The New Deal II

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I follow Krugman’s every word.  I think he’s correct in that comparing a family budget to the role of government is an idiotic comparison of apples vs. oranges.  Government does have a role in helping the markets and austerity is not the answer.  

So here’s what I don’t get.  The Great Depression wasn’t that long ago.  Our parents and grandparents experienced first hand the horrors.  But there’s a happy ending, right?  It took 10 years, but FDR and The New Deal helped save the day.  Government played a role in priming the pump, creating a jobs ‘multiplier-effect’.  It can’t be over-stated the importance of changing the ‘psyche’ of the country. The same is true for The Great Recession. Nothing gets moving unless people are prospering in their careers. Companies aren’t in a hiring mood, banks don’t loan money, and people can’t buy houses unless the collective psyche is on the up-swing. Putting the Government on a diet doesn’t help with that.

John Maynard Keynes was right.  Krugman is right.  What is it that people don’t get about this that makes them side with Tea Party loons like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh that austerity is the answer? 

Enter 2008 and the housing bubble.  The shit hits the proverbial fan and the economy is on the verge of collapse.  Government must enter.  Even the Republicans know this and support massive stimulus.  They have no other choice at this point and finger pointing about who caused the problem won’t solve anything. 

The problem I have is that I’m feeling a little ripped off.  FDR and the PWA put people to work on airports, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and dams.  There’s ample ‘physical’ evidence of how the New Deal helped pull us out of the Great Depression in The Lincoln Tunnel, Grand Coulee Dam, The Pennsylvania Railroad.  Even Timberline Lodge in Oregon is a symbol of government’s role in getting people back to work.  

With the stimulus that was spent on the Great Recession, where’s my physical evidence?  Where are the bridges?  Where and the new roads?  Where are the energy projects?  The sad truth is, the money got spent to save the banks so there is no physical evidence.  

Perhaps I’m being too harsh.  There is some physical evidence. 

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The Essence of Jim Toner

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May 31st, 2008 marked the end of an era for the Toner Family. Jim Toner died that day. On the anniversary of his passing and with Father’s Day approaching, I find myself reflecting on how much his life influenced mine. I was honored to have written his Eulogy. While I feel pretty good about the effort, I also feel like it’s nearly impossible to pay proper tribute to the man in 800 words or less. Today, it feels like there’s more to the story.

He was just so many things bottled up into one human being. He was my father, my math teacher, my coach, my mentor, my golfing buddy, my sports watching side-kick, and my friend.

As a father, he was an absolute rock. He had a vision of his parenting strategy and never wavered. I struggled with the inflexibility of the plan at times, but I can appreciate that he was a man who knew what he wanted and didn’t execute his parenting role based on what was popular at the time. I think I was the last kid on the block to get approval for having my hair grow over my ears. The rebellious nature of kids in the 60’s and 70’s didn’t set well with him and he had a secret, no-nonsense plan to deal with it. He was ready.

A lot of his parenting decisions were very principled. He just believed certain things to be correct approaches to life, modeled those behaviors himself and then expected the same from his kids. No ifs, ands, or buts. This included a no swearing rule, (a product of his Catholic upbringing), which he took very seriously, especially around kids. I’m sure he took a little (very little) liberty with that rule when the kids weren’t around, but still, he didn’t like hypocrisy, and took his credibility seriously, so he acted the way he expected others to act.

Dad was a practicing Catholic his whole life, though I believe his attendance at mass fell off some in retirement. There is a rule about divorcees not being permitted to take communion ( or maybe it was if you remarried outside the church, I wasn’t paying that close of attention ), which is the main focus of the mass, so I think he reckoned that if he couldn’t partake in the main event, what’s the point? It’s the one area where he might have had a minor bone to pick with the Church, but kept it to himself for the most part. But while he was in charge of raising us kids, it was mass every Sunday and it didn’t matter if we were camping in Southern Oregon near the beach. If it was Sunday morning, he’d be figuring out where a church was to get us there. He never wore his Catholicism on his sleeve. I believe it was deeply personal to him and not something he liked to be very overt about. If anything, he wanted people to know he was a Christian by his actions, not his words. He was never very big on ‘big-talk’. In fact, when he’d see one of us making big plans, perhaps setting unreachable goals, he might chime in with those exact words — big talk, which was just his way of saying “show me”.

Looking back, what I admire the most about his parenting approach was the personal sacrifices that came along with following his principles. He believed private education was better than public education and somehow managed to find money on a teacher’s salary to send 4 kids to private schools up until 1972. By then the private school system had deteriorated significantly, and he felt that my best interests might be better served over at the Middle School where he taught. I thought maybe I had just caught a lucky break but it was not to be. He worked a deal with the principal to get me in the class of the strictest teacher in the building, Mrs. Miller. Just when you think you’ve made easy-street, you realize the game is rigged.

