Passing the Blame: It’s almost a year into Barack Obama’s presidency, a little more than three months longer that the tenure enjoyed by George W. Bush before Al Qaeda forever changed airline travel here and abroad. It is eight years since shoe bomber Richard Reid failed in his mission to bring down an aircraft.
We’re hearing lots of righteous chest-thumping from Republicans, mostly, complaining about the Obama administration’s failure to protect our citizens. In Tuesday’s NY Times, Clark Kent Ervin (I’m sorry, but what were his parents thinking, naming him after a comic book character?) raised some thoughtful points about the lack of coordination between government agencies that enabled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a plane bound for the United States (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29ervin.html). He criticized the same silo mentality that failed to link the clues left by the 9/11 conspirators.
But when you read “Superman” Ervin’s bona fides, you discover that far from being an unbiased, expert observer, he actually was part of the problem he decries. From 2001 to 2004 he was an important member of the Bush administration, serving as inspector general of the State Department from 2001 to 2003 and of the Department of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2004. (Of course, I am assuming the job of inspector general is an important one and not some comic book position like the one lampooned by the old Danny Kaye film, The Inspector General.)
I don’t want to come off as an apologist for Team Obama, especially since they had their “Great job, Brownie” moment with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano saying the system worked. But have the Republicans no shame? They had seven years to destroy the silos. They didn’t and we’re all less safe because of their failure.
Jewish Blue Jays: I think the birds, at least the blue jays, in my yard are Jewish.
Rather than throw out some leftover challah from the weekend, I chopped it up into tiny morsels and put it out for the birds. Rarely have I seen such a feeding frenzy. Rarely have I seen so many blue jays at one time flock to the feeder.
It’s not so unusual to have Jewish-leaning animals. One of Beth and Lloyd’s dogs sings along with the Friday evening prayer. Linda and Jacob’s previous dog knew when Friday night candles were lit it meant challah was to be served. The dog had a hard time understanding why there was no bread, only matzoh, when the Passover candles were lit.
MASH 8666: When was the first time you heard about a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit? Probably when you either saw the Robert Altman film MASH (1970) or the TV series M*A*S*H (1972-1983).
You probably were as ignorant as I to a Humphrey Bogart-June Allyson movie originally titled MASH but changed to Battle Circus before its release in 1953. It’s a story of MASH Unit 8666 during the Korean War. Bogart plays a surgeon who, like Hawkeye Pierce, enjoys romancing nurses and is a whiz in the operating room.
The parallels to the MASH 4077 film and series are palpable. The anger at the futility of the war is there, as are the frustrations of never being able to get ahead of the casualty rate. Koreans, from the South and North, are treated with respect. Like the newer MASH versions, Battle Circus begins with a helicopter flying wounded into the temporary MASH location.
It’s not a great movie. Kind of sappy, actually. But it’s another example that there are few new stories, just newer treatments of the same material.
Party On, Dude: This is just the second year in the last 15 or more that Gilda and I did not host a holiday party for my staff and other work friends. The only other time we missed this December ritual was 2000 when my then-boss chose to host the party in his home to showcase his wife’s cooking. He left our company right after 9/11, so the rite of hospitality transferred back to us.
Of all the trappings of work left behind when I lost my job, giving up hosting the annual party, I think, has been the most painful. It’s validation I no longer am leader of a community. Sure, I could have prevailed upon Gilda to host an expatriate party and invite current and former company workers. But it would have been wrong to presume the prerogative of the current magazine leadership. Regrettably, no party was held this year.
As with many industries, publishing did not enjoy a favorable year financially. But even in tough times it is important to maintain symbols of continuity and appreciation. The annual party attracted associates and their significant others, about three dozen each year. Cooked by Gilda, the meal cost about $10 a head for hors d’oeuvres, a full buffet dinner, dessert and liquid refreshments. Surely, the state of publishing has not been so denigrated that $360 would break a company’s balance sheet.
Or the party could have been handled as a pot luck dinner, with each attendee bringing some food or drink. That would have reduced the corporate cost to chump change. Sadly, another signpost of better days, past and ahead, lost its place and meaning this year.
Last Call: This is the final posting for 2009. Here’s to a happier and healthier 2010!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Big Zero?
The Big Zero was the headline of Paul Krugman’s Monday column in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&hpw). The deck (journalism jargon for calling out in larger type an important part of the story) read, “The decade when nothing went right.”
