Catching Up on News and Views

With the exception of Monday’s blog, I’ve been mostly silent during the last two weeks, part of which I was pre-occupied with visitors from Israel here for  the annual Shalom Yisrael hosting of first responder-trauma care providers from the area next to the Gaza Strip. (More about them in an upcoming blog.) So let me now take this opportunity to catch up on some of the news and views stored up in my notebook, on scraps of paper and on clippings from the newspaper.

I can report that last Wednesday I demonstrated extreme tact and restraint. While sitting with the Israelis in the congressional dining room eating lunch with Congresswoman Nita Lowey, my ears perked up at the sound of an obsequiously rich baritone voice. In my direct vision, buttering a roll at the adjacent table, Grover Norquist held forth. He of the “no new taxes” pledge. He who is largely responsible for stymieing the government into uncompromising inaction, thereby subsidizing the bifurcation of society into haves and have-nots by inhibiting the development of programs to help the less fortunate while the fortunate become richer and more insulated. 

How fitting to see him eating at the public trough, bending the ear of a congressman I did not recognize. But, as I said, I was a model of decorum. Aside from pointing him out to a colleague seated next to me, and texting my sighting to Gilda and a friend, I sat there stoically silent. I'm grateful the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre wasn't with him or I wouldn't have been able to restrain myself.

The trip to Washington reinforced an old truism I had encountered during three decades of criss-crossing this great country of ours and, for that matter, much of the rest of the civilized world. Namely, the best showers often can be found not in expensive hotels but in moderately priced abodes. I was vigorously refreshed by the shower in my room at the Holiday Inn of Alexandria, VA, reminding me of a stay in the Anatole Hotel in Dallas a decade ago. 

As head of a convention that brought 1,200 guests to the Anatole, the hotel placed me in the presidential suite, 20-plus floors above ground. Beautiful accommodations. But when I sought the cleansing refreshment of a shower, I was startled. The water cycled between hot and cold every 30 seconds. And, most disappointing, the flow was, shall we say, less powerful than an elderly man’s discharge. When I complained to the concierge, I was told the problems resulted from a system that required hot water to be pumped up to the twentieth floor and above. So why did the hotel put the presidential suite on such a high floor?, I asked. Did they not like George W. Bush? He was a Texan, after all. 

As you might expect, aside from voicing my displeasure, I received no satisfaction.

Blessed Passing: More and more I’m feeling the world is passing me by, especially when it comes to technology and the inculcation of terms and figures of speech into the vernacular of everyday life. Until a May 4 article in The NY Times (“They Feel ‘Blessed’”) I wasn’t aware “blessed” had become a standard form of expression and thereby a problem for many, though not to me because of my ignorance, which is a blessing, really (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/fashion/blessed-becomes-popular-word-hashtag-social-media.html?).

Legs to Die For: I have legs most any woman would die for. Long. Thin. Not overly muscular. Pinched in at the ankles. What I don’t have are legs most men would die for.

So I have been particularly amused by the fixation some celebrities and fashion designers have displayed lately by dressing up (or down, in my opinion) in dress shorts and sockless ankles. It came to a head at the Academy Awards in the personage of Pharrell Williams (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/fashion/men-in-shorts-girls-pharrell-williams-critics.html?). 

Perhaps in Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley offices shorts could pass as acceptable business attire, but I’m an old fogey for any other formal occasion, and I still believe business counts as a formal occasion. If you’ve read this far, you probably won’t mind my reprising an incident from some 30 years ago.

As an offshoot to my publication, we had launched a separate apparel magazine, staffed with its own publisher, editorial and sales teams. The publisher traveled to Los Angeles to make calls with his new resident salesman. They planned to visit Ocean Pacific the first day. OP was an emerging brand at the time.

Carl, the publisher, showed up at our LA office in our standard corporate uniform, meaning a suit. Not even a sports jacket and slacks was acceptable back then. His salesman, on the other hand, came dressed in a T-shirt, cutoff shorts and flip-flops. The contrast could not have been greater. The salesman explained that when they arrived at Ocean Pacific Carl would see that casual was the norm, that Carl would be the one whose dress would stand out from the crowd.

Sure enough, the salesman was correct. The next day Carl fired him. He had been guilty of either failing to properly uphold our corporate profile on a business call, or failing to properly communicate in advance the appropriate dress code to Carl for the OP call. Either way, he was history, one of the shortest-tenured salespeople in our company’s history.

Bird Watching: A team from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology won last Saturday’s World Series of Birding in New Jersey. The six-member team identified 218 species during the 24-hour competition. 

