On Selling the Sizzle, Not the Steak

Not sure how many of you watch the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, but Thursday night the broadcast commemorated the 75th anniversary of CBS Radio’s World News Roundup. Begun the day after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, commonly referred to as the Anschluss, the World News Roundup is the longest running news broadcast. 

In keeping with the news of this week, Pelley featured none other than “legendary Vatican correspondent Winston Burdett in 1962 reporting” on Pope Paul VI’s coronation (sic—the ceremony actually took place June 30, 1963). 

Unlike my commentary on Wednesday about Burdett, Pelley did not mention his confession as a Soviet spy.

Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak: It’s a common marketing theme—sell the customer on the hype, not the actual product. If a deal can’t be struck, there must be something wrong with your marketing, with how you project yourself to the public.

How would you feel if you were Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and you heard House Speaker John Boehner blame “candidates and personalities” rather than proposals on Medicare and spending cuts as the reason Republicans lost the election last November?

In the days, weeks and months since Barack Obama won a second term and Republican numbers in the House and Senate suffered dilution, GOP insiders have searched for a new path to victory. Their most right wing members met this week at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in National Harbor, MD. With nary an exception, speakers picked up the failed banner of 2012, demanding an end to Obamacare and other benefit programs. They weren’t interested in developing a more humane Republican Party platform, just a more palatable face to their repressive (my word, not theirs) positions. Republicans want to sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Across the Atlantic, a new pope was chosen. The Catholic Church is under stress. Reform seems to be needed, and wanted, both in its administrative functions and its theological tenets. But like Republicans gathered outside Washington, the cardinals stuck to their conservative doctrines. They picked a new Holy Father who is singular only in that he comes from the Americas. His thinking is decidedly Old World.

Initial enthusiasm for the selection of Francis I may well give way to more sober reflection by rank and file and uncommitted Catholics who want women to be ordained as priests, who want an end to priestly celibacy, who want acceptance of alternative lifestyles, who want abortion and contraception to be tolerated.

The challenge both the pope and the GOP have is how to appeal to a wider audience than their respective true believers. The Church, on the surface, has opted to offer a sizzling, appealing new face. Humble, compassionate, a tireless worker against poverty. Someone eager to shake up an entrenched Vatican bureaucracy. Time will tell if he’s more than an attractive new look. Will he diversify? Will he expand power beyond old, mostly white, men?  

One of my Catholic friends suggested I refrain from commenting on the pope. I am, after all, not Catholic. But the pope is more than just a religious leader. Some consider him the most powerful man on earth, being the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, even if they are not all strict adherents to his doctrine. Even among non-Catholics, the pronouncements of the pontiff demand attention. And commentary. 

So I hope Pope Francis will become more tolerant, less restrictive. I’m emboldened by news today that Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), a one-time supporter of the Defense of Marriage Act, now endorses the right of gay couples to marry, to be entitled to federal marriage benefits. Yes, Portman changed his mind only after his son revealed he was gay. But it’s another example of a prominent Republican who has had personal experience with the LGBT lifestyle within their family. Portman, and Dick Cheney and Ted Olson, haven’t stopped loving their children. They’ve accepted them for who they are. They’ve accepted their equality and suitability to raise a family. Pope Francis, along with many conservative thinkers of all religions, may yet come to that same level of acceptance. 

Personalizing the News: Autobahn Driving, GOP Stubbornness, A New Pope and Penney Problems

Under snowy conditions Tuesday in Germany, about 100 vehicles crashed on an autobahn near Frankfurt. No doubt, the snow contributed to the massive crack-up. But I also have no doubt the pattern of German driving contributed, as well.

During my first trip to Germany, in 1996 to attend the EuroShop conference in Dusseldorf, I was invited by the team from Boston Retail to tour some stores. They had rented a car, a large Mercedes sedan, with a driver. I sat in the middle of the rear seat with an unobstructed view of the speedometer. German cars measure speed in kilometers per hour. It’s a simple computation to convert the number into miles per hour. Simply multiply it by 60%. 

When the speedometer needled its way toward 160, I could barely contain my anxiety as I also had an unobstructed view of the traffic in front of us, which at that moment was no more than two car lengths ahead. It wasn’t that our driver was a tailgating daredevil. Every driver on the autobahn was spaced the same one to two car lengths behind the car he was trailing. To travel less than 96 miles per hour would endanger all. 