If I do the math on that commitment, it just doesn’t add up. I remember it being a pretty big milestone when his salary reached the $10k mark. Even in 1970’s dollars, that’s not the kind of dollar figure that’s usually associated with being able to afford private school for your kids. There were personal sacrifices involved with that decision.

Dad didn’t like stupid. In fact, he hated stupidity, especially in his own family members. We provided him more examples than he probably cared for or was expecting. This just strengthened his resolve to stamp out stupidity. He would joke about having to share a last name with one of us who embarrassed the family name in public. It’s not a stretch to suggest he dedicated his life to correcting stupid within his own family. Speaking only for myself, I would say he was only partially successful.

He had a very special way of showing me – through an analogy or a comparison of sorts, how stupid my idea or action was. His method usually involved holding up a mirror, and humor to take the sting off, but it had the same effect. He was also not a big fan of lazy. One such remembrance, was the nick-name he came up for me when I was about 8. My sisters and I used to get a list of a few chores on the weekends. Assuming the role of Quality Control inspector, he quickly found a few quality issues with my work, and in some cases, tasks were only partially completed. He’d call me over to discuss. (Getting called out in this manner was usually pretty embarrassing, especially if any siblings were present, but extra hilarious for them. This was no accident. Dad employed public embarrassment as a tool of choice on many occasions. In retrospect I would say it was very effective). The questioning would begin. There was no getting out of it. At the very end, he’d say something like “Why we’re going to have to start calling you ol’ half-job Toner”, and then laugh like it was the funniest thing ever.

That nick-name strategy worked pretty well because it made you think the next time you were taking out the trash or whatever that task was. Miss a garbage cans and someone might bring up the dreaded nick-name.

Dad loved sports. As a participant I think he enjoyed golf the most. I think his ‘career’ round might have been a 73 or 74. I hope I’m not short-changing him there, but when he used to play a lot with his old golfing buddy Dick Pokorny, they would often-times get up early and play 36 holes out at Top ‘O Scott or Glendoveer. I think his low score was at Top ‘O Scott if I recall correctly.

He played baseball in High School at St. Mary’s in Eugene. I remember him telling the story about his Junior year at St. Mary’s the weather was so bad, they only got in 3 games for the season. And one was a double-header. It just poured all spring.

Ever the strategy guy, he liked to out-smart the situation and make the dumb strategy guy pay. He recalled being a baserunner on 3rd base one time and watching the opposing pitcher go through some funkified double wind-up where he took all day to get through his motions. This got Dad to ‘thinking’ that maybe he could steal home. So without a signal from the coach, he gave it a try. There was a play at the plate. “SAFE!” I guess his coach questioned the wisdom of the attempt but he just explained that he was pretty sure he could make it. Anyway, as a Freshman at Oregon he tried out but didn’t quite make the cut. The fact that he was even trying out always impressed me because my in High School I knew where my skill level was at in baseball and I saved myself the embarrassment of being cut and went out for golf.

As a spectator, Dad liked baseball for its strategy, basketball for its athleticism, and college football for pretty much the same reason. He loved his Ducks and was a frequent visitor to Autzen stadium. He could get super excited about a 1-0 baseball game and completely understood all of the little chess-moves each coach was making to ‘play the percentages’. And he loathed stupidity in coaching moves too. Especially in clock management. Man, he’d get mad if the coach let time off the clock, or failed to run the clock down when his team was ahead.

In retirement, He had a killer TV setup with picture-in-picture on a big screen TV and was one of those guys who would be watching two games on TV, and then also have the radio to catch a third game.

His other favorite activity was playing duplicate bridge, which he played his whole adult life and I believe around the age of 40 or so, started playing competitively and was a well-respected player in the Northwest. He played in tournaments in several states and it was not uncommon for him and his partner to win or place in the top 5. I believe the draw for him was the awesome combination of being a participant in a very strategic, thinking man’s game plus a social aspect that came along with that. I never really understood that fully until I attended his wedding reception when he married Verda Hicks about 20 years ago ( give or take a few ). The place was crawling with bridge friends. The dance floor was full and everyone knew Jim Toner.

Jim Toner was one hilarious human being. I’ve seen him bring a room to hysteria more times than I can count. Often times it was with very few words, too. He didn’t require a lot of words to be funny. He would just shine the light one a situation at just the right time with just the right thought, and the next thing you know, everyone was cracking up. He was a master at using self-deprecating humor, humble man that he was. I think he secretly loathed parents who bragged on their kids so he took the opposite approach, at least publicly. I know he was proud of us all in his own way, but he was more inclined to keep our heads from getting too swollen than to boast about our latest accomplishment.

One memory that comes to mind is from the 6th grade. We had an annual “Presidential Physical Fitness” test at school. If you could pass the various physical tests to a certain standard, you then got the Presidential Seal, which was a pretty big deal because very few kids could pass all of the tests if I recall correctly.

