EQUALIZATION

David Brooks, of the New York Times, has a piece in this mornings paper, (October 10, 2014) making the point that when Citizens United was passed by the supreme court there were Democrats who felt the end of their party was at hand. Now several years later, according to Brooks, the monies spent by the Democrats are equal to, or even greater than, those being spent by the Republicans. In fact, according to his research, many of the candidates that lost elections actually had more money spent on their campaign than their opponents. So in Brook’s opinion the court’s ruling has not negatively impacted the election process in the way it was predicted to.

 I disagree. The truth is money has done more damage to the entire electoral process, and by implication, more to the detriment of our country, even if it has not resulted in getting people elected.

The fallacy in Brook’s argument goes to a concept I call equalization. That is if everyone spends the same amount of money on something it is the same as no one spending anything on it. Think about it, I spend one million to get my candidate elected and you spend half of that on your candidate, I have an advantage. But if you spend the same million as I do then we are equal and it will not be the amount of monies spent on the candidates but rather the message brought forth by each of them.

The real problem with Citizens United is it falsely gives the impression that the most money spent on one candidate versus another will actually win elections.  This theory has resulted in far too many people, with too much money to waste, coupled with their own personal agendas, spending foolish amounts of money on candidates that have no better chance at winning, if the other side spends the same amount on their candidate.

I often think of performance enhancing drugs, (PED’s), in sports. The athlete thinks taking drugs helps his/her cause by enhancing their performance.  But what happens if ALL athletes take the same drugs? Are we not back to square one? What the athlete using drugs is really saying is “I will take PED’s on the condition you don’t.  That way I do have an advantage”. In the end if everyone takes them it will be the same as if no one took them. It is cheating by looking for an artificial advantage not related to talent but requires secrecy so no one else does the same thing. Otherwise it makes no sense.

What Citizens United has done is to vastly increase the amount of money spent on elections under the false impression that the more spent will result in more winners, while it has taken out of the process the qualifications, ideas, strategies and plans of the candidates and replaced them with an addiction to raising money.

If the premise that more money breeds more winners was dropped by all candidates, they would spend less money, need less time to raise more and could focus on sharing their positive message with voters rather than overwhelming the voter with negative advertising focused on the other candidate’s shortcomings. 

 No, my argument with David Brooks is that money really has corrupted the election process. It has forced all elected officials and candidates into the delusion that the object of politics is raising money rather than solving problems. And, that is a disservice to all Americans.      

OBESITY

If you want to know how I feel don’t ask me just look at me and see if I have gained weight.

For me, as I am sure for many others, when I don’t feel good, for any number of reasons I gain weight. I am not speaking about having a cold, or a runny nose or even something a bit more serious. What I am referring to is how do I feel emotionally, maybe a little stressed.  When I am in turmoil it is easier to gain weight, as the discipline to diet does not seem as important when compared to the other challenges I face. When back on track losing the weight is so much simpler.

As much as we read about the obesity problem in the country, if not the world, the answers given often reside in a form of surgery or a pill or a specific diet of more, or less, protein, fat, carbs etc. The advice is endless and the books for the newest fad diets keep coming yet all the remedies, for the most part, over time, fall on deaf ears.

The real culprit for the obesity in this country resides right smack in the middle of the essence of what ails the country in the first place.  People are unhappy.

Yes, it is true. People are unhappy. Far too many of us are uneducated, poor, in debt, hungry, divorced, homeless, addicted to a variety of substances and live with a very low level of hope.

Add to the social dilemmas facing people the lack of available healthy food, the cost of it, an overwhelming number of television ads pushing unhealthy foods, the fact that going on a successful diet takes herculean discipline, unnatural patience and the energy to focus on your diet in the face of every other obstacle in your life and it is easy to understand why people would rather eat than diet.

Losing weight is literally not doable given what many of the obese face every day.  The fact of denial alone, a must in a diet, will kill it for many. Faced with so many unresolved issues why deny the smallest of pleasures through a cheeseburger, fries and a shake? McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Pollo Loco and so many other high calorie, low quality franchises are located with walking distance of most of the troubled neighborhoods. The food is comfort: high calorie, high fat, high carbs, high sodium and plenty of sugar. What is not to like? Everything bad about it tastes good. When finished everything bad about it is packed on the body and when it finally shows the motivation to take it off is very low.