Of course, that means when a car slows down, because of snow, fog or some other reason, there is a chain reaction should any one vehicle not brake to the precise slower speed. Large pile-ups are common in Germany.

All for Naught? Why do we bother holding elections if the party that loses just regurgitates the same garbage that cost them the election? I’m talking about the Republican budget proposal that would slash Obamacare, transform Medicare and reduce other social services programs without asking any more in taxes from the wealthy. It’s the same hogwash that voters repudiated in the last election just four months ago.

Since losing the presidential election to Barack Obama and seeing their ranks in the House and Senate shrink, Republicans have shown little if any inclination to change their national message and appeal. Their only salvation for the moment is their hammerlock on state governments where they have gerrymandered congressional districts into safe GOP seats, safe, that is, if their candidates hew to the hard right to avoid a Tea Party primary. 

Doubtful we will get a legislative branch of government in the short term that will function to the welfare and benefit of the country rather than the partisan aggrandizement of each congressman.

For Old-Time Vatican Watchers Only: As I listened to CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey report from Rome over the last several days, I was nostalgic for the hushed, clipped tones of Winston Burdett, the network’s Papal eyes, ears and voice during the 1950s and 1960s. His weathered look gave his Vatican reports a certain ancient authenticity, not that Pizzey’s reporting hasn’t been crisp and informative. (BTW, did you know Burdett was a self-confessed spy for the Soviet Union? Rather than throw him under the bus, Edward R. Murrow had him transferred to CBS’ Rome bureau.)

No need to guess about this—with the election of Francis I Tuesday we will be subjected to a stream of articles on the significance of his elevation from archbishop of Buenos Aires to the 265th successor to Peter as the bishop of Rome. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first pontiff to be elected from the New World, though he has roots in the Old. Before he was born 76 years ago, his parents emigrated to Argentina from Italy.  

In 2005, Cardinal Bergoglio was the runner-up to Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI. Yet he was not considered a front-runner this time. As he was chosen on the fifth ballot, perhaps he was a compromise candidate, someone who, in Pizzey’s words, while not a fan of the embattled, scandal-plagued Roman Curia, nevertheless is seen as an ultra-conservative and ultra-orthodox cleric not likely to shake up church dogma on such issues as abortion (which many in Argentina favor, according to Elaine Cobbe of CBS) or celibacy for priests. 

The new pope is said to be a humble Jesuit who lives simply and rides the subway to work. Though the trappings of his new office will require lifestyle changes, his emphasis on eradicating poverty and helping the indigent and less fortunate could have political repercussions in the United States where Republican efforts to limit or eliminate programs to help the poor would undercut his mission.

It was speculated the College of Cardinals would choose someone younger. After all, Francis I is only two years shy of  Benedict’s age when he ascended to the papacy. What’s more, he has only one lung. In his appearance before the crowds in St. Peter’s Square, he appeared restrained, barely cracking a smile. Perhaps exuberance is not appropriate at such a solemn occasion, but as the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics beset by numerous ecclesiastical and administrative issues (some would say scandals), Francis I will have to show more energy than he did from the balcony of St. Peter’s.

In the theater world, second acts are among the hardest to pull off. Third acts, almost impossible.

It’s that way in retailing, too; no less a luminary than Gordon Segal, founder of Crate & Barrel said, “Retailing is theater.” Few retail executives have been able to replicate success after success after success at different companies. 

Ron Johnson, the beleaguered CEO of J.C. Penney, is finding that out the hard way. After a notable career as a vice president of merchandising at Target, Johnson stunned the retail world with his evocation of retail nirvana—he developed the Apple Retail Stores. Apple stores boast among the highest sales per square foot in the industry. While almost all other mall stores can be empty on any given weekday, Apple’s are a beehive of activity. 

For sure, Apple products are key attractions. But equally magnetic have been the store design, the attention to detail and customer service, particularly the Genius Bar Johnson pioneered at the back of each location.