Anyway, my best friend Doug Rowe was/is a far better athlete than I, and he always passed the tests and I never did. I was a competitive sort, so I reckoned that if I practiced up, maybe I could get there, but it just wasn’t to be. Anyway, back to Dad. One of the events was you had to run the 50 yd. dash in under 8 seconds or somewhere around that number. I was always coming in close, but no cigar. Sprinting was never something I was good at. If anything, I could usually pass the longer distance tests, but sprinting, no.

So Dad got home from work and I asked him if he would time me in the 50 yd. dash out in the street, just to practice. “Sure”, he said. “You go get your tennis shoes, and I’ll go get the calendar”.

A family friend recalled a funny story about Dad during his teaching years. Harold Oliver Middle School was unique in that it had a fairly high percentage of male teachers. They were very social outside of work as well. The main group activity seemed to be attending High School ( Centennial ) sporting events, especially football and basketball. Almost every friday night, he’d “go out with the guys” and watch the game and then often times stop at The Lariat Tavern on the way home to have a few beers.

So the story goes that Centennial wasn’t very competitive in the late 60’s and early 70’s due to being in a very competitive league. But that changed in ’72 or ’73 and they started winning. Centennial made the playoffs in ’73 and eventually won the State Championship as the underdog in each game. It was a real Cinderella season as I recall, with drama down to the final minutes. Anyway, before the success of ’73 happened there were some losing years and a high school teacher named Don McCarty was the coach. There was a district function were all the teachers were gathered together and Dad felt it might be time to put some ideas in Don’s head about his coaching strategy.

Jim: “Hey Don, how many students do you have up there at Centennial?”
Don: “I don’t know, about 1700?”
Jim: “How would it work to put a couple of them out in front of the ball carrier?”

As an 8th grade math teacher, he had no issue leveling natural consequences. Before he passed away he told the story of a former student, a girl, who, up to the 8th week of the term turned in no assignments. The last two weeks she turned in her assignments. He said that when he was making out report cards “I gave her a well deserved F”. The day after she received her report card she approached him and it went something like this.

Student: “Mr. Toner, I turned in my homework towards the end, why did you give me an F?”
Jim: “Because they didn’t have a G”

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with this little gem from about 1970 or so which illustrates Dad’s disdain for the hippie movement as well as his perfect timing on a comment. Dad and I were sitting in his car one morning and the radio was on. A Beatles song was on and he actually liked it.

Dad: “Hey, that’s pretty good. I wonder who wrote that?”
Me: “You mean the artist?”
Dad: “Um, no. I mean the clown that wrote the song”

So that’s a sampling of what it was like growing up as Jim Toner’s son.

As I reflect on Dad’s influence on me today… I hope that his spirit is aware that even though I’m quite different that he, I think about him daily and reflect on the things he said all the time. His impact on me is immeasurable. He was one of a kind and I consider myself a lucky guy to have so many vivid memories of the man.

Getting Grover’s Attention

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@GroverNorquist:
Poll shows favorability towards Tea Party movement up 15% since January. (Rassmussen) IRS finally does something useful.

Me (@pithyopine):
Rassmussen? Really?

@GroverNorquist: ( Text Message via Twitter Direct Message )
Each pollster has their own assumptions. Rassmussen and Zogby both show decline for Obama. I am looking at the trend.

@pithyopine:
Maybe use a source that isn’t a puppet of Fox News?

Successful senior leaders? In search of the beef

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Xerox : The Seattle Mariners of the High Tech Industry

You know, I’m trying really hard not to be ‘that guy’, .. the disgruntled former employee with an ax to grind, ranting on his former employer, the one who done him wrong.  The problem is, I lived this insanity for 12 years and when I see articles like this one, on current CTO Sophie Vandebroek and the importance of work-life balance and a focus on hiring more female engineers, I have a hard time containing myself from  publicly questioning what are the traits of successful leadership?  By what measure do we decide someone is worthy of a writeup..  to be held up as an example for others to follow?

A blog post like the this one is so easily misinterpreted, it demands copious amounts of up-front disclaimers, otherwise it’s so easy to be erroneously labeled a woman-hater or a racist or you name it.  That’s the last thing I want so I want to be abundantly clear on this issue.  At the end of the day, all I ask is for reader to understand a particular point of view, nothing else.  I seek to do no individuals any harm.  I’d like to believe I’ve moved on in a very positive way since my days at Xerox.  Live is good.  I love my new job.  The work is very interesting.  My co-workers are great.  I’m thriving and the change has been just what the doctor ordered.  In no way am I wallowing in self-pity here about the loss of what once was, at good old Xerox.

While I miss the interactions with the local folks at Wilsonville and a few at other sites, I do not miss reading the communiques’ of Sr. Management, whom I have no respect for what-so-ever.  Truth be told, I think they are an arrogant group of buffoons who, if provided a 50 million dollar lab with the world’s top scientists, couldn’t manage their way to see one useful money making product surface in their lifetime.

My hope is that they will eventually meet their fate, and I hope that’s sooner rather than later for the benefit of those left behind.