With all due respect to the Nobel Prize winning economist, Princeton professor and author, there are many, including myself, who would argue that the first decade of the 21st century has been good to me and my family, financially yes, but, more importantly, as a time when many personal achievements transpired.
During this decade our son graduated from university, immediately got a job he is still in and enjoys, married a woman who also immediately got a job she enjoys. Together they bought a home. Six weeks ago they delivered their first child, our first grandchild.
During this decade our daughter graduated from college, spent an adventuresome half year in Hawaii by herself, and has had two jobs she wanted plus volunteer work. She has a wonderful boyfriend.
During this decade, Gilda has worked for arguably the best spine surgeons in the country, and has saved the lives, literally saved the lives, of at least three of our close friends and countless patients unrelated to their spine problems.
During nine and a half years of this decade I enjoyed the status of not just reporting on but also, to some degree, setting the agenda of what was important in the retail industry. My opinions were sought after and respected. I savored the fulfillment of building a team of professionals adept at working together to report on the retail industry, sell marketing programs and produce educational conferences.
During this decade my family enjoyed the fruits of Gilda’s and my labors. We traveled as a family overseas and domestically. We added on to our home. Our children received a gift that keeps on giving—debt-free college educations.
To be sure, there have been setbacks. My departure from full-time employment; my brother-in-law’s stroke; another brother-in-law’s cancer; my sister-in-law’s divorce; my mother-in-law’s death. But for the most part our family and friends have been spared trauma. No tornado or hurricane ripped through our communities. Death followed only after a full lifetime. With rare exception, we’ve been spared disabling injuries and disease.
Our friends and relatives live with us in a privileged enclave, regardless of our respective addresses. We’ve been blessed. Sure, we’d all like our net worth to be higher. We’d like our bodies to creak in fewer places. We’d like our children to be better paid and able to live more comfortably. But these are selfish wishes compared to what we’ve all attained.
My list of Forseter Family achievements is not unique among our cohorts. They could easily match our accomplishments. We’re not representative of the country at large, the country Paul Krugman describes.
But just as the late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill used to say “all politics is local,” so too is an assessment of the “00” decade.
Ours was not in any way, shape or form a zero. I hope yours wasn’t either.
With all due respect to the Nobel Prize winning economist, Princeton professor and author, there are many, including myself, who would argue that the first decade of the 21st century has been good to me and my family, financially yes, but, more importantly, as a time when many personal achievements transpired.
During this decade our son graduated from university, immediately got a job he is still in and enjoys, married a woman who also immediately got a job she enjoys. Together they bought a home. Six weeks ago they delivered their first child, our first grandchild.
During this decade our daughter graduated from college, spent an adventuresome half year in Hawaii by herself, and has had two jobs she wanted plus volunteer work. She has a wonderful boyfriend.
During this decade, Gilda has worked for arguably the best spine surgeons in the country, and has saved the lives, literally saved the lives, of at least three of our close friends and countless patients unrelated to their spine problems.
During nine and a half years of this decade I enjoyed the status of not just reporting on but also, to some degree, setting the agenda of what was important in the retail industry. My opinions were sought after and respected. I savored the fulfillment of building a team of professionals adept at working together to report on the retail industry, sell marketing programs and produce educational conferences.
During this decade my family enjoyed the fruits of Gilda’s and my labors. We traveled as a family overseas and domestically. We added on to our home. Our children received a gift that keeps on giving—debt-free college educations.
To be sure, there have been setbacks. My departure from full-time employment; my brother-in-law’s stroke; another brother-in-law’s cancer; my sister-in-law’s divorce; my mother-in-law’s death. But for the most part our family and friends have been spared trauma. No tornado or hurricane ripped through our communities. Death followed only after a full lifetime. With rare exception, we’ve been spared disabling injuries and disease.
Our friends and relatives live with us in a privileged enclave, regardless of our respective addresses. We’ve been blessed. Sure, we’d all like our net worth to be higher. We’d like our bodies to creak in fewer places. We’d like our children to be better paid and able to live more comfortably. But these are selfish wishes compared to what we’ve all attained.
My list of Forseter Family achievements is not unique among our cohorts. They could easily match our accomplishments. We’re not representative of the country at large, the country Paul Krugman describes.
But just as the late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill used to say “all politics is local,” so too is an assessment of the “00” decade.
Ours was not in any way, shape or form a zero. I hope yours wasn’t either.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Birdman of White Plains, Part II
Now that it’s winter and for now snow covers the ground (this was written before the drenching rains of Saturday), the bird population is increasing around my four-course feeding station.
