of their findings....

*Born again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as are non-born again adults. Overall, 33% of all born again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce, which is statistically identical to the 34% incidence among non-born again adults.

If you click through to Barna, you'll find all kinds of neato facts: Such as, Massachussets Liberals walk the talk of the sacred commitment of marriage better than evangelicals. Tell me again, who is it we're protecting marriage from?

I don't ask that question to just make a snarky point, but to point out the above mentioned inconsistency vulnerability. But. BUT. In order to be heard, you must frame your message in the vernacular, otherwise your only audience will be you, and bats and dogs.

Use the words they would use, but use them first. Take gay marriage, the reason this election went south in more ways than one...

Demonstrate: that if you (evangelicals) are going to cleave the country in two, then many of your most active allies will be "left behind", so to speak, because, as we have learned all too well of late, the mirror has two faces. The "demons" you choose to so paint also have (R) after their name. They go to your churches, they live under your family roof. They are your friends, they are your children, your brothers and sisters, they are the family of Man. Imperfect, as God intended. Living together, as God made them to be. If man's words and laws made life the idyll you imagine, then we would have all been sipping ambrosia since birth.

Visualize: Faces of families, gay and otherwise, young and old, large and small, each with members disappeared from screen. "These are the enemy of God?"

Ask: If man and woman are God's creations, who are we to arrogantly divide--by impecfect, human, political means--that which he has, inexplicably to some, placed on this earth to live together. Love, commitment, sacrifice, all the ingredients are there. Suddenly these are less than virtuous?

Say: This is not a new challenge. It is an ages old conundrum. But if you deign to take matters into to your own hands merely to serve your modernistic, earthly impatience at not understanding His plan, then what do you get? Who is to say, but we know what we've been told: He who troubles his own house, shall inherit the wind.

God has told us we can do better than that. But only together. And only if we truly will try. Now go. In peace. And be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.

### end translation/demo ###

Democratic values are not absent, nor are they broken. There are, however, horribly represented when you limit their discussion to sterile leagalistic concepts and inert words devoid of universal ideals. You cannot credibly call misguided faith to account without using the words of faith any more than you will reassure and persuade a CEO by asking "What's a balance sheet?"

FYI: The meat of the above moral-speak wasn't written in response to this election result, but as strategic assessment/advice posted, also in Feb, to MetaJournalism,