The topic of successful women in the workplace is an interesting one, especially given the recent media attention given to Sheryl Sandberg and her book Lean In.  I have not read Lean In, but I agree in principle with the notion that women should be encouraged to Lean In in the work environment and make their voices heard.  They should not let gender be a barrier at any time.  If they have good ideas, by all means, don’t be shy, let’s hear what they have to say.  I don’t know anything about Sheryl other than what I saw on a 60 Minutes interview, but I must admit she was very impressive on camera, at least to me, and in my estimation, likely deserving of the accolades she was receiving at Google, and then Facebook in her new role as a Senior Leader.  So good for you, Sheryl.  Congratulations.  It sounds like you’ve done a great job adding value to your company.  I don’t begrudge you your millions and I’d be proud to work in your organization if the opportunity were ever there.

What drives me nuts about Xerox (as I posted earlier in an inside look at the real Ursula Burns ), is that the senior leaders spend so much time and energy promoting the company persona ( which is an extreme distortion of the truth ), that they forget what they are there for in the first place — to run a technology company and surface new products so that the company can grow and profit.

First and foremost, Xerox likes to promote the idea that they value a diverse workforce.  The image they like to project is, “We are the premier place to work for women and minorities.”  I have no issue with a diverse workforce.  None.  Zilch.  Nada.  I participated in annual college recruiting trips where giving the nod to women and minorities was policy.  Not just encouraged, it was policy.  I won’t go into details here, but without a doubt, the stated ‘policy’ was borderline affirmative action and even (gasp) reverse discrimination, which as a white male, trouble me a bit.  But I looked the other way for a while and tried my best to get on board, even though I questioned the intelligence of the direction as well as the fairness and legality of it.  Later on I figured out the underlying reason for all of these ‘policies’.    Xerox cares deeply about its corporate image in this regard. It wants a top 10 ranking in Diversity, Inc. and it’s willing to jump through copious hoops and spare no expense to get it.  Not that this has helped the bottom line in any way that I can see.  It is what it is.

So hopefully that’s enough full disclosure and up-front qualification about my motives for publishing an opinion on a very controversial, practically ‘no-win’ topic like criticizing a company for their endless promotion women for well, just being women who have attained Sr. Level positions.  Ursula Burns and Sophie Vandebroek both qualify.

So here’s the rub on Ursula and Sophie.  I’m sure they are both savvy individuals.  There’s no denying they’ve attained Sr. Level positions in a fortune 500 Company.  I just have one question.  When do I get to read an article about Ursula or Sophie that states a business accomplishment that stands on its own merits whether the person was male or female?  Something that resulted in the company making millions because of their insight or management style or whatever.  I don’t really care.   I want to read about a new invention.  A management decision.  A fork in the road decision that resulted in a new direction that was prosperous for shareholders and employees alike.  I want to learn why the millions that are being directed towards these Sr. Execs’ salaries and bonuses are worth every penny!

There’s no shortage of articles on Ursula and Sophie as ‘powerful women’, and to be sure, Ursula as CEO of Xerox, commands a ton of power.  All the fuss about a minority women making the Sr. ranks would be a great story and she’d have legions of followers if only there were some meat to it.  The numbers appear to suggest failure vs. success.  Xerox stock isn’t skyrocketing under Ursula’s leadership, it’s tanking.  At 26%, Ursula has the lowest approval rating of any Fortune 500 CEO on glass door.com  .  By contrast, even Larry Ellison, who has a reputation for being pretty ruthless at times with his employees, weighs in with an 82% approval rating.   Something’s not right with Ursula with a rating that low because if it was just a case of “She’s ruthless but gets results”, she’d have a much higher rating.  She’s that unfortunate combination of ruthless AND no results.

Anne Mulcahy obtained notoriety for the Xerox ‘Turnaround’ that happened in early 2001.  The stock price went from $19 a share down to under $5, and through some restructuring and selling off pieces of the business, she was able to instill a bit more confidence in investors so the stock rallied back to the high teens.  Ursula officially took the helm as CEO in 2009 when the stock price was $6.81 a share, but she’d been running the company as President long before that and saw the price has dipped from the mid-teens down to $8.80 where it is today.  Here’s the long term chart.  This is a success story?  Isn’t this a little like Little League where they give out participation trophies just for putting on the uniform once in awhile?

The Xerox Innovation Group and PARC hasn’t invented any revolutionary new products under Sophie’s tenure as CTO, it’s the same old story of Xerox missing the boat on key technologies.  It doesn’t matter if the director of player/personnel managed to develop Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez into superstars, they won’t be making money for the Mariners franchise for long.  Like the Mariners, Xerox is a farm team for the rest of the league.  And it’s even worse than this because the entire outfield has been outsourced to an Indian Partner.  The management team concluded that the pitching staff is so awesome that it’s unlikely any balls will make it to the outfield, but if they do, HCL Technologies will be available via phone support to direct the other players on the field on the best course of action.  Just submit a ticket first.