Blue Jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, finches and more, and, of course, squirrels, abound. The snow cover has restricted their food supply, so they patronize my aviary restaurant more often. The other day a neighbor’s black and white cat sat pensively on the snow underneath the main bird feeder. The birds just waited him out, returning to feed when the coast was clear.
The birdbath has frozen over, topped by a snow mound. It affects not just the birds but the squirrels as well. You see, though the water bowl is about 30 inches off the ground, the acrobatic squirrels figured out all it takes is a running leap and bound to jump up and perch on the rim to sip their fill of water.
With the water frozen, new tactics for liquid replenishment are required. The other day I spotted a squirrel in a tree nibbling away at something held by its front claws. Through binoculars I saw it was a chunk of ice. In short order the grey rodent had crunched its way through the little berg.
Like the Birdman of Alcatraz (Robert Stroud really was the Birdman of Leavenworth, but Birdman of Alcatraz was a far more exciting title for the book and subsequent movie starring Burt Lancaster), I did not plan a birdwatching avocation. Stroud was serving a life sentence of solitary confinement for murdering a prison guard. His ornithological career began when he came upon an injured bird in the prison’s exercise yard and his need for companionship drove his interest.
I’m no prisoner. Nor am I in solitary confinement. But I am often alone (not lonely). As I implied last September 27 (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/09/birdman-of-white-plains.html), there’s something comforting and fulfilling having other living creatures dependent on you.
Writing, even writing a blog like this one, is a lonely job. It takes discipline (something I often lack). It takes dedication (hopefully you’re not overwhelmed by the frequency of postings, and more hopefully, not underwhelmed by their content). It takes creativity and an ability to view simple things in complex or interesting ways (okay, I can do that). It takes a willingness to reveal things about yourself (up to a point, in my case). You have to accept that some of your work will not please everyone (sounds reasonable). It doesn’t take talent (there are lots of blogs out there to validate that notion; hopefully, my blog doesn’t fall into that pit). It takes lots more, but you get my drift.
The birds offer a momentary diversion, an opportunity to look outward instead of inward.
Ellie spent Christmas weekend with us and she too was captivated by the diversity and antics of the birds.
It’s not just an old guy’s fascination.
Blue Jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, finches and more, and, of course, squirrels, abound. The snow cover has restricted their food supply, so they patronize my aviary restaurant more often. The other day a neighbor’s black and white cat sat pensively on the snow underneath the main bird feeder. The birds just waited him out, returning to feed when the coast was clear.
The birdbath has frozen over, topped by a snow mound. It affects not just the birds but the squirrels as well. You see, though the water bowl is about 30 inches off the ground, the acrobatic squirrels figured out all it takes is a running leap and bound to jump up and perch on the rim to sip their fill of water.
With the water frozen, new tactics for liquid replenishment are required. The other day I spotted a squirrel in a tree nibbling away at something held by its front claws. Through binoculars I saw it was a chunk of ice. In short order the grey rodent had crunched its way through the little berg.
Like the Birdman of Alcatraz (Robert Stroud really was the Birdman of Leavenworth, but Birdman of Alcatraz was a far more exciting title for the book and subsequent movie starring Burt Lancaster), I did not plan a birdwatching avocation. Stroud was serving a life sentence of solitary confinement for murdering a prison guard. His ornithological career began when he came upon an injured bird in the prison’s exercise yard and his need for companionship drove his interest.
I’m no prisoner. Nor am I in solitary confinement. But I am often alone (not lonely). As I implied last September 27 (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/09/birdman-of-white-plains.html), there’s something comforting and fulfilling having other living creatures dependent on you.
Writing, even writing a blog like this one, is a lonely job. It takes discipline (something I often lack). It takes dedication (hopefully you’re not overwhelmed by the frequency of postings, and more hopefully, not underwhelmed by their content). It takes creativity and an ability to view simple things in complex or interesting ways (okay, I can do that). It takes a willingness to reveal things about yourself (up to a point, in my case). You have to accept that some of your work will not please everyone (sounds reasonable). It doesn’t take talent (there are lots of blogs out there to validate that notion; hopefully, my blog doesn’t fall into that pit). It takes lots more, but you get my drift.
The birds offer a momentary diversion, an opportunity to look outward instead of inward.
Ellie spent Christmas weekend with us and she too was captivated by the diversity and antics of the birds.