Much is discussed about the differences between the 1% and the rest of the country but it is true the 1% can afford to enjoy many of life’s pleasures, good food, in fine restaurants, travel, physical activities and a warm, hospitable roof over their heads.  Those facing the hardships of the above cannot afford to do most of these things and their only recourse, other than resentment, frustration and anger is to eat all the wrong foods and way too many of them. 

If we really want to solve the problem of obesity we must look much deeper into the real causes for it, hopelessness.

As long as people feel they have no chance of getting a job, a better job, getting out of debt, putting their kids in a good school, securing a mortgage, having a home, proper health care coverage, a chance to get above it all and not have to live from one pay check to another they will just remain unhappy. 

For them one easy answer is poor choices in what to eat. Low quality food choices are affordable, available and why not, they taste good and that feels good. 

Does anyone wonder why heroin use is up, alcohol consumption is up, drugs of all types are up, and use of painkillers is up? What do you think they are trying to get away from?  Could it be they don’t like their lives, don’t feel there is much chance for them or that maybe they feel they have been left behind? These are insidious feelings and when push comes to shove people will more easily give into feelings than they will ever give in to an intellectual argument that requires sacrifice, discipline and willpower. Dig down into individual substance abuse and there will be a story, a story of a life being led that offers little to no sense of satisfaction.

We can solve the problem of obesity and reduce what it costs us simply by focusing our energies on solving the real problems that make people unhappy.  We know what they are so why not get down to business and solve them?

  

SUNDAY MORNING TV

I am not a viewer of the Sunday morning political talk shows. I find them far too polarized and therefore not very productive. For some reason, maybe it was waiting for breakfast, I turned on Face the Nation. I quickly realized what I deplore about what has happened to our country and why I don’t watch these shows.

A little background: among several others the guests included Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minster of Israel, discussing the serious military engagement between his country and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Governor Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, discussing the also very serious issue of the South American children flooding the southern borders of the United States.

In the case of Netanyahu his points were clear, concise and to the point. He answered the questions of civilians being killed or wounded in Gaza and the Israeli position on how they are attempting to minimize them while at the same time continuing to pursue their objectives, he spoke to what his long goals were, what he thought of the possibilities of a long term peace agreement and he also discussed in detail the involvement of Iran and how it should be forced to stop developing nuclear capabilities, which he is certain will be used only for atomic weapon capabilities.

Then came Rick Perry. His entire position, when asked about the problems on the borders, was about how President Obama is not a good leader. He referenced every political talking point he could cram into his few minutes on camera. Did he have a single idea on what should be done TODAY? What should we do as a nation, what Texas could do as a state, how we could afford, or not, to pay for a solution, how should we deal with the countries that are torturing, raping and killing their own citizens and forcing them to flee to our borders? NO. Not one single idea.

This is by no means a criticism of Mr. Perry, although I guess it really is, but it is a criticism of how ALL of our leaders in both parties are only interested in the politics of virtually every single problem. Forget solutions, it is Bush’s fault, the conservatives, and the liberals, Obama etc. etc. Don’t waste time or interest in pursuing solutions when it is far easier to mimic others in the party with the political rhetoric that pervades everything today.

When running for office I say bring it on. Criticize, place blame, brag about yourself, scorn your opponents etc. It is all fair game. However when elected go to DC and do the job you were elected to do. Get to work, identify the problems, seek consensus and then solve them. Fix the economy, put in place an immigration plan, reconcile rights issues, focus on education, climate, environment etc.

It is too important to this country to ignore our problems in an effort to always be right.  Our government is run by people who think their only job, repeat, ONLY JOB is to get re-elected. We are allowing “elected” representatives to drown our country in political nonsense while overlooking the serious impediments to our future.

Right now we are not prepared for the future, we will not keep up with the rest of the world and we will devolve into a second rate nation and have all the current political representatives to thank for our failure. Do we want that? I know I don’t.

CORPORATE RIGHTS

Here is something I don't get: corporations are people according to the supreme court in Citizens United and can therefore donate however much money they want, anonymously if they choose, to the political candidate of their choice. They can also dictate the terms of employment based on their own religious beliefs again according to the supreme court in the Hobby Lobby case ruled on yesterday.  Correspondingly, if one was to listen to the corporate spokespeople carefully their most important responsibility is to their shareholders by generating  the greatest profits possible.