I have more modest expectations. My side yard bird feeders draw 10 types beyond the usual sparrows, mourning doves and black birds: blue jay, female cardinal, red-bellied woodpecker, male cardinal, downy woodpecker, cedar waxwing, chickadee, goldfinch, western tanager and nuthatch. Occasionally a migrating hummingbird stops by. 

It’s About Time: The Times finally got around to noting this past Sunday that unrest in Ukraine has prompted cancellations of vacation travel to the region. As I reported two months earlier, on March 3, Gilda’s and my Black Sea summer cruise, including stops in Odessa, Yalta and Sevastopol, was scrapped.  

Twas the Week After Christmas

Twas the week after Christmas, there wasn’t a whiff

Of congressmen rushing to avoid the cliff.

They bloviated, they blew, lots of hot air,

Leaving the country full of despair.

Grover Norquist smiled, severe in his stance,

No tax increase, not even a chance.

While families wondered how much more they will pay,

Uncle Sam stroked his beard all through the day.

From the shores of Hawaii the president rose,

To the microphones he stepped on tippy-tip toes.

“Now boys, and some girls, my vacation is done,

I’m returning to deal with you in Washington.

“Can’t we find some new common ground,

To keep most taxes low. Now, how does that sound?

Come Boehner, come Cantor, come McDonnell and more,

It’s time we talked some more to explore

A new fiscal plan that’s not all as stiff

As that Draconian plan that’s beyond the cliff.

We need to agree for the sake of the country

On measures to keep our fiscal sanity.”

Twas the week before New Year when all millionaires

Fretted and wondered if Congress would dare.

What plan could be hatched to take some more tax

From those who could pay, but always say “nay.”

It’s too soon to tell the end of this tale,

Be of good cheer, we have nothing to fear

But falling over a deep fiscal cliff,

Leaving the nation only slightly adrift.

Duo of Tyranny

Seven weeks ago we voted in a new Congress and re-elected a president, but two of the most powerful and influential men in the land rule despite a majority of Americans disagreeing with their stands. Grover Norquist and Wayne LaPierre hold such sway over elected officials that they stymie any attempts to impose rational thought on issues affecting national priorities.

President Obama ran a successful campaign based on higher taxes for the wealthy. Democrats narrowed their minority position in the House of Representatives. They increased their majority in the Senate. Opinion polls repeatedly show some 60% of Republican voters believe higher taxes on the rich should be part of any negotiated settlement of our budget crisis.

Yet Republicans are so cowed by Norquist’s anti-tax pledge that they fear voting for any bill that includes any marginal tax rate increase, even if it affects just millionaires (could it be that since many GOP congressmen and senators are millionaires they are in no mood to pass anything that would up their own taxes?). 

Norquist also is a board member of the National Rifle Association, of which Lapierre is the vocal executive vice president who, one week after the Sandy Hook massacre, refused to soften the NRA’s position on any form of gun control. Again, polls show most Americans favor background checks and assault rifle bans. Instead of acknowledging the prevalence of guns contributes to mass killings, LaPierre blames our culture for breeding a climate of violence. His and the NRA’s solution is more guns in the hands of good guys will stop guns in the hands of bad guys. 

I’ve never owned a gun. Heck, I’ve never even pulled the trigger of a real gun. But am I now a candidate for NRA membership because, like LaPierre, I believe schools should be protected by armed security?

Gilda vehemently disagrees with me. She sees no benefit from introducing guns into school settings. After all, she points out, an armed guard didn’t stop the killings at Columbine. Gilda favors doing away with assault rifles and semi-automatic hand guns, And large capacity ammunition clips. So do I. Unlike LaPierre, I don’t believe solving our epidemic of violence can be achieved by arming as many people as possible. I prefer a country where semi-automatic guns are not protected by Second Amendment rights. But I’m also a realist. Until we resolve our self-inflicted crisis of too many guns and too many bullets available to too many unstable people, we need to establish at least minimal safeguards. 

Yes, it will cost lots of money to staff, train and deploy security personnel, not just at schools but also at other public facilities, such as hospitals and houses of worship. Some might think I am extending the killing zone. But evil will look for weakness, as it did at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. 

Our culture somehow has devolved into a dark video game. I’ve never played video games, never comprehended the fascination with mock killing and dismembering. I cannot fathom the depths of any mind that would exult in the deaths of innocents, especially the young. But as the troubled mind seeks greater and greater proportionality of fame and havoc, I cannot help but envision scenarios that undermine the very humanity of our culture. We claim to be better than other countries, but no other nation not at war with itself (as in Congo, Syria or Afghanistan) inflicts so much brutality on its fellow citizens.