It’s not just an old guy’s fascination.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Crossing the Delaware
Conjure up the image of Washington Crossing the Delaware. There he is, standing in the bow of the longboat, a flag furled around the troops behind him that fateful Christmas night, 233 years ago, 1776.
Quick, in which direction was he sailing? East or west?
If you said west, you’d be...wrong, done in, as I am, by the illusory compass in our minds that identifies a left-faced portrait as facing west. The reality is that Washington’s assault squad crossed the Delaware River from Pennsylvania into New Jersey. They went east, young man, east.
The Delaware enjoys favored status among some of my close friends, for it is on that river we celebrated the end of each school year for our then teenage children with a canoe trip beginning in Milford, Pa.
Not being a swimmer, I was naturally reluctant to engage in this annual paddle of passage, even with the relative safety of wearing a life preserver jacket and knowing that when my son Dan was in the canoe I had brought along a Red Cross certified lifeguard (Ellie was a good swimmer as well, but not a lifeguard). I wasn’t overly fearful of the Delaware. The river was pretty tame, with few big rapids.
The challenge to keep in mind, and fear, was the combat mentality of the other boaters. Admiral Farragut’s admonition, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” into the sides of the other canoes, seemed to be the mantra of the day. Water cannon and assorted water toys were good for wetting an opponent, but a complete dousing could not be accomplished without a dunk in the drink.
Fortunately I am here to relate the mercy of my friends. They graciously avoided dumping our canoe and its precious cargo.
We haven’t canoed down the Delaware in about 10 years, but there are plans to do so again in late spring in honor of the high school graduation of the last of the group’s children.
Canoeing with my friends wasn’t the only time I risked my life on the water. Twice before, at the beginning of the 1980s, I was forced, make that shamed, into canoeing by the richest man in the world, Sam Walton. Each time it happened during Wal-Mart’s annual meeting weekend in early June when journalists and stock analysts would travel to Bentonville in the northwest corner of Arkansas.
The first time, following the company’s weekly Saturday morning meeting, the guests had their choice of leisure activity, including tennis, golf or canoe trip. I was all set for tennis when Sam casually asked if I was going canoeing.
No, I prefer not to risk my life as I don’t swim, I told him.
Nonsense, he replied. You’re going canoeing! Just wear a life jacket.
There was no denying him. Along with about 40 other New York-types and an equal number of Wal-Mart regulars (that means, outdoors-types), I boarded one of two yellow school buses for an hour’s ride up into southwest Missouri. We paddled down a river for about three hours to a camp where Sam’s daughter, Alice, was cooking Mulligan Stew for dinner.
The next year Sam didn’t have to ask. I knew in advance I’d be canoeing so I brought along to Bentonville one of my staff editors who was a good canoer. But I still wore that life jacket.
Quick, in which direction was he sailing? East or west?
If you said west, you’d be...wrong, done in, as I am, by the illusory compass in our minds that identifies a left-faced portrait as facing west. The reality is that Washington’s assault squad crossed the Delaware River from Pennsylvania into New Jersey. They went east, young man, east.
The Delaware enjoys favored status among some of my close friends, for it is on that river we celebrated the end of each school year for our then teenage children with a canoe trip beginning in Milford, Pa.
Not being a swimmer, I was naturally reluctant to engage in this annual paddle of passage, even with the relative safety of wearing a life preserver jacket and knowing that when my son Dan was in the canoe I had brought along a Red Cross certified lifeguard (Ellie was a good swimmer as well, but not a lifeguard). I wasn’t overly fearful of the Delaware. The river was pretty tame, with few big rapids.
The challenge to keep in mind, and fear, was the combat mentality of the other boaters. Admiral Farragut’s admonition, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” into the sides of the other canoes, seemed to be the mantra of the day. Water cannon and assorted water toys were good for wetting an opponent, but a complete dousing could not be accomplished without a dunk in the drink.
Fortunately I am here to relate the mercy of my friends. They graciously avoided dumping our canoe and its precious cargo.
We haven’t canoed down the Delaware in about 10 years, but there are plans to do so again in late spring in honor of the high school graduation of the last of the group’s children.
Canoeing with my friends wasn’t the only time I risked my life on the water. Twice before, at the beginning of the 1980s, I was forced, make that shamed, into canoeing by the richest man in the world, Sam Walton. Each time it happened during Wal-Mart’s annual meeting weekend in early June when journalists and stock analysts would travel to Bentonville in the northwest corner of Arkansas.