In fact, it’s so bad under Sophie’s leadership, that Xerox has pretty much abandoned the notion of participating as a Technology Leader and instead, moved towards a Services model.  Have you seen the new commercials?  Xerox : Call Centers R Us.

They can’t get there fast enough because well, there are no new inventions to product-ize.  Or maybe there are and I just don’t know about them.  I’d love to be proven wrong, but just once, I’d like to pick up an article on Ursula or Sophie and read about something tangible to the business that justifies the accolades that are constantly thrown at them via articles and media attention.  Instead, I read about Sophie and how she’s keenly aware of work-life balance, and the importance of hiring women engineers.  That’s all good fluff, but give me an example of how any of this has benefited Xerox’s bottom line.  Just one example.  Please?

Steve Jobs had a reputation of being a total jerk to his co-workers and employees, but he got results.  So when I read about the successes at Apple, I can at least link a person’s behaviors to the outcome.  I may not like the behaviors, but at least it’s possible to say yeah, Steve’s demanding personality along with his deep understanding of engineering and technology, probably had something to do with driving the Apple engineering teams to crank out excellent products.  I’d feel the same way if it was Stephanie Jobs. Either way, it’s an interesting story to read and the point is, it’s about success.

What I don’t like to read, is stories about senior leaders making the rounds as key-note speakers, with nothing underneath the story to support why there’s is a ‘success’ story.  Near as I can tell, with Sophie, it’s a story because she’s a CTO and a woman.  With Ursula, it’s a story because she’s CEO and she’s both a woman and a minority.  How about a story about the latest invention?  Or a stock price surge?  Or a new direction that has panned out?  I can easily articulate 5 dumb decisions that have not panned out by Ursula, not the least of which would be massive amounts of outsourcing that fly completely in the face of helping her precious diversity agenda.  Ironically, with the outsourcing movement to India, no single person has hurt diversity in the workforce at Xerox more than Ursula Burns.  She can lay claim to elaborate diversity initiatives around the college hire process, for what, 3 positions?  Meanwhile, key engineers of all persuasions are leaving in droves to go work for a company willing to invest in innovation.  Why doesn’t Diversity, Inc write about that?  Instead it’s this constant barrage of “Ursula made another top 10 list of powerful women” and “Sophie’s great.  She went to MIT and has a PhD from Cornell, so she’s awesome.  What else do these senior leaders bring to the table besides their ability to climb the corporate ladder?

So I’m back to, Where’s the Beef?

Lisa Mann — Talent and Heart

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Confucius says “Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

I think Lisa Mann may have read that advice and taken it to heart about 35 years ago.   All of the leading experts say that the road to happiness is to figure out what your natural gifts are.  Find your passion and follow it.  Trust your instincts and do what you love and let the chips fall where they may.

It all sounds great.  Wonderful.  Nirvana.  Why didn’t I think of that?  How utterly simple!  Unless of course you discover that your natural talent it to be a performer in the music business.   I would guess that over 99% of the people who realize music is what they love to do end up selling out for their second choice for the simple reason that there’s no money in it.  It’s fine for a lot of people as a second source of income, which is why most keep their days jobs.  To try to make it in the music business full-time, most musicians / singers end up working the business from at least 3 different angles.  Teaching is common.  Some do some recording on the side.  But if your real passion is performing and you’re trying to make the rent from gig money, good luck my friend.  The math just isn’t there, no matter how good you are.

That’s why it’s impressive when I run into local musicians who have taken up the music business full-time come hell or high water.  It’s what they love to do, so they put their hearts and souls into it, 401k be damned.  These people understand the term “personal sacrifice” all too well.

One such local musician, Lisa Mann is a full-time musician ( bass player ), and singer who has taken this road.  Lisa is very much an “in-demand” performer whose motto is “I’ll gig anywhere, anytime.”  She has the flexibility to go out as a duo with just a guitar player for smaller venues, can put together an awesome trio if the budget is a little higher, or if you want the full meal-deal, go with Lisa Mann and her Really Good Band.  Any/all of these configurations I highly recommend.

I first noticed Lisa as a volunteer at the Waterfront Blues Festival.  I was lucky enough to get a “back-stage” assignment for an afternoon which basically amounted to monitoring the stage surroundings to make sure no kids were clowning around underneath.  Tough job.  One one such sunny afternoon in July, I had duty on the North stage and the first act was some kids from the Midwest who had incredibly high energy and stage antics.  I couldn’t tell you the band name but watching them perform you got the impression that they were geared up for Woodstock.  I think about 3 people were paying attention.

Next up was the “Northwest Women in Blues Review” which, near as I could tell, was sort of All-star cast of the best female performers in the Pacific Northwest.  Sonny Hess I was familiar with as I’d seen her at the Blues Festival in previous years and was struck by the fact that she handles leads incredibly well.  You just don’t see women shredding the neck on guitar like that very often so when you do, obviously you remember it.  I was looking forward to seeing her perform with the other NW Women in Blues Review but I wasn’t too familiar with the other names on the list.