Our national dialogue must include recognition that mass violence will not be contained overnight. So we must protect in the near term what we cherish. From where will we get the manpower to staff security at schools, hospitals, churches, synagogues and mosques? We have, regrettably, on top of his tax relief for the wealthy, another Bush-era legacy—a sizeable supply of personnel trained in the art of war. Thousands of qualified, stable military veterans need jobs. They could be hired to protect the vulnerable.

It’s not a solution without challenges. I’m embarrassed to have to put it forward. But deterrence may work in the short term until we regain our senses and devise a sensible gun control plan as well as a workable mental health plan and a rational tax plan and stop letting two myopic men set national policy.

Losing Weight, Religion, Raising Taxes, Baking Bread

I understand a new season of The Biggest Loser will start next month. Never watched the show but if you need any more evidence Americans are overweight and looking mostly for short-term solutions to their bulges, here’s a news flash: Spanx, the company whose body-slimming products have been available only through department and specialty stores or online, will be opening stores (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-30/can-spanx-stores-fit-into-americas-malls#r=hpt-fs). In other words, there are enough fatties out there to make the cost of store construction and staffing worthwhile. When, oh when, will we stop eating ourselves to shortened lives ...

Hard to think such a thing could occur during this season of gluttony. Not just turkeys and stuffing and marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes and glazed hams and you-name-it, but also sugar plums and caramel popcorn and cookies galore. But then, anything can happen. Consider this—last week Fox News star entertainer-cum-newscaster Bill O’Reilly opined, “It is a fact that Christianity is not a religion. It is a philosophy.”  

I apologize for being late in reporting this mind-blowing news. I don’t make it a habit of watching Fox News. I rely on Jon Stewart for my daily dose of Fox News absurdities. The O’Reilly revelation was broadcast last Thursday. I had to wait until Monday night for Stewart to alert the masses O’Reilly had downgraded them from religious adherents to philosophy groupies. 

Perhaps, and this is just a prayer, O’Reilly’s pomposity will finally be visible to the Fox News nation and this could be the beginning of his end ...

As long as we’re wishing on a star, here’s another person worthy of downgrading—Grover Norquist, he of the “no tax increase” pledge that has cowed many a Republican elected official into abandoning the principle of working for his or her country in favor of working to stay in office and avoid a Tea Party primary challenge. 

I’m always amused to read creative ways Republicans could get around abandoning the pledge. Monday’s NY Times carried a letter to the editor from the former chairman of the American Bar Association’s Taxation Section. Peter L. Faber argued “there’s a loophole in the pledge. Under its literal language, a signer agrees to ‘oppose’ any efforts to increase taxes but does not irrevocably commit to voting against them. A signer could vigorously ‘oppose’ a tax increase and yet vote for it as part of a compromise solution.”

Written like a true lawyer, parsing every word. But such a rational approach to an irrational situation would not work. Tea Party extremists are not rational. They will primary anyone who votes for a tax increase. The Republicans’ only hope—nay, the country’s only hope—is that reasonable, patriotic elected representatives will display profiles of courage and agree to a tax increase for the wealthy elite, even if it means a primary challenge. Mainstream Republicans must take their party back from the extremists. 

I know. I don’t think it will happen either, but it’s nice to dream of life and politics the way they could be ...

Which brings me back to a food item. Last week I heard a story on NPR about a process to bake bread that resists mold for two months without the use of preservatives. It’s done by bombarding loaves with microwaves no stronger than those emitted by your everyday kitchen appliance. It’s just done more comprehensively. 

Trust me on this. I’m no scientist, but the researchers in Lubbock, Texas, were, and they explained how it could be done. Only it probably won’t be done because bread companies would lose a fortune in repeat sales if bread actually lasted that long. It’s like car fuel economy. Do you really believe we don’t have the wherewithal to produce cars that get 100 miles per gallon? We put a man on the moon 43 years ago, for God’s sake. Only the political might of the oil and car companies has stymied development of fuel efficient, safe cars.

Taking the Pledge

The failure of the Congressional supercommittee to reach a deficit reduction compromise is being hailed and attacked as a victory for Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform organization. For those not familiar with Norquist and his outfit, they are dedicated to the proposition that the fewer the taxes levied on the public the better. Moreover, Norquist has signed up almost every Republican of note to a pledge never to vote for another tax increase. Thus, any compromise by GOP lawmakers that included additional taxes, especially on the wealthy, would have been a violation of the non-binding but politically pragmatic oath they signed.