The first time, following the company’s weekly Saturday morning meeting, the guests had their choice of leisure activity, including tennis, golf or canoe trip. I was all set for tennis when Sam casually asked if I was going canoeing.
No, I prefer not to risk my life as I don’t swim, I told him.
Nonsense, he replied. You’re going canoeing! Just wear a life jacket.
There was no denying him. Along with about 40 other New York-types and an equal number of Wal-Mart regulars (that means, outdoors-types), I boarded one of two yellow school buses for an hour’s ride up into southwest Missouri. We paddled down a river for about three hours to a camp where Sam’s daughter, Alice, was cooking Mulligan Stew for dinner.
The next year Sam didn’t have to ask. I knew in advance I’d be canoeing so I brought along to Bentonville one of my staff editors who was a good canoer. But I still wore that life jacket.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Stories of The Times
Shortly after my tenure as a full-time employee ended, I compiled a to-do list. Among the half dozen or more projects I mapped out were starting a blog (done) and reading a book a week. Sadly, I have been excessively negligent in fulfilling the book-reading objective. I’ve started several books, and I’m just a few pages short of completing a book I should have read years ago. It’s Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, On (Not) Getting By in America.
I’m reminded of her book, and shamed into reporting my literary failing, by an article in the SundayBusiness section of the NY Times. Entitled “My Initiation At Store 5476,” the article detailed reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom’s experience working in a Wal-Mart supercenter in Deptford, NJ. It’s an interesting peek into the culture of Wal-Mart and some of the logistics behind running the largest retail enterprise in the world (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/business/20walmart.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=deptford%20nj&st=cse).
But like most reporting, Rosenbloom’s depiction only touched on reality. Perhaps we can’t expect more from most journalism as practiced by newspaper, magazine, TV/radio, and Internet reporters. They usually have only limited exposure to their subjects and often are steered by PR pros to focus on what the subject wants, not necessarily what the public needs to know. I’ve been victim of the same scam. It’s rare reportage that reveals more than a skin deep look at politics, business, sports, you name it.
Written in 2001, Ehrenreich’s 230-page book is advocacy journalism. Unlike Rosenbloom whose assignment was approved by Wal-Mart and whose identity was known to store associates, Ehrenreich went undercover to reveal how workers on the lowest rung of our economic system, those working minimum wage, often without health care or any other type of benefits, manage to survive. She didn’t just work at Wal-Mart. She also toiled as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner and nursing home aide. She investigated conditions in three states: Minnesota, Florida and Maine. To create even a meager lifestyle from her working-class wages, a true paycheck to paycheck existence, she often had to hold down multiple jobs at the same time.
To read Nickel and Dimed is to be reminded that most people reading this blog are years removed from making a decision on what’s more important, buying food or medicine. Most probably never had to make that choice. One of the saddest stories I can relate occurred about six years ago, when the economy was vibrant. During a cocktail party I listened to friends complain about having to juggle their lifestyles on their middle-class incomes. They lived paycheck to paycheck, they lamented. When I pointed out that middle-class income usually topped off at $80,000 to $100,000 and that they were earning multiples of that yardstick, they shrugged and kept on complaining.
Yes, they probably did live paycheck to paycheck, but only because they created a lifestyle that required a new luxury car every two to three years, multiple exotic vacations every year, and other perks of the wealthy. I don’t begrudge them their choices, just their insensitivity to the realities of those whose lives truly are dependent on this week’s paycheck.
The Big Little Book: Also in this week’s SundayBusiness section was a report on efforts to resurrect the bankrupt Reader’s Digest Association (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/business/media/20digest.html?scp=4&sq=reader%27s%20digest&st=Search).
When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, my home was a repository for Reader’s Digest. Not only did the diminutive, perfect-bound magazine arrive each month, but my parents also indulged in buying the magazine company’s condensed books three or four times a year. I enjoyed reading jokes in the Life in These United States, Humor in Uniform, and Laughter pages and other short features inside Reader’s Digest. These was pre-People days, and the Digest served its purpose, if you get my Big Chill drift.
I never considered the Reader’s Digest anything more than a condenser and regurgitater of other publication’s prose until I went off to journalism graduate school at Syracuse University. One of my professors had been an editor at the Digest. He told a remarkable story I haven’t been able to independently verify but worth telling, nonetheless, though I will leave out some of the identifying details to protect potential innocents.