So I’m back stage and the women are setting up and I’m watching this short little bass player, all of about 4′ 10″ I reckon, setting up front on the big stage.  Hmmmmm, I wonder who that is?  Pretty soon we all found out.   The vocals were so powerful.  She belted out tunes Aretha Franklin style that echoed across the park and half way down into River Place.  There may have even been some folks on the Sellwood bridge groovin’.  What-a-voice.  The crowd went haywire.  How can so much energy come out of that tiny framework?  I was wanting to find out more about this little dynamo on stage.  Come to find out, her name was Lisa Mann.  So noted.

It’s always good to discover another local talent to follow on your weekend musical diversions.  Portland is rich with local talent that’s for sure.  The bar is set pretty high for being considered in the top tier.  Some of the local musicians we have — a few names come to mind — Erick Hailstone, Tim Ellis, Sandin Wilson, Jason Moore, Norm Whitehurst, Marty McCray, Tiffany Carlson, Jim Walker — and I would include Lisa Mann in this group as a vocalist and songwriter, are just one lucky break away from playing much bigger stages.  The talent is there, no question.  All that’s missing is that one lucky break a person needs to get the national level exposure and things could take off.

Talent aside, that’s not what this blog post is about.  Portland is rich will talent, sure.  But so are a lot of cities.   Big deal.

This post is about heart.  We see benefit concerts fairly frequently on TV. You’ve seen them.  Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Neil Young and a whole cast of others get together to give relief to Hurricane victims or Aids relief or whatever the cause.  That’s nice and highly commendable, but these are all millionaire musicians.  They can afford it.  God love ’em for taking the time and I don’t want to take anything away from them for their efforts, but it’s a personal sacrifice of limited measure.

What IS impressive is when you find someone from the non-millionaires club whose finances are anything but flush, offering to throw a benefit for someone less fortunate.  Enter Lisa Mann, some friends and the Rally for Aly

Aly, age 11, is Lisa’s next door neighbor who has been dealing with cancer.  They thought they had it under control and in remission, but apparently it’s back.  I don’t know Aly.  I don’t know Lisa that well either.  I’ve just spoken to her a few times in passing.  But this benefit for her next door neighbor impresses the shit out of me because I know for a fact that a local full-time musician does not have the funds to be doing this all the time.  So there’s only one explanation.  Lisa has a humongous heart and she’s following it.  She’s going to worry about her retirement plan on another day.

Please join me in supporting the Rally for Aly, and while you’re there, let’s thank every participating musician.  In my estimation, these are local heroes that deserve our thanks.

My kind of Pope so far #PopeFrancis

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Pope Francis appears to be my kind of Pope.

Previously I had posted a tongue in cheek article re-affirming what E.J. Dionne had written about which was the idea that the next Pope should be a nun.  I can’t imagine any scenario that could possibly energize the faithful more than a female Pope, however improbably the idea may seem. But the point of the article is, the Church lacks energy in part because it has its priorities all wrong.

I have a prioritized “ToDo” list I keep for work that I evaluate each morning to see if the right tasks are at the top of the list. There’s some stuff down in rows 15 and beyond that I may never get to. I work in a very dynamic environment and new priorities float to the top every day. It’s all I can do to address items 1-10 in a given week. In my last job, some of the items down in rows 20-30 had been there for over 5 years.  I suspect Pope Francis has a similar list as he leads the Catholic Church and that he has a task on it that reads:

“Remind the faithful about the sin of using contraceptives” is #56 on his list.

I suspect that is his plan.  That’s how smart people get around the issue of being accused of not being on board with all the rules and regulations.  They don’t come out against it. They appear completely on board. It’s just too far down the list for me to care about right now.

Here’s how I hope the conversation plays out.

Monsignor John : “Holy Father, there’s an issue in Guatemala where some nuns are making noise women’s role in the Church.  They must be disciplined.”

Pope Francis: “Feed the poor”

Monsignor John : “Holy Father, there’s an issue in Venezuela where 30 priests have spoken out in support of gay marriage”

Pope Francis: “Feed the poor

“Monsignor John : “Holy Father, 20 Cardinals in the US have come out in support of ObamaCare even though they want to pass out free condoms as a part of the program”

Pope Francis: “You dumb-ass, that program extends health care to thousands of Children.  Feed the poor”

The sad state of public discourse

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The blogging experience has so far not changed my perspective about the total breakdown of public discourse.

A blog reader “Jack”, one of three people to comment on my blog since its inception ( wow, this thing is really taking off! ), didn’t care much for my post more on Ryan’s Budget , so he drew some conclusions and checked out.  Adios.  See ‘ya, I’m outta here.

I had high hopes for Jack.  He seems like a well educated guy.  His first reply seemed sincere, unlike many of the loons I run into when debating politics.  He made a strong appeal to have an open mind about Ryan’s budget plan as a legitimate proposal that deserved consideration just like any other proposal out there.  Let the process run its course and don’t discount the guy right off the smacker just because he’s a member of the Tea Party.  Okay, fair enough.  I agree with the “let the process run its course” part of that sentiment, and I’m sure it will.