Speaking to NPR today, Norquist discounted any criticism from members of the Grand Old Party, such as David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, that his pledge ran counter to the national interest. “They’re no longer Republicans,” he reasoned.

I won’t venture into purely Republican internal squabbles, but I would like to suggest an alternative to the no new taxes pledge. How’s about a pledge that in the richest country in the world we don’t let children go to sleep hungry; or that we provide workers with a livable wage; that we don’t allow corporate executives to reap huge bonuses while everyday workers are laid off or have their wages and benefits slashed; that we don’t reduce veterans’ benefits; that we provide affordable health care to all who need it; that we protect our citizens from unscrupulous corporate greed, unsafe products, pollution, and unsafe working conditions?

Conservatives would say I’m advocating a welfare state, that in this land of opportunity if you just worked hard you’d have everything you require or want without the need for government intervention or assistance. Sadly, they are not only mistaken, they are also ignorant, for history has shown time and again that without government oversight and control companies and individuals cheat, pollute, harm, oppress, violate the law and take advantage of the less fortunate. The argument that the free market will regulate offenders hardly compensates those who are offended, surely not in a timely manner.

Few people like to pay taxes. But the alternative is either anarchy or a system where the elite live well and the rest of society does not.


No Sympathy: I don’t have much sympathy, check that, I have no sympathy, for the laid off workers from the financial sector, as depicted in a NY Times article today (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/wall-st-layoffs-take-heavy-toll-on-younger-workers/?scp=1&sq=sam%20meek&st=cse).

Oodles and oodles of dollars were made over the last 20 years by Wall Street practitioners cobbling together mergers and acquisitions, LBOs and IPOs, managing hedge funds that only the wealthy could afford to invest in. At the end of the day, any day, though they made tons of money they hardly ever produced anything tangible, of lasting value. They destroyed as many companies as they saved.

Tell me, what child or teenager, except the Michael J. Fox character Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties, wakes up and says, “When I grow up I want to be an investment banker”? No, I’d wager the idea of Wall Street first entered their brain when they read or saw movies about the fast and luxurious life of financial honchos.

Assuming many of these unemployed financial types are good with numbers, perhaps they should reconnect with some down to earth values and look into teaching math. I understand there’s a real need for math teachers in many school districts.

I’m apparently not alone in my unsympathetic response. Check out the feedback to the original Times article: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/for-distressed-young-bankers-a-symphony-of-small-violins/?scp=2&sq=sam%20meek&st=cse

Another Day, Another Rant

One more thing I’d do if I were in charge...

I’d stop salary payments to all senators and congressmen, the president and all political appointees confirmed by the senate if the government fails to reach agreement on an extension of the debt ceiling and the country defaults on its financial obligations. Pay would be withheld until a deal is finalized and signed by the president. Withheld pay would not be reimbursed once a deal is done. It would be gone with the wind.


Lost Legacy?: Consistency can be a virtue, but it can highlight hypocrisy if not followed.

Tea Party congressmen express outrage that big deficits would strap future generations with backbreaking debt. It’s an honest reason to advocate a balanced budget. Hard to find fault with the warm and fuzzy feeling Tea Partyers have for our children and grandchildren.

Only thing is, they don’t seem to care what type of world they’ll be leaving our offspring. By demanding cuts to, even the dismantling of, the Environmental Protection Agency, the “budget do-gooders” want to bequeath a world with dirtier air, less clean water, fewer national parks and forests, thus removing legacies of that great Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt.

Is the Tea Party so stuck on an anti-government platform it is willing to sacrifice our national heritage and societal advances of the last 120 years? Are regular Republicans so cowed by the Tea Party they are willing to repudiate their own history? Even Ronald Reagan raised taxes. Grover Norquist’s no new taxes pledge would disqualify Reagan from his exalted position.


Follow Me?: Do you take advice from a sibling? Many don’t. Number Track Palin among them. Apparently the 22-year-old didn’t subscribe to little sister Bristol’s abstinence-is-the-best-policy mantra. Instead, he bought into the monkey see-monkey do approach.

After watching Bristol conceive a child out of wedlock (and get rich and famous for it), Track seemingly took the same track, impregnating his high school sweetheart Britta, 21, before they got hitched last May. Recent pictures from a baby shower reveal Britta’s baby bump to be more advanced than normal for two months after nuptials and sanctioned relations.

Ah, well, as I said earlier, consistency can be a virtue, though in this case virtue might not be the right word for a clan that espouses family values but puts more emphasis on creating families than upholding values. Perhaps more appropriate for Palinistas would be the idiom, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”