Professional Opinion

Professional Opinion          November 20, 2012

            My doctor said I should eat more donuts.  He was listening sarcastically to my chest at the time and when I said, “But…,” he interrupted with, “Breathe!  You’ve got to stop trying to look like an action figure and live a little.”  He’s a professional.  But so am I.

            “You mean a doll?  It’s not an action figure, it’s a doll.”

            “No,” he responded, rising to the challenge, “In this century, it’s an action figure.  Why not work a little less on your six-pack and join us—it’s 2012.”

            “Doc, it’s a doll,” I insisted.  “An action figure is a negative bank balance.”  That one got him.  He actually took a step back in disgust.  Pity fogged his glasses.

            “It sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”

            “I’m just sayin’,” I responded with smug satisfaction, “I spend a lot of time maintaining my six-pack and I’d think a health-care professional would respect that.”

            “You talk like you’re back on that negative nicotine patch regimen.  Are you up to the strongest dose yet?  You’re OK.  The nurse will get your papers.  Come and see me again soon!”  He disappeared in a blink, off to help the next health nut.

            I told this story to my wife that same evening.  She shook her head.

            “Bubba,” she said, “You love words.  You should know better.  When you say ‘maintaining’ you actually mean ‘replenishing’ you six-pack.  You spend time driving to the store to replenish it.  Way too much time.” 

She’s right.  Around here, we guess it might be a good thing if everybody opened a few less sodas, and ate a donut, maybe like every second or third doctor’s visit.

Time For Some TLC

A word about good management             November 15, 2012

            Prompt.  Good managers make prompt fact-based decisions once they have the facts.   They respect the needs of the people who are affected by their decisions.  Perhaps as never before, today’s managers must deal with uncertainty.  This does not interfere with prompt decision making by good managers. 

            Discover.  Decide.  Don’t embarrass the people and the organization you are charged with leading. 

Time for some TLC              November 15, 2012

            Americans’ emotions have been stirred viciously.  The political Right has been manipulated into a frenzy.  The government is giving away stuff to lazy and irresponsible, nay, un-American takers who will ruin our country.  The Left has been agitated into believing that the only un-American takers are the idle rich, and corporations.  They are going to starve our children and we’ll all die too poor to get adequate medical care.

            Farmers, who work hard, take risks, and face complex demands, may wonder why anyone needs welfare or the EPA.  They wonder if city people even know where food comes from.  Their counterparts, who work hard, take risks, and face complex demands, may wonder why anyone needs farm subsidies or the FFA.  They wonder if farmers even know where tractors come from.

            Truth is, our national attitude has been wounded.  We need to fix that.  Clearly, war no longer works to bring us all together.  So let’s not wait for a war.  Let’s come together as a country and a people with warlike intensity and courage.  Let’s ask ourselves to reason through our differences.  Let’s tell our political party manipulators to get back in the game.  Let’s recognize and call out misdirection and emotional manipulation when it happens.  Let’s take care of each other—treat each other with dignity, respect, and consideration—even in traffic.

            Around here, we think a little tender loving care can do amazing things.      

The Spin Cycle

The Spin Cycle        November 5, 2012

            Political ads have monopolized the third of every viewing hour that television rips from our souls for commercials.  Citizens united has made the word “monopolized” appropriate in this context, in a billion ways.  Everybody (almost) is tired of it.  Fear not.  Election day is coming.  Soon it will stop.  At least, for a while.

            Senate candidate and American hero Bob Kerry quipped that if he is elected, he will have to get right to work because by February politicians will all be thinking about re-election.  Politicians, unlike statesmen and women, are in the spin cycle continuously, extracting our reason and agitating our emotions—it’s their life.  It’s my idea of Hell.

            Spin works on us partly because we forget it between elections—even those emotional clingers.  They grab us, but deep down, we can spot the crap, and mentally we flee from it.  Still, as soon as we forget, we are vulnerable to the next wave, the next mind-numbing volley.   

            There is hope.  Like a drug, spin becomes less and less effective.  The cycle has to become more frequent until it is almost constant.  The shorter the cycle, the more resistant we become.  Exaggerations have to be increasingly dramatic.  Misdirection has to come closer to outright lying.  We’ve all seen enough “Big Lie” this time around to more skillfully spot it in the future.  The takeaway is this: it is important to learn to recognize manipulation, of any kind, even if we agree with the manipulator’s objectives.

Well, maybe not so hopeful for congress getting anything useful done, but at least there is some surcease from the effects of all those spin darts.

Lumps in Your Vote-meal

Lumps in Your Vote-meal

            Grover Norquist may be a dangerous man.  More than a few of the people who claim to represent you in Congress have signed his “no tax” pledge because they feared their political careers would wind up in the garbage if they didn’t.  Let’s call them LUMPs for Legislators Undermined by Money & Power.  They seem to think Grover is the Garbage Can Monster.  But he is not the bad guy.  The real Garbage Can Monster is political cowardice. 

            Here’s my question.  If your LUMPs are willing to sell you out for a chance to remain your LUMPs, what else are those LUMPs stealing from you?

            The answer is complex.  But the first thing lost is your LUMP’s ability to consider all options when addressing our nation’s and our districts’ problems.  For example, our LUMPs could not even manage to pass a farm bill.  Their work can’t even match Harry Truman’s “Do Nothing” Congress.  Sixty some bills at $3 million or so per bill.  They have earned the nickname, “Do Damage Congress”. 

The “Do Damage Congress” embarrassed our country internationally, damaged our credit rating, and cost us thousands of jobs fighting over the last “debt ceiling” controversy.  All this is impacted by that cowardly Garbage Can Monster pledge, and no humorist can miss all the congressional finger-pointing toward the Executive Branch.  They are screwing with our lives and think we are stupid enough to blame the President.

            Around here, we think it would be fun if each of you would drop a note to your LUMPs and ask them to wad up that “Garbage Can Monster Pledge” and toss it in the trash.