Then why when they commit a crime, such as BNP Paribas did by doing deals with Iran and other blacklisted companies, did no one go to jail and, since they agreed to pay a whopping $8.9 billion in fines, which is a lot of money did not one executive lose their job?

The hypocrisy in corporate governance is unbelievable. Should a company be forced to pay a fine due to unlawful activities several executives should be terminated, without cause and done so without the golden parachutes they all enjoy. And, if they are found guilty they should have to admit to it and someone should be convicted of the crime and do time in jail.

Then we could view them as persons and they could operate like all other persons do. They would take responsibility for their actions and pay the consequences when their choices or decisions are against the law. I suspect if the loss of livelihood and/or jail time were on the table there would be a lot less shenanigans going on in corporate America.

THREE ISSUES WORTH DISCUSSION

There were three separate issues reported in the news this week, all on the same day, all symbiotic but the connection was not noticed by the media.

One was homelessness in Hawaii and how it adversely affects tourism; the homeless don’t look good to tourists while sleeping on the beach or smell good going to the bathroom in the streets.

The second issue was immigration in Bakersfield, California, where Kevin McCarthy, the new house Republican majority leader resides, and how undocumented workers were attractive when farmers want crops picked but quite unattractive when the pickers flood the hospitals and overwhelmed school system.

The final issue was income inequality, regarding how much to raise the minimum wage for workers employed by the various cities, a hot topic debated by the major city mayors at their annual United States Conference of Mayors held this year in Dallas, TX. They could not agree on how much it should be or even if it was a good idea.

All three issues are connected to the same social issues facing all of us. Without jobs people become homeless, without money or jobs people become both poor and homeless and without hope in countries south of the USA people come here looking for work, find it when in season, but can’t afford to live here when the work is not in season.  Poverty and homelessness becomes the natural next step.

The first question concerning all three issues can’t be how much will it cost, although it is usually the first question asked by those who have no answers. No, the best first question is “will it ever end”, followed by when and how. Then the question can be how much will it cost.  If we continue down this path of poverty, homelessness and unending illegal immigration there will be no end and the cost of inaction will rupture our economy, the country and our way of life.

The answers offered by elected officials are weak, if at all.  In Hawaii they give the homeless tickets, push them out of tourist attraction neighborhoods, and threaten them with fines they can’t pay or put them in jail at an additional cost to the taxpayers of Hawaii.  There is a plan to spend $47 million on public housing but again someone else is going to have to pay for it and it will not solve the problem, only postpone it.

In the farmland there is no offered solution, as farmers want the cheap labor, when they want it, but the remainder of the community wants the illegal migrant worker immigration to STOP altogether.

Increased minimum wages might be an answer but are they long term? When an employer can’t afford, or does not want to pay the required minimum wages, they lay off employees who then move from the list of low wage employees to the doles of poverty and ultimately homelessness. Is that a good thing? It might be an answer but is it a solution?

There is no interest in immigration reform in DC, especially by the Republicans yet while “immigration reform” is a great sounding phrase it is equally as hollow when its true meaning is broken down. Do we give amnesty to those here illegally, while allowing the borders to remain so porous our next generation will face the same problem only at higher levels?  Do we simply keep kicking the immigration can down the road so someone else has to solve the problem or do we put troops on the border to keep “them” out?

Do we shift homeless people to parts of towns no one sees so our blindness deludes our thinking into a perception of a solution? And, finally is paying a higher minimum wage truly a solution or simply a postponement of a reoccurring problem?

Personally I see no simple answer to these connected problems but one that is completely without merit is the one that is currently in vogue, INACTION.

Hide our collective heads in the sand and “kick the can down the road” are anachronistic approaches. They don’t work and they won’t work.  These, and many other social problems like them, will continue, get larger and become far more profound.  Just giving people more money, houses or benefits begs two fundamental questions: how will we pay for what we are currently doing and is what we are doing really good for those who continue to take from society and refuse to give back? I say the answer is NO.

Jobs are always offered as a solution but “jobs” is a hollow phrase and works better in a prepared speech given by politicians to their constituents but fails when observed in contemporary reality. Politicians love speech making far more than offering solutions. “Job creators” is one of their preferred terms, used on behalf of their corporate supporters. The term attracts an enthusiastic response but overlooks the fact that companies are in business to make money, profit, not to create jobs. The creation of jobs is a by-product of corporate innovation, of new ideas, of new products and services all of which will eventually require more employees.