So I got busy during the week and didn’t get a chance to reply until the weekend when I penned a few snarky comments and let my favorite liberal commentators do most of the talking for me.  Limited on time, I reckoned I couldn’t say it much better than Krugman had said it himself so I took the easy way out and linked to Krugman and sprinkled the post with some of my own snarky-ness.

Jack took offense to my left leaning comments and wrote me off as a closed minded lib with poor listening skills “too deeply invested emotionally in your ideology to carry on a reasoned & logical debate.”

Dang, that’s a fast conclusion!  All of that from two blog posts about Paul Ryan’s Budget?

I think it might be time for some self evaluation here to test if this is true.

Let’s see… let’s start with the fact that I’m an Independent.  I’ve been an independent voter since the start of the first Gulf War when I noticed that card-carrying Baath Party members were getting rounded up and shot for well, being card-carrying Baath Party members.  Can’t happen in this country?  Probably not but I decided not to risk it by affiliation to either party.  I couldn’t see any benefit what-so-ever to party affiliation and besides, I like to think I’m capable of making up my own mind and don’t need a party to speak for me.

What else?  Oh,  I think Nancy Pelosi should resign for her alleged involvement in insider trading.  That’s not very partisan, is it?

I think Fox News and MSNBC are each partisan hack networks that basically offset each other, one from the right, the other from the left.  The big difference being that Fox advertises itself as “Fair and Balanced”.  Hardly.

I think there should be a review of entitlements programs each and every year, identifying and eliminating waste where-ever it’s found.  Same thing with Tax Auditors.  That should be a simple mathematical equation, right?  For every auditor hired we get money back until that number reaches the point of diminishing returns?

I think elections start too soon, cost too much, and don’t provide us with real choices.  I’d like to see real spending caps on donations similar to what Jerry Brown committed to in California, only on a national level.  I heard a good quote this time around.  “This isn’t an election, it’s an auction.”  So true.

I’m beginning to think I’ve been mis-labeled prematurely here.  But that’s is what tends to happen these days if we examine the sad state of our public discourse.

One of the reasons I started blogging was to get away from pontificating political opinions on Facebook.  In some instances, decent discussions were had, but I think most people tended to just hide the blow-hard ( me ), and as I came to realize that, I reckoned it was the wrong forum, so here I am.  ( Now I can piss people off here, instead of on Facebook ).

But I’d like to take this opportunity to share a few of the characteristics of people I’ve run across in the course of public debate.  Nothing to do with Jack, like I said, he seems like a well educated guy with different opinions than mine.  The fact that he drew a quick conclusion reminded me of so many other ‘public discussions’ gone south for various reasons.  So here’s what I run into:

  • People are sore losers.  Romney lost.  Get over it.
  • I get emotional responses like you would not believe, especially if the topic has anything to do with guns.  I can’t get half a sentence out before the other side is TYPING IN ALL CAPS ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION, even though nobody mentioned a ban on guns at any point in time.
  • There’s a propensity to “never give an inch”.  Does anyone ever say “I see your point” anymore?  I try.  I honestly do.
  • There’s a total comfort in spreading half-truths and lies.  In my opinion, Fox News is the worst offender but MSNBC is just as partisan.
  • People parrot their “News” channels like Fox.  That’s why I watch Fox.  To see if someone is just channeling O’Reilly or Hannity.   Worst of all, Glenn Beck.

Funny enough, there seems to be a strong correlation between the loudest voices and raw ignorance on both sides.  But alas we have the internet now and everyone gets their say, including @pithyopine.

If there happen to be any conservatives out there reading this, good for you for getting this far!  I congratulate you on that.

It’s risky for me to give this advice, and probably arrogant too, but that’s never stopped me before.  It’s no secret the Republican party is in a shambles.  Witness this past week’s CPAC conference where individuals like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin get air-time.  Do Republicans know that every time they give the mic to one of these Tea Party loons that the Dems throw a banquet celebration while cheering “More!  More!”

I recently found myself 100% in agreement with something that Newt Gingrich said.  He said “look, we can’t just be the anti-Obama party”.

At the end of the day I think it comes down to demonstrating that the party is inclusive and promotes policies that will actually help grow the middle class.  Obama was re-elected with close to 8% unemployment.  That just doesn’t happen.  Not since FDR anyway.  Statistically speaking, all the Republicans had to do was find a reasonable candidate with a pulse and he should have won.  But they chose Romney instead.  So why did Romney lose?  In a word, money.

Romney went on the campaign trail touting the benefits of the Bush Tax cuts and how awesome they were ( despite the evidence that the job creators were indeed not creating jobs with those Tax Cuts ).  People didn’t buy it this time around.  So he defended the 1% and lost the election.  But what choice did he have?  He was funded in large part by the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson.  The poor guy was caught between a rock and a hard place.  As is the Republican party now.