It was inevitable Johnson’s success would lead to his recruitment. Penney, though, is a far cry from Apple. Its products don’t have the cache of Apple’s. Apple concentrates on one category of merchandise. Penney is multi-dimensional, which means its messaging is dispersed across many areas, to many different types of customers. Its stores are way larger. Penney’s store staff are not brand proselytizers the way Apple’s are. Apple almost never ran sales; customers came into the stores because they wanted to. Penney had to rely on sales to generate traffic. When Johnson tried to change that by going to an everyday low price strategy, they stopped coming. (Johnson’s disappointment in that tactic is not unique—Food Lion recently pulled its “no sales” platform, as well.) When Johnson came to Apple, he had a supportive leader in Steve Jobs. They worked off a tabula rasa to create a unique store experience. At Penney, Johnson had to work with 100 years of heritage, arteriosclerosis and all. 

Johnson’s latest misstep is his apparent disregard for an exclusive contract between Macy’s and Martha Stewart. He seemed to encourage placement of Martha Stewart products in Penney stores, the result of which has been embarrassing revelations during a Macy’s lawsuit contesting the Stewart-Penney alliance. I won’t go so far as retail analyst Walter Loeb who suggested “this could be a fatal blow to J.C. Penney.” But I do believe it could signal the end of Johnson’s leadership of Penney. His tenure is not helped by the company’s performance in the fiscal year ended February 1: year over year sales dropped by $4.27 billion; the company lost $985 million compared to a loss of $152 million the year before. Share price tumbled by 60%; 2,200 workers were laid off last week. 

No Longer Ignorant or Blissful

We’re all indebted to Thomas Gray for coining the phrase “ignorance is bliss” in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec). Twice this week I came away feeling less than thrilled upon finding out some realities.

I celebrated my 64th birthday Wednesday (thanks, all who Facebooked me or sent notes the old-fashioned way—by email—and the even more old-fashioned way, by snail mail). For years whenever asked about my birthday I would say March 6, the day the Alamo fell. Now, however, thanks to one of those annoying “15 seconds in time” Geico radio commercials, I learned that March 6 is the day the U.S. Supreme Court issued its most infamous ruling, the Dred Scott decision, in 1857.

While Geico did perform a public service in bringing this bit of historic news to my attention, I was less than pleased to hear how the insurance company framed the decision. It took the safe explanation, merely stating the judges ruled slave owners had the right to take their slaves into Western territories, that the federal government did not have the power to regulate slavery in those areas. 

What Geico did not point out is that in the Dred Scott decision the Court held that slaves were personal property, that people of African descent, whether free or slave, were not protected by the Constitution, that they had no rights as a U.S. citizen, that they had “no rights which any white man was bound to respect.” According to Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Dred Scott was the property of his owner, and property could not be taken from a person without due process of law (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/171273/Dred-Scott-decision).

The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution basically have voided the Dred Scott decision, but disenfranchisement of African-Americans, and other minorities, has been a tragic legacy still weighing us down as a nation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, and its subsequent renewal, helped expand voting rights, but the current challenge by Shelby County, Ala., to Section 5 of the law raises the prospect of another ignominious decision by the Court. 

Which brings me to my second enlightened disappointment of the week. I had followed coverage of the Supreme Court arguments. I remonstrated against Justice Antonin Scalia’s bigoted views and the absurdity and hypocrisy of a conservative judge advocating judicial advocacy to do the work of Congress. No, my reversal of ignorance is of a more personal nature.

Thanks to a clip on The Colbert Report Wednesday night, I once again was embarrassed to hear my cousin, Bert Rein, argue before the Supreme Court in favor of the entitled, in favor of those who would repress the rights of the disadvantaged. While the history of this country has been the (gradual) expansion of voting rights to all citizens, my cousin, representing Shelby County, stood for the belief that “the problem for which the Voting Rights Act was addressed is solved.” 

Did Bert sleep through the last election cycle? Did he not witness attempt after attempt by Republican elected officials in state after state to restrict voting access to minorities? 

Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss. 

Lessons to be Learned

Spent an engrossing 95 minutes Tuesday afternoon watching The Gatekeepers, the Academy Award-nominated documentary that interviewed six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service.

I won't bias your opinion of this film by injecting my analysis of the merits of what was conveyed by them.  I urge all to see it. It’s a refreshing presentation of ideas and events from key participants in Israel’s history since 1967. I was captivated by the candor of these six men, especially when I compare two interviews I saw and heard with former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor this week. She's promoting a new book she wrote about the Court, but when pressed by Leonard Lopate of WNYC-NPR or Jon Stewart of The Daily Show for specific insights into the inner workings of the Court, the best they were able to elicit was the fact that when the justices get together for lunch they individually order food from the Supreme Court building cafeteria.