Much overlooked is the basic premise of technology: reduce. By definition technology makes things smaller, cheaper and faster. Technology is designed to reduce cost, waste and, yes, jobs. You don’t hear robots asking for more money, pensions or better working conditions and you don’t find electronic devices sneaking across borders in the middle of the night. Technology is being used extensively everywhere to reduce the need for people. Pure and simple it is designed as a job destroyer.  But if technology has killed all these jobs and consolidation has eliminated massive duplication and it is so destructive then why do we have more millionaires, billionaires, thousands of new companies, new products, new services today than we have ever had in our entire history?  Based on the overwhelming success of many in this country it would be hard to suggest there is not a future in America and not a huge one.

I think there is a bigger and brighter future in America now than there has ever been before but we must understand it is a “different” future and it is in that difference that we MUST focus all of our attention, resources and imagination. Forget about what worked in the past. That was the past. Now we have to focus on the future and what works now.

Before we delve into how these positive  “differences” manifest themselves in our future we need to solve the current social problems that we have been carrying with us for the past 50 or more years, issues that manifest themselves in what was available to us back then, in our past, and how we chose to live our lives. It was understandably different in the past.  We lived very different lives with many choices that are no longer available or no longer germane. While many people have moved on to a more positive, enlightened future a far greater number have been unable or unwilling to do the same and feel they have been left behind.   We cannot abandon them but we cannot let them bankrupt the next several generations simply by giving them more.  

The answers for solving what for too long have been the unsolvable problems are responsibility, sacrifice and consequence. Every single American has to accept responsibility for both them and for this country, period. Going forward NO ONE is going to get everything he or she wants. Everyone will have to give up something. There will be a shared sacrifice and EVERYONE  has to understand what it is they must give up. It might be different for different folks but in the end a sacrifice by everyone will be expected. There has to be no exceptions. The arguments made by every side of every social argument have to change. They can no longer prevail at the expense of others. Everyone will have to accept what to them will appear to be less, and probably will be, but that will be the consequence for too much unwillingness and recalcitrance in the past in dealing with the problems that now plague all of us. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to this country.

Politicians will have to stop pandering to those who they think elect them. Every district, regardless of its predominance, has all types of people and all people and opinions have to be represented. Maybe a few elected officials will have to bite the bullet and, while in office endeavor to compromise for the good of the country and not the good of the few. If in the end they don’t get re-elected then so be it but at least they will have done the right thing. Imagine if they all willingly worked to actually solve problems, rather than avoid them, maybe none of them would lose their office.

The people in office are the ones we elected. They are not part of some World Cup soccer tournament. There are not several teams here. We are all on the same team. We may have different players but all of us are competing to win as a whole. This is not a sport. This is our country and we elected people to solve its problems not pander to the highest bidder and forgo the future of the next several generations.

If we are to continue to be as great as we have been in the past we need to change our behavior and start to think as one, to figure out how to exploit our differences in positive ways, ways that employ, support and encourage all of us to participate. We have to focus on the differences of the future and can no longer afford to hold on to a past, regardless of whom it might endanger.  

 

The “difference” mentioned above lies in the type of products and services 21^st century Americans are creating, literally industries that will guarantee jobs for everyone willing to work going forward.

The overwhelming majority of what we produced and consumed in our past now is cheaper to buy from overseas companies where wages are lower and worker rights are less regulated.  So we have to get over that fact of life and accept we will not be a net positive exporter of manufactured goods and services.

What do we make and use today that did not even exist when General Motors, United States Steel and so many other major manufacturers employed hundreds of thousands of people, most of which constituted our middle class citizens? Look around:  we have become an automated society. Technology drives everything. Everything we do has been studied, analyzed and copied with the intention of automating it and/or controlling it. The ambition of every creator, inventor or designer is to use technology to make things easier, more cost effective, better, more fun, more enjoyable or more useful. There is literally an app for everything and if one does not exist it is probably being designed in a garage somewhere or has no application.