I’m for whatever policies grow the middle class.  I am not a believer in trickle down economics and never will be.  I remember all too well the amount of money I gained with the first “Tax Cut” I received during Ronald Reagan’s first term.  $32.  That’s it.  Go stimulate the economy with that, will ‘ya?  C’mon!

I’m not for over taxing either.  It’s true that Kennedy lowered tax rates.  What were they at the time though?  90% for the top bracket?  Well of course that’s too high.  But the Republican’s this time around were running around like chicken little promoting the idea that the sky was falling.  Apparently capitalism fails somewhere between 36 and 39% ( okay, I stole that quote from my cousin, Jim Eady.  But it was brilliant, just the same ).

It’s my belief that Republicans stand firm with big business and big money whereas the Democrats tend to do a little better job ( not much ), of fighting for the little guy.  Hey, I only get two choices, give me a break here!   And remember, I’m an Independent!

Circling back to Public Discourse — it reminds me of this joke.

Harry from Boston was visiting Jerusalem. Each day his walk would take him past the Wailing Wall. Standing and praying at the wall each time he passed was a neighbor Sam. It didn’t matter if Harry walked by at 7AM, Noon, 4PM even later, he would always see Sam praying. Finally Harry approached Sam and asked him what he was praying for. Sam said that he only prayed for good things. He prayed that there will be peace on earth. He prayed that he will be good to his children and that his children will be good to him. 

Harry asked Sam if all that prayer was working.
Sam replied, “It’s like talking to a fucking wall!”

More on Ryan’s Budget

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I don’t profess to be an economist or anything close to it.  Without question, it’s a very complex field of study.  The best we can do is try to listen to those who are well-educated on the subject and look for political bias while doing so.

Recently, I posted a sarcastic criticism of Paul Ryan and his latest budget proposal which, as one of its tenets is a repeal of Obamacare.  From what I’d been reading, it sounded like the intent was to not just revert to a tax structure that benefits the uber-wealthy as was the case under G.W. Bush, but to take it the madness a few steps further and lower the marginal rate to 25% while paying for it with cuts to entitlements.

This blog being new, I don’t often get a lot of comments yet, but recently I had a thoughtful reply to the post challenging me to get out of the mode of simply launching criticisms at Republicans, and proffer up some of my own solutions.  Fair enough.

Not being an economist, it’s not like I’m going to sit down and study the budget line for line and come up with theories about how to fix it.  Instead I must rely on what I can learn from credible sources.  Since the original post, there have been two compelling articles that caught my attention and seem worth repeating.

The first is an article by E.J. Dionne from the Washington Post.  In a nutshell, Ryan proposes reduces the top tax bracket from 39.6% to 25% and pays for it through steep cuts to Medicare and a repeal of Obamacare.  In other words, it’s Reagan’s “trickle down” economics on steroids.  I’m not sure why this plan would see the light of day given the abysmal failure of the US to control its trillion dollar annual deficits under 12 years of testing this bizarre theory in the form of the Bush Tax cuts.  Cutting rates for the top 2% of income earners stimulated some growth in the yacht building industry, but that’s about it.  The whole premise was that the to wage earners are the “job creators”, and thusly, if we line their pockets with tax breaks, they will create jobs right and left, morning, noon, and night.

My point is, how much more data do we need?  We had 12 years of the Bush tax cuts in place and ended up with unemployment at 9% at the end of the experiment and a shrinking middle class.

Ryan’s budget is paternalistic.  He professes to know “what’s best” for the people of this country because his proposal would force many of the poor off of welfare and he reckons they will all go out and find jobs and then send him a thank-you note later on.

The process of creating a budget appears to be approaching some middle ground with the Dems, led by Patty Murray of Washington State having provided a very specific proposal for how to create true job growth and reduce the deficit at the same time.  In large part, it’s based on closing tax loop-holes for the top 1% as well as corporations who have gotten away with tax evasion for years.  Look no farther than Nike in my home state for a company that threatens to take its jobs outside the state unless it gets huge passes on the tax front.

Another source I follow religiously, Nobel Prize winning author Paul Krugman had an article recently that exposed the cruelty and hypocrisy of the Ryan budget.  Krugman frequently points out the real data from the European austerity experiment, which has failed miserably.  Ryan’s budget would take us down this same path, completely ignoring what the experts say is a winning approach to improve job growth and get people believing in the economy again — enough to let go of some of their money.  Just like it was during the Great Depression, it’s about confidence.  This is no different.  The New Deal was all about restoring confidence and the government, as FDR knew well, had a key role in restoring confidence.  Consequently it stepped in and created public works projects and kept people in the work-force who would otherwise have been out in the cold.

As I mentioned earlier, I rely heavily on the experts is these matters and I’ll take John Maynard Keynes and Paul Krugman (Ph.D in economics) over a self proclaimed policy wonk proffering up the same old Reagan re-tread ideas that have failed us for 30 years.