What I do want to highlight from the film it how fragile relationships between peoples—especially enemies—can be. They can turn on a phrase spoken with casual sincerity but unintended consequences. Shortly after Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza and their more than one million Palestinians after the Six Day War in 1967, Israel undertook a census of the territories. As one of the Shin Bet directors recounted, Israelis would knock on Palestinian doors, announce themselves, and say in Arabic they were there to “count the men.” But the word for “count” sounds disastrously close to another word that would not instill confidence or bonhomie. That other word is “castrate.” Whether it was Israeli mispronunciation or Palestinian mishearing, a casualty of understanding ensued.

Which brings me to my own experience with language, in my case, English. If you’ve ever tried to teach English to anyone from a non-English speaking country, you would know that English is a darn hard language to learn. Too many words sound alike. Too many words have multiple meanings. Too many words, depending on their usage, can be either nouns or verbs, or adjectives. 

For more than a year I have been tutoring English as Second Language students at our high school during their study hall. I stay away from math assignments. English. History. Geography. Simple science lessons. I'm pretty good at imparting some knowledge in those subjects.

But the lessons aren’t always easy. It doesn’t help that my Spanish (most of the students are from Latin America) is limited to 20 words or so. I had a major breakthrough today. Trying to explain “cowgirl,” I made little headway saying it was a female cowboy. The student had no idea what a cowboy was. Fortunately, all those years watching westerns paid off. I said “vaquero.” A connection was made.

It’s not always that simple, or lucky. Today I was helping a student study vocabulary. He had to identify words as nouns, verbs or adjectives and define them. Sounds straight forward. Only trouble was many of the words crossed over into multiple designations. Words like “cheer.”  Or “refuse.” How did you read refuse—as a verb (re-fuse) or as a noun (ref-use)?   

What about homonyms, such as profit and prophet. The other day a girl asked about Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When I started to tell her about the prophets Moses and Mohammed, she became bewildered. She wanted to know why I was talking about money.

Learning to master a language means learning idioms. Today’s idioms included “putting one’s foot in one’s mouth,” “get out of the car and assume the position,” and “no good deed goes unpunished.” 

I try to spend two hours a day, several times a week, tutoring. Sometimes, real estate work intrudes on my time commitment. So do food deliveries to seniors on Wednesdays. Don’t presume going to the Tuesday movies does—school ends hours before the first screening of the day. Helping these kids gain a better understanding of their new surroundings is among the most gratifying work I’ve ever done. When it’s your turn to retire, you could find few pursuits more fulfilling, rewarding and necessary than spending time assisting ESOL students acclimate to America.

Signs of Spring

With a new storm set to tumble across our area in the next day one might not agree with me that this has been a mild winter in New York. Gilda, for one, disagrees. She says it’s been colder than normal. All I know is I have shoveled less snow than in years’ past so I'm okay with this season. I’ve also got my own built-in system to gauge the weather. I have numerous winter coats worn depending on how cold it is. A different coat for every 10 degrees of change. I can remember just a few days this season when my extreme wardrobe was called into action. 

Some think robins are harbingers of spring. To me it's the return of the lustrous black grackle. They made their appearance at the feeding trough over the last week.

Another signal the seasons are changing is the migration of baseball players to Florida for spring training. For NY Yankees fans it’s not a season of new prospects but rather a time to hope creaking, aging bodies will loosen up and stay healthy for another season (latest to require a two month rest—Mark Teixiera after injuring his wrist swinging a bat). Derek Jeter. Andy Petittte. Mariano Rivera. Can they make it through another grueling season?

For at least a decade Jeter has been the face of baseball. No hint of scandal, on or off the field. Professional in every way. But truth be told, the image of baseball is changing. It is morphing into Buster Posey. Two out of the last three years the team he plays for, the San Francisco Giants, have won the World Series. Posey is the heart and soul of the Giants. If you watched any of the World Series last fall you probably saw Posey’s smiling, puckish face a few times whenever, that is, he deemed it necessary to remove his protective helmet. Posey is a catcher, perhaps the most demanding position on the field.

Catchers don't look like catchers anymore. Not like the catchers of my youth. Back then, a catcher’s body resembled a fire hydrant. Short and squat. Think Yogi Berra. Or Smoky Burgess. Or Roy Campanella. Or Johnny Rosboro. They were hardly good looking. Think Thurman Munson.