We are riding the wave of innovation as has never been seen before. The list of new and exciting products brought to market overwhelms the mind. There is nothing we want to see, listen to, hear or experience that is not literally at our finger- tips. There has been more creative innovation in the last 25 years than has existed since before humans inhabited the earth. It is inconceivable that with all this new and evolving technology, the truly exciting products and services and the remarkable epidemic of creativity and innovation that we are incapable of exploiting their uses for the good of our citizens.

There are a few things we MUST do.

Develop a real immigration policy. Whatever we decide the borders have to be a fundamental part of the solution.

Eliminate all corporate subsidies regardless of the industry they represent. Farm, energy, oil and gas, use of public lands and any other financial support given to companies as incentives to do business. If they cannot compete honestly with the products they make based upon the costs to bring them to market then let them go out of business.

Fix the tax codes and eliminate all deductions. Deductions are only useful to those who can afford to hire professional advice to avoid paying them. For the majority of Americans deductions are meaningless.

Use tax dollars only for purposes of innovation, research, education and support services we all use: roads, bridges, utilities, military, first responders, disaster protection etc.

Finally we have to decide on what to do with those who cannot take care of themselves. Some of our citizens will never be able to take care of themselves, for reasons well beyond their control and we must always stand up for them. People with serious medical, physical, emotional or mental challenges have to be supported by the rest of us. But for the hundreds of thousands of others who, over the course of their lives, made poor choices or continue to do so we are going to have to say: enough.  It may seem cruel or harsh but if we don’t develop expectations and hold people accountable there will simply be no incentive for them to take care of themselves.  We cannot afford to burden our following generations with the costs associated with continual baby-sitting.

For those among us without the wherewithal to prevail in the world today, through bad choices but in environments where the choices were not wholly their own to make we need to offer safety nets to them. But for those among us who are in grade schools and below we must develop educational outlets that give incentives and options for making better choices. In the end if the choices made are conscious and continue to be poor choices we must let them know there will be no net and they will be completely on their own. If other citizens want to care for them that will be their right as well as their choice but we as a nation will no longer give them free care. If they have had the exposure, education and the wherewithal to make the appropriate choices and failed to do so then they will have to survive on their own.

This is the brightest time in our history. We have serious problems and they have all been pushed aside for the purposes of re election. Far too many elected people think they know everything. Well they don’t. None of us do. They have to understand their job is to solve problems, not win.

If we are to leave a healthy planet to the next generation we must solve the problems we created in this one.

The next time you hear from me it will be on “the environment”, another of those pesky problems our elected officials are convinced they know better than anyone else. Stay tuned.

  

NET METERING

I find it fascinating how historically corporations have utilized whatever new technology was available to transfer the work they normally did themselves, to the consumer, thereby lowering the cost to produce the service and increasing the profit made by those corporations. A few examples: Only a few short years ago we called travel agents to make our flight arrangements or when we called companies for service we spoke to a live representative who asked us questions and offered answers and solutions and then there were people, numbering in the millions, working on factory floors, all now replaced by robots.  This is the process and point of all business and industry. It correctly looks for the least expensive method to produce a product its customers are willing to pay for. Technology has generally been the most effective go-to answer to lower costs and increase profits so it has been used extensively.

Then why is there now such a resounding opposition to renewable energy? Think about it: what is more available than the power of the sun, the power of the wind and the power of water in motion? We are talking about nature, the very core of our existence. If it is available why not use it?

History suggests we have not been able to fully harness the power of nature although we watched it every time a hurricane, tornado, flood or drought affected our lives. We could see it, feel it and even fear it but we could not use all of it. Now we can, through wind and solar.  And, who is complaining the loudest, of course, the corporate world.

The solar industry has utilized “net metering” as an incentive to consumers to sign up for solar panels. The point is if you use solar energy and produce more power than you need, then sell the excess to others to reduce your own expenses. Sounds like a good business model to me.

But this turn of events is threatening to the utility companies and private energy companies, most of which are monopolies that depend on customers buying their energy for whatever rates the companies charge.

Renewable energy is a new competitor and, with all the self-righteous bloviating we hear from the industry “job creators” about letting the market work, one thing they hate is competition. Their answer is to charge a solar customer, who has accessed more power than they need, a fee to be paid to the Power Company or utility BEFORE the excess power is sold to other consumers.