He said sometime in the 1950s he was assigned to report on the increasing popularity of trading stamps given out by supermarkets to shoppers. His investigation uncovered massive fraud at one trading stamp company. Prior to running the article he confronted the chief executive of the company who asked him not to print the expose. He refused. The executive subsequently committed suicide.
He related this story in soft, hushed tones, meant to convey the power of the press and the heavy burden every reporter has in balancing the public trust and right to know with the private lives of those illuminated in black and white newsprint. He left the Digest shortly after that incident to become a journalism professor.
True or not, the story obviously left a lasting impression with me.
I’m reminded of her book, and shamed into reporting my literary failing, by an article in the SundayBusiness section of the NY Times. Entitled “My Initiation At Store 5476,” the article detailed reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom’s experience working in a Wal-Mart supercenter in Deptford, NJ. It’s an interesting peek into the culture of Wal-Mart and some of the logistics behind running the largest retail enterprise in the world (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/business/20walmart.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=deptford%20nj&st=cse).
But like most reporting, Rosenbloom’s depiction only touched on reality. Perhaps we can’t expect more from most journalism as practiced by newspaper, magazine, TV/radio, and Internet reporters. They usually have only limited exposure to their subjects and often are steered by PR pros to focus on what the subject wants, not necessarily what the public needs to know. I’ve been victim of the same scam. It’s rare reportage that reveals more than a skin deep look at politics, business, sports, you name it.
Written in 2001, Ehrenreich’s 230-page book is advocacy journalism. Unlike Rosenbloom whose assignment was approved by Wal-Mart and whose identity was known to store associates, Ehrenreich went undercover to reveal how workers on the lowest rung of our economic system, those working minimum wage, often without health care or any other type of benefits, manage to survive. She didn’t just work at Wal-Mart. She also toiled as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner and nursing home aide. She investigated conditions in three states: Minnesota, Florida and Maine. To create even a meager lifestyle from her working-class wages, a true paycheck to paycheck existence, she often had to hold down multiple jobs at the same time.
To read Nickel and Dimed is to be reminded that most people reading this blog are years removed from making a decision on what’s more important, buying food or medicine. Most probably never had to make that choice. One of the saddest stories I can relate occurred about six years ago, when the economy was vibrant. During a cocktail party I listened to friends complain about having to juggle their lifestyles on their middle-class incomes. They lived paycheck to paycheck, they lamented. When I pointed out that middle-class income usually topped off at $80,000 to $100,000 and that they were earning multiples of that yardstick, they shrugged and kept on complaining.
Yes, they probably did live paycheck to paycheck, but only because they created a lifestyle that required a new luxury car every two to three years, multiple exotic vacations every year, and other perks of the wealthy. I don’t begrudge them their choices, just their insensitivity to the realities of those whose lives truly are dependent on this week’s paycheck.
The Big Little Book: Also in this week’s SundayBusiness section was a report on efforts to resurrect the bankrupt Reader’s Digest Association (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/business/media/20digest.html?scp=4&sq=reader%27s%20digest&st=Search).
When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, my home was a repository for Reader’s Digest. Not only did the diminutive, perfect-bound magazine arrive each month, but my parents also indulged in buying the magazine company’s condensed books three or four times a year. I enjoyed reading jokes in the Life in These United States, Humor in Uniform, and Laughter pages and other short features inside Reader’s Digest. These was pre-People days, and the Digest served its purpose, if you get my Big Chill drift.
I never considered the Reader’s Digest anything more than a condenser and regurgitater of other publication’s prose until I went off to journalism graduate school at Syracuse University. One of my professors had been an editor at the Digest. He told a remarkable story I haven’t been able to independently verify but worth telling, nonetheless, though I will leave out some of the identifying details to protect potential innocents.
He said sometime in the 1950s he was assigned to report on the increasing popularity of trading stamps given out by supermarkets to shoppers. His investigation uncovered massive fraud at one trading stamp company. Prior to running the article he confronted the chief executive of the company who asked him not to print the expose. He refused. The executive subsequently committed suicide.
He related this story in soft, hushed tones, meant to convey the power of the press and the heavy burden every reporter has in balancing the public trust and right to know with the private lives of those illuminated in black and white newsprint. He left the Digest shortly after that incident to become a journalism professor.
True or not, the story obviously left a lasting impression with me.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Spousal Infidelities
My wife done me wrong.
Ten days ago when I reported Gilda had been inside the hall where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Obama, I was misinformed and in turn misinformed. Gilda’s trip, she later recalled, had been to Stockholm, where she did indeed visit the site of the Nobel Prize ceremonies. All Nobel Prizes are given out in the Stockholm Concert Hall, all, that is, save the Peace Prize which is awarded in Oslo.