Today's catchers are trim, cute, good looking. Pitchmen for shampoos. Think Joe Mauer. Even backup catchers like Chris Stewart are lean.

Where did all the bulk go. Apparently to first base. Think Pablo Sandoval of the Giants, affectionately called “Kung Fu Panda” because of his rotund size. The 2012 World Series MVP is 5’11” tall and weighs 240 pounds. Yet he looks small compared to Prince Fielder of the Detroit Tigers. Prince looks like he ate his way to a throne. On his 5’11” inches he packs 275 pounds.

Let’s get back to Thurman Munson. He was a link in the chain of home-grown Yankees who epitomized the team. I’ll confine this discourse to the free agent era. When one thinks of Yankee greats, following Munson there was the Don Mattingly era followed by the Bernie Williams-Jorge Posada-Jeter-Pettitte-Rivera era. The problem with the Yankees of today is the absence of home-grown superstars, with the exception of Robinson Cano, who will step up when Jeter-Pettitte-Posada retire. Yankee fans like winning, so we accept the strategy of buying talent on the open market. But our hearts, our long-term allegiances, are extended to those who came up through the Yankee farm system. Sure, there are some players who have been Yankees throughout their careers. But let’s face it. Brett Gardner is a nice ballplayer. So is David Robertson. Phil Hughes. Joba Chamberlain. They may wear the same pinstripes as Jeter-Pettitte-Rivera, but they don’t measure up. 

Spring is the time of eternal optimism in baseball clubhouses and TV rooms across the country. For Yankee fans, this season has all the earmarks of 1965-redux. If you’re a true Bronx Bomber fan, you know what I mean. All the rest of you, you can look it up. 

Mrs. Miniver Visits Downton Abbey

The stunning conclusion of Season 3 of Downton Abbey two Sundays ago left many viewers angry, disappointed and even vowing to boycott the further adventures of the Crawley family as it struggles to cope with an evolving British way of life in the 1920s. 

Count me among those who didn’t care for the (spoiler alert) sudden demise of Matthew Crawley so swiftly after the birth of his son, the future heir of the estate and title, the Earl of Grantham. Knowing, however, that the actor who played Matthew wanted out, never to return, it was a forgone conclusion he would be knocked off before the curtain came down on the third season. Series creator and writer Julian Fellowes had no other choice, though he might have chosen a less dastardly demise.

This being soap opera of the highest caliber one must expect plot twists and cliffhangers to keep the audience guessing and wanting to return for more upstairs and downstairs shenanigans (you can check various Web sites on your own for titillating news about Season 4 plot and casting news). 

That reference to Upstairs Downstairs was intentional. Fellowes has seemingly borrowed liberally from that classic series of British aristocracy and their servants. But what completely flabbergasted me was my discovery this afternoon of his most blatant reincarnation of a scene in the third episode of Season 1 from the venerable Oscar-winning movie, Mrs. Miniver.

In that 1942 movie, just as in Downton Abbey, the small town where the action takes place holds an annual flower show competition. Every year the winner for the best rose is the mistress of the manor, Lady Beldon. The judges choose her again, but this time she is persuaded by her grandson-in-law’s mother to announce another winner, an elderly villager named Mr. Ballard. 

In Downton Abbey, the Dowager Countess of Grantham overrules the judges’ decision to award her once again the first place cup prize for the best rose. She announces the winner is an elderly villager, Mr. Molesley. She, too, was persuaded to do so by her grandson-in-law’s mother. 

(An interesting footnote—Lady Beldon was played by Dame May Whitty; the Dowager Countess is played by Dame Maggie Smith.) 

When the movie ended, I immediately googled to see if others had noted the similarities in the stories. Sure enough they had. When confronted, Fellowes basically shrugged it off. I must admit I was less than happy with this turn of events. It reminded me of when I thought Water for Elephants too closely resembled 1940’s Chad Hanna despite the former’s author asserting she had been inspired by old newspaper pictures of circuses (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/01/before-water-for-elephants.html). I guess I’m not too thrilled with the borrowed creative process. Perhaps it’s the journalist in me that disdains any form of plagiarism. 