Wouldn’t that be like charging an airline company a fee for the time and effort consumers put into making their own flight reservations so as to make the transaction cost more equal to the cost the airline would have had, before they got rid of all the flight reservation people who used to make those reservations for us?

How does utilizing a new technology such as nature differ from a company that uses technology to lower its costs, increase its profits and utilize the increased profit, to pursue other businesses?

But now we have money, huge sums of money, employed by industry, utility companies and private individuals, in almost every state, campaigning and lobbying at state legislature levels to fight a competitor that has figured out how to access a new and natural technology and make it more affordable to customers. If industry succeeds the fees will effectively eliminate the competitive solar advantage, the energy costs will remain high for the consumer and the suppliers will be the same companies that need to destroy large portions of the earth in order to pursue their own profit agendas.

If we are expected to make our own reservations, fix our own cable systems and pump our own gas, then why should we not be encouraged to access our own energy and when sated sell the “profit” to others not interested in accessing it themselves?

It is hypocrisy for the corporate world to complain about disruption from technology when competitors come along and do what they do, but do it better and cheaper.

GLOBAL WARMING

I can understand the reluctance to accept climate change if you live in a state that depends on coal or burning fossil fuels or even if you think that God  determines weather and all its aftermaths. What I don't get is what if you are wrong? If it is 25 -50 years down the line and people, many of which are alive today, suffer consequences of us being wrong, then who do they complain to? All they can do is be angry at those of us who in this part of the century ignored warnings, resisted information and fought against all scientific evidence that we would face environmental problems. The people who made these decisions to fight global warming will be long gone from this world and will have not a care in the world for the irrational decisions they made so many years ago. For those living in the 2050's and beyond the problem will only be exacerbated by the frustration of not being able to hold the "deciders" accountable.

For my money all of us should at least agree that it MIGHT happen. If it turns out not to be true,  global warming is not an issue, something I don't think will be the case, then everyone will be happy. But if it does happen and we made no plans for it then everyone living at the time will be paying a massive price and through no fault of their own.

So what has to happen? Those who disagree extensively and fight it to the core need to accept the fact that it MIGHT. They need to participate in all the conversations about what to do about it. They can still offer their resistance at every step, but, they must realistically look at solutions, at ideas on plans in the event that the problem should it come to pass. Taxes, alternate energy sources, conservation, education are all on the table as solutions. There is no panacea. Multiple ideas will have to be offered, some accepted, some rejected, others modified. Remember too, when we all get involved in something potentially this big there may be equally enormous opportunities, so just saving your political butt might sound like a good approach today but offering jobs, resources and new industries might have some positive appeal as well.

My only point is everyone has to accept they, the scientists, MIGHT be right. We will make a mockery of our multiple generations if the future is held hostage to the head in the sand approach to serious issues that face us all because elected officials want to get re elected.

Everyone of us will be leaving children and grandchildren to take care of the decisions we either did or did not make on their behalf.

ENTITLED? TO WHAT?

I read, like most people, of the senseless tragedy in the almost empty movie theater in Florida where an off duty police officer shot and killed a fellow patron for texting during the beginning of the film, even after being asked to stop

While it is claimed guns don’t kill people, people do, the fact is it is far easier to maim or kill someone with a gun than without one.

There is no excuse for this behavior and, no doubt justice will be served and severe.

That said there is something else going on that too needs to be discussed, not anything that justifies shooting someone but it is the nature of personal interactions that currently take place in society.

We often hear the term “entitled” when applied to many people. People who behave as though they are entitled to do something that others are not because they rationalize their reason is more important, at the moment, than that of others.

Cell phones, texting, email and all electronic devices are likely culprits, but certainly not the only ones.  When a person uses a device to the annoyance of others or acts in an inappropriate manor, then there are bound to be repercussions. Talking too loud, using a device in public places when asked not to are good examples.  They point to another sometimes-overlooked realization.

We all have two personas. One is private and the other is public. We are all both. When in the confines of our own personal place we do have the right to do as we see fit, so long as it too does not impinge on the rights or comforts of others. We decide what, and when, we do whatever it is we want.

However, when in public there is a built in behavior expectation for all of us. We must operate with our public persona. We don’t have the right to use devices when asked in public not to, we don’t have the right to toss our trash out on to the streets because it is more convenient, we don’t have the right to break rules of the road because there are no police around.  The examples

Of how we should, and should not, behave in public are many, but we own the responsibility for monitoring how each of us as individuals behave.  