Since I’m writing again about her trip, I might as well provide more details about her experience as a pseudo-terrorist.
Gilda traveled to Sweden several weeks after our family vacation in Israel in 1990. Her flight to Stockholm included a stopover and plane change in Amsterdam where airport security reviewed her passport with its Israeli stamps.
With apparent thoughts of the book and movie The Little Drummer Girl in mind, they took her into a separate room and interrogated her about her visit to Israel. They searched her from top to bottom and examined every piece of clothing in her suitcase. They even took apart her hair dryer. Eventually, they decided she was not a Palestinian terrorist and let her board the flight to Stockholm.
Mantle of Fidelity: Back in September, I wrote about meeting Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods at the opening of Nike Town in Manhattan some 10 years ago.
Now that both Jordan and Woods have fallen off the fidelity mantle (whoa, was using that descriptor, “mantle,” a subconscious knock on The Mick, whose infidelities were widely known but not reported by a more compliant press, but later acknowledged by him?), does that leave us with Jeter alone as an icon we can trust?
I don’t follow Jeter’s love life, but at least he has had the decency (or smarts) to stay single during his career. He can’t be accused of turning his back on marriage vows, of cheating, except for the occasional phantom touch or tag at second base (and I’m talking baseball here, not some make-out move).
Ten days ago when I reported Gilda had been inside the hall where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Obama, I was misinformed and in turn misinformed. Gilda’s trip, she later recalled, had been to Stockholm, where she did indeed visit the site of the Nobel Prize ceremonies. All Nobel Prizes are given out in the Stockholm Concert Hall, all, that is, save the Peace Prize which is awarded in Oslo.
Since I’m writing again about her trip, I might as well provide more details about her experience as a pseudo-terrorist.
Gilda traveled to Sweden several weeks after our family vacation in Israel in 1990. Her flight to Stockholm included a stopover and plane change in Amsterdam where airport security reviewed her passport with its Israeli stamps.
With apparent thoughts of the book and movie The Little Drummer Girl in mind, they took her into a separate room and interrogated her about her visit to Israel. They searched her from top to bottom and examined every piece of clothing in her suitcase. They even took apart her hair dryer. Eventually, they decided she was not a Palestinian terrorist and let her board the flight to Stockholm.
Mantle of Fidelity: Back in September, I wrote about meeting Derek Jeter, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods at the opening of Nike Town in Manhattan some 10 years ago.
Now that both Jordan and Woods have fallen off the fidelity mantle (whoa, was using that descriptor, “mantle,” a subconscious knock on The Mick, whose infidelities were widely known but not reported by a more compliant press, but later acknowledged by him?), does that leave us with Jeter alone as an icon we can trust?
I don’t follow Jeter’s love life, but at least he has had the decency (or smarts) to stay single during his career. He can’t be accused of turning his back on marriage vows, of cheating, except for the occasional phantom touch or tag at second base (and I’m talking baseball here, not some make-out move).
Friday, December 18, 2009
The Politics of Shopping
Political satire has been part of our national fabric from the start. Among its prime practitioners have been Mark Twain and Will Rogers.
Nowadays, anyone who watches a late night talk show is fed a diet of political humor. Even the NY Times recognizes the mass appeal of these comedic forays by highlighting several jibes on page 2 of its Sunday Week in Review section. But these humorous darts mostly come in the form of one-liners.
Saturday Night Live engages in sketches with dead-on skits and caricatures, from Bush 1 and 2 to Sarah Palin and Hillary. Its send-up of the “accomplishments” to date of the Obama administration has done more to signal the ineptitude and disappointment of the current regime than any Republican attack.
Two of the more frequent and noteworthy satirists are Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report. Having covered retailing for more than three decades, I was particularly fascinated by a segment of Colbert’s interview Wednesday night with retired NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw. Talking about the state of civility in our national discourse, the two had the following exchange:
Brokaw: The fact is we can’t get through the profound changes we have over the short term or (on) the long term basis if everything becomes a food fight of some kind.
Colbert: We’re divided everywhere, sir. We’re divided along liberal and conservative, gay and straight. There’s conservative and liberal bulk shopping. Sam’s Club is conservative and Costco is liberal. That’s a wonderful country when we can divide ourselves along our shopping habits. (To see the full interview, link to http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/258584/december-16-2009/tom-brokaw.)