Yet, as I wrote two years ago, “My friend and former art director Milton says there are no new story lines, just different treatments of the same themes.” He’s right, of course. West Side Story, for example, is Romeo & Juliet, to music. It’s just I wish Julian Fellowes had shown a little more creativity in lifting his flower scene from Mrs. Miniver. 

Ennui. Apathy. World-Weariness. Tedium

I consider myself a fairly engaged and knowledgeable observer of politics and world events. But I must admit to a high degree of ennui as it pertains to the machinations of Congress and the president as we draw near to the deadline for implementation of the sequester that will strip many social welfare, education and defense programs of much needed funding if a budget agreement is not reached by Friday.

I’m tired of reading Paul Krugman, David Brooks and countless other thought leaders argue for sanity from the other side. It just is not going to happen. It must be disheartening if you’re a pundit who daily doles out advice and never sees any tangible movement toward compromise. We might still live in the greatest democracy in the world, but it is far from being a paragon of virtue and efficiency. 

Our democracy at present is dysfunctional. When one senator can effectively stop the nation’s business just by threatening a filibuster, we no longer can say the Senate is the greatest deliberative body in history. 

As an aside, I noticed that Pope Benedict XVI changed the rules of the conclave that will elect his successor. He has authorized the cardinals to begin their conclave once all their members arrive in Rome. They no longer have to wait 15 days from the time the papacy is vacant. Benedict is retiring Thursday. 

What struck me as questionable in Benedict’s action is that he left open the prospect of mischief by any one cardinal who might choose to delay his arrival in Rome. Just as Tea Party senators, or just plain conservative Republicans, have stymied President Obama and Democrats, the same fate could befall the Church should just one disgruntled cardinal resent changes in the Holy See. 

Anyway, back to my lament about American politics. It’s gotten so bad that I regularly skip reading the front of The NY Times and immediately skip to the Arts section. Maybe all those years reporting and editing news of the retail industry has made me into a metrosexual more interested in style and worldly goods than world affairs. Whatever the case, it’s a lot more fun noting the incongruities of the metrosexual-inclined.

Take, for instance, two press releases that appeared back to back in my in-box even before the Academy Awards telecast finished. They represented a clash of metals, gold vs. platinum. On the one hand, celebrities like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kristen Stewart, Kathryn Bigelow, Renee Zellweger, Olivia Munn, Nicole Kidman, Gloria Reuben, Jane Fonda, Jessica Chastain, Samantha Barks, Catt Sadler, Octavia Spencer and Naomi Harris were decked out in gold jewelry, while the likes of Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Amanda Seyfried, Naomi Watts, Adele, Kerry Washington and Zoe Saldana chose to show off platinum baubles. Does it matter to the ordinary viewer? Probably not. But it sure beats thinking about which political party is more attuned to what the public wants.

Indeed, here are some data from a January 17-22 Harris Poll that reveals how divergent Republicans and Democrats are in their approach to handling budget cuts: 

As could be expected Democrats favor cuts in defense spending 61% vs. 21% by Republicans, while 74% of GOP members want to chop federal welfare spending vs. 32% of Democrats who so desire. 

For a look at why Republicans will have a hard time convincing the electorate they are a party of the future, consider these numbers: by a more than 2-1 margin over Democrats, Republicans want to cut the food stamp program, federal housing programs, spending for mass transportation, pollution control measures, federal aid to cities, and federal job training programs. They are more than four times more likely to favor cuts in health care spending and federal aid to education. By 48% to 29% they want to cut federally funded scientific research programs. 

Just how out of whack is the Republican view? From 1980 to 2013, of the 19 programs studied by Harris, only one—defense spending—registered an increase in the number of consumers who desired spending cuts. All the others saw a reduction in those who favored slashing the budgets of the respective programs. 

It’s too difficult to make sense of it all. Instead, let’s turn to another survey, from Harris Interactive, about one of the more vexing issues troubling mankind, or at least those men and women who live together in marital bliss, or discord. Sponsored by Bosch Home Appliances, the survey purported to shed light on something that can come between partners—the proper way to utilize a dishwasher. Apparently, the biggest fight couples have is over the need to pre-rinse dishes. Six out of 10 husbands and wives argue about this. For the record, Bosch says pre-rinsing is not required. I’ll spare you details of the rest of the survey. Your welcome.

Well, that’s enough metrosexual news for the evening. It’s time to watch Fashion Police’s recap of the Oscars.