The perception of someone operating as though entitled, undoubtedly could easily cause annoyance, resentment and, in too many cases, anger. If we behave in public the way we behave in private and don’t expect it could have negative consequences we are fooling ourselves.

When we are in public we share the public space, the road, the theater, the streets, the benches etc. etc. The public environment is for the benefit and enjoyment of all of us and has its own implied rules. We all need to know, respect and follow those rules without needing to be reminded and we have the right to expect others will do the same, while they are in public.

GlOBES SHOULD BE BETTER

 With Oscar Nominations out this morning the focus quickly turns to the myriad of activities surrounding the nominees, the films and the show. But before they write the show let’s go back for a moment to review the Golden Globe show and share a thought or two on what I felt went wrong with that one. Hopefully I won’t have to see a repeat on Oscar night.

I know most media I read loved the performances of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. While they are both brilliant talents when performing in scripted entertainment, neither of them are brilliant stand up comedians, which is a completely different form of comedy.

They spent about 9 minutes simply reading the lamest jokes off a monitor.  Neither of them is particularly good at telling jokes so they just read them off one after another.  If someone calls what they were reading, writing then they should be ashamed of themselves. The jokes were sophomoric, crude, insulting and amateurish.    I envision a room full of adolescent writers going through the list of films and performers and having to come up with something suitably crude and insulting about each one.

The show goes on at 5PM so there are probably kids in the TV audience: Tom Hanks wore a prosthetic genital in Captain Phillips, George Clooney only dates younger women, Matt Damon is garbage and Jona Hill masturbates at his own pool parties are just some of the nonsense they shared with the audience. You want your child to listen to that?

I will never understand why all these shows find it necessary to criticize, through their own warped sense of humor, the work of so many other talented people in the business. Making a film or a television product is one of the most challenging, expensive and risky endeavors for anyone to undertake. Finding good material, the money and dealing with the myriad of things that could, and mostly do, go wrong is a challenge in and of itself. Then to find an actor willing to lose 45 pounds for a role, or spend the entire productions schedule in character, or to put themselves in positions of enormous vulnerability, while acting in the film, and then make a successful role out of the effort is next to impossible.

But year after year all of the hosts feel it necessary to make fun of the craft through the products and the performers, but the material they “read” to share their criticism only gets dumber and dumber as a result. I sometime wonder what some of the so-called comedy writers would do if it were not for body parts.

Crude humor is everywhere today because it is easier to write. Writing something funny that is not crude is difficult and most writers today seem content diving down to the lowest level possible because they don’t have the talent to write well.

Maybe one of these years an award show would take what they do seriously and make jokes at something else, if they still feel the need to ridicule.

CHANGE CAN BE RISKY

Put a snow globe on a shelf and look at it. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of little individual pieces of fake snow. If you never move that globe nothing inside it will ever be different.

But imagine for a moment that all the places inside the globe are not equal. The ones on the bottom might be starved for air and feeling the weight of those above them. Maybe a few are facing the sun, happy and prefer not to move but there are others who face the dark and are getting tired of it.

Well as I said if you leave the globe alone everything remains the same. But if lots of those little pieces wanted to change their positions you would have to pick up the globe and shake it, vigorously. Now lay it down again and all the pieces will be in different positions. Some will be happy with the new positions, others not so. But a change has occurred.

There in lies the key to understanding change and why so many people shy away from it. To effect change there will be a period of chaos, risk, uncertainty and in the case of the globe, if you are inside it, violence.

After the enormity of a hurricane, a tornado an unnatural storm there is always a calm.  The next day invariably the sun is out, bright and the day appears as if is nothing just took place last night.

That is the key to understanding change. It will be hard to deal with, will involve risk, will cause apprehension, confusion and uncertainly.  But, and this is the single most important part of it, is that nothing will change without the turmoil. If the globe stays on the shelf, if you stay at the desk of your unhappy job or stay with the mate you know you should give up on, then you will remain forever unhappy about the situation you are in.

But if you are willing to take the chance, accept that change requires risk and maybe something far worse then you will have the chance to make a better something else for your self.

In the end it will be better to go for it. There is always a good chance it will work out for you. Plan for it correctly and embrace what is about to happen.