Colbert’s right. Costco is viewed as more liberal than Sam’s. Management, specifically Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco, repeatedly has resisted Wall Street’s exhortations to reduce salaries and benefits to make them more in line with the rest of the retail industry. Wal-Mart, corporate parent of Sam’s Club, has become more worker-friendly over the last half-dozen years. But it will never be mistaken as a benefactor of labor, even with its recent advocacy of mandatory health care insurance for all.
Here’s an excerpt on Costco from a US News & World Report article from October:
Pushing low prices, though, isn't what really sets Sinegal apart. He also has a habit, which sometimes irks stockholders and almost certainly annoys his competitors, of taking excellent care of his employees. Eighty-six percent of them get healthcare and benefits, even though half are part-timers, and the average wage is $19 an hour. And Costco hasn't had any layoffs in the recession. Why such generosity?
"It's really pretty simple. It's good business. When you hire good people, and you provide good jobs and good wages and a career, good things are going to happen," Sinegal says. "We try to give a message of quality in everything that we do, and we think that that starts with the people. It doesn't do much good to have a quality image, whether it's with the facility or whether it's with the merchandise, if you don't have real quality people taking care of your customers." (The full, short profile, part of the magazine’s feature on America’s Best Leaders 2009, can be accessed at http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/best-leaders/2009/10/22/jim-sinegal-costco-ceo-focuses-on-employees.html.)
He might have been going for the laugh line, but Colbert was right. Costco and Sam’s are different.
“Many a truth said in jest,” it has often been stated. Words the political satirist lives by. Or possibly by those of George Bernard Shaw: “My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.”
Nowadays, anyone who watches a late night talk show is fed a diet of political humor. Even the NY Times recognizes the mass appeal of these comedic forays by highlighting several jibes on page 2 of its Sunday Week in Review section. But these humorous darts mostly come in the form of one-liners.
Saturday Night Live engages in sketches with dead-on skits and caricatures, from Bush 1 and 2 to Sarah Palin and Hillary. Its send-up of the “accomplishments” to date of the Obama administration has done more to signal the ineptitude and disappointment of the current regime than any Republican attack.
Two of the more frequent and noteworthy satirists are Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report. Having covered retailing for more than three decades, I was particularly fascinated by a segment of Colbert’s interview Wednesday night with retired NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw. Talking about the state of civility in our national discourse, the two had the following exchange:
Brokaw: The fact is we can’t get through the profound changes we have over the short term or (on) the long term basis if everything becomes a food fight of some kind.
Colbert: We’re divided everywhere, sir. We’re divided along liberal and conservative, gay and straight. There’s conservative and liberal bulk shopping. Sam’s Club is conservative and Costco is liberal. That’s a wonderful country when we can divide ourselves along our shopping habits. (To see the full interview, link to http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/258584/december-16-2009/tom-brokaw.)
Colbert’s right. Costco is viewed as more liberal than Sam’s. Management, specifically Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco, repeatedly has resisted Wall Street’s exhortations to reduce salaries and benefits to make them more in line with the rest of the retail industry. Wal-Mart, corporate parent of Sam’s Club, has become more worker-friendly over the last half-dozen years. But it will never be mistaken as a benefactor of labor, even with its recent advocacy of mandatory health care insurance for all.
Here’s an excerpt on Costco from a US News & World Report article from October:
Pushing low prices, though, isn't what really sets Sinegal apart. He also has a habit, which sometimes irks stockholders and almost certainly annoys his competitors, of taking excellent care of his employees. Eighty-six percent of them get healthcare and benefits, even though half are part-timers, and the average wage is $19 an hour. And Costco hasn't had any layoffs in the recession. Why such generosity?
"It's really pretty simple. It's good business. When you hire good people, and you provide good jobs and good wages and a career, good things are going to happen," Sinegal says. "We try to give a message of quality in everything that we do, and we think that that starts with the people. It doesn't do much good to have a quality image, whether it's with the facility or whether it's with the merchandise, if you don't have real quality people taking care of your customers." (The full, short profile, part of the magazine’s feature on America’s Best Leaders 2009, can be accessed at http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/best-leaders/2009/10/22/jim-sinegal-costco-ceo-focuses-on-employees.html.)
He might have been going for the laugh line, but Colbert was right. Costco and Sam’s are different.
“Many a truth said in jest,” it has often been stated. Words the political satirist lives by. Or possibly by those of George Bernard Shaw: “My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.”
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