Category Archives: Current Affairs

The Importance of Copy Editors

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Copy editors are important. Don't believe it? The folks at Groupon and Mitt Romney's campaign would probably disagree with you right about now.

GrouponDeal
Groupon's daily email today featured the subject line, "Father's Day deals for the man who gave birth to you" and linked to a page with the header, "Celebrate the Man Who Gave Birth to You." Your mother would likely be shocked to learn that your father gave birth to you. She'd also likely wonder what caused her so much pain those many years ago. Sure these headlines are better than "Celebrate your sperm donor" but they're still woefully inaccurate.

Abetteramercia

Then there's the Romney campaign's photo application that lets you take pictures of various things and then overlay a pro-Romney message on them. One problem: the message that was supposed to read "A Better America" instead reads "A Better Amercia." Granted it's not really a scandalous development for the campaign, but when you're fronting the party that's become known for being led by anti-intellectuals (Sarah Palin anyone) it's not the kind of message you want to send.

There are plenty of good copy editors out there, and given what's happened to the publishing industry of late they probably come pretty cheap. Maybe Groupon and Romney's communication team should look them up. 

Side note: If you read more than one sentence of the thousands written for this blog it will become painfully obvious that this is a highly ironic post. A copy editor's "red pen" has never graced these pages and it shows.

Perfect Timing in the News

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Today the Winston-Salem Journal published the last article in a three-part series on the two major nonprofit health care systems in the Winston-Salem area, Novant and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and this particular installment focused on executive compensation. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Dr. Roy Poses, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Brown University and former physician at three academic medical centers, writes a blog called "Health Care Renewal" in which he frequently tackles the issue of executive compensation…

"The same rationales are cited to justify their treatment — executives are said to have very difficult jobs, and competitive pay is necessary to hire the brilliant people required.

"Left unsaid, however, is how difficult these managerial positions are in comparison to the demanding work and sometimes life-or-death responsibilities of health professionals, how brilliant executives are in comparison to such well-trained professionals, and why the executives deserve competitive pay when other employees may be laid off." (Emphasis mine).

Later in the morning Novant made the following announcement:

Carl Armato, president and chief executive of Novant, said in a memo to employees that the system is eliminating 82 management positions and 207 staff positions, effective immediately. The majority of the eliminated positions are in Novant's Winston-Salem and Charlotte markets…

Armato said there are four main reasons behind the decision.

"We all know there's a national mandate to lower what our nation spends on health care and to make care more affordable," Armato said…

"The poor economy has clearly changed people's behaviors and they are using fewer health-care services, including elective surgeries and outpatient testing, such as diagnostic imaging."

Armato said Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement for services "is dramatically declining. Put simply, we are being paid less for our services and this trend will unfortunately not improve.

"The amount of charity care we provide has increased 200 percent over the past five years.

Pretty nice juxtaposition huh?

Question: If you had to guess, what would you say the odds are that Mr. Amato showed some leadership by taking a voluntary reduction in pay, or even a pay freeze, before deciding to seriously screw with 289 people's lives by laying them off? 

A Guy and a Gal Walk Into Town Hall

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Gay columnist Dan Savage gets a marriage license for himself and a lesbian coworker and in the process he exposes the idiocy of laws against gay marriage:

Like I said, Amy and Sonia and I didn't show up at the county building last Friday because we were planning to sue. We came to make a point about the absurdity of our marriage laws. Amy can't marry Sonia, I can't marry Terry–why? Because the sanctity of marriage must be protected from the queers! But Amy and I can get a marriage license-and into a sham marriage, if we care to, a joke marriage, one that I promise you won't produce children. And we can do this with the state's blessing–why? Because one of us is a man and one of us is a woman. Who cares that one of us is a gay man and one of us is a lesbian? So marriage is to be protected from the homos–unless the homos marry each other.

With the exception of health related concerns, and protecting underage children from being victimized by adults trying to marry them off for whatever reason, I'm stumped as to why the state has a compelling reason to try and control who marries whom.

Four Minutes of Infamy

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In 1968 Andy Warhol said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." In 2012 a North Carolina preacher gave a Mother's Day sermon that was recorded and posted on YouTube and pretty much guaranteed that he'll be famous for more than 15 minutes. In that sermon the pastor said some pretty outrageous things as related by the Los Angeles Times:

In the video, Worley says to the sounds of laughter from the congregation that he's figured "a way out." He suggests building a large fence — 150 or 100 miles long — and putting all the gays and lesbians inside it.

"And have that fence electrified 'til they can't get out," he says. "Feed 'em. And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce."

Later, he bellows, referring to President Obama's positions on abortion and same-sex marriage: "I'll tell you right now. Somebody says, 'Who you gonna vote for?' I ain't gonna vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover!" He added that he understood the shocking nature of his language, and would stand by it. "You said, 'Did you mean to say that?' You'd better believe I did!"

Also during the sermon, Worley says he was "disappointed, bad" by Obama's recent announcement that he supports same-sex marriage, and he went on to suggest that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would get his vote in November.

As bad as that was, it kind of got worse when one of the members of his congregation agreed to appear on Anderson Cooper's show and engaged in an exchange that caused the website DangerousMinds to label her the Dumbest American (Ever?) Found. She may not get 15 minutes of fame, but it's certainly four minutes of infamy:

I'm not sure Warhol could have ever envisioned this.

Lewisville Native Leading Opportunity Nation Campaign

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Kevin Jennings, CEO of BeTheChange, wrote in the Huffington Post about a campaign his organization is promoting called Opportunity Nation, and in the process he shares a bit of his life story which began here in Lewisville, NC:

Opportunity Nation is a campaign to bring Americans of all ideologies and backgrounds together around a plan to return the U.S. to the Land of Opportunity that it once was. We are working with scholars from the Heritage Foundation, the Center for American Progress, and the Brookings Institution to come up with concrete, bipartisan policy proposals that will make a difference in people's lives. We've organized a coalition of more than 250 organizations, representing more than 50 million Americans, to support this policy agenda. And we've built a leadership council of nearly 100 prominent Americans — from Mayor Mike Bloomberg to journalist Arianna Huffington to Rev. Rick Warren — who are committed to using their influence to promote opportunity.

I realized this weekend that I never really escaped that trailer park in Lewisville, North Carolina, because today I have undertaken the same work on a macro level that my Mom took on in a micro level way back in the seventies: making sure the next generation has it better than mine has had it. And I am proud of that fact: after all, it's the American thing to do.

Here's a video of Jennings sharing his story:

 

Tolerance and Prosperity

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Fred Wilson has a post titled Tolerance and Prosperity on his AVC blog that directly addresses one of the concerns with Amendment One here in North Carolina – the impact it might have on the state's economy:

I thought of my friend Bob Young's blog post about North Carolina's Amendment One, which seeks to ban same sex marriages…

Bob's argument is as much an economic one as a social one. Bob says:

This proposed amendment to our state constitution is specifically telling them we don’t want their friends and fellow Americans to come here.   We need these talented, intelligent young Americans to come to North Carolina to help our technology industries succeed, but they have choices.   They can go to states with mottos like “Live Free or Die” instead of states that attempt to tell them how to live their lives, such as this Amendment One does.  And trust me, these bright young Americans can and will chose to join my competitors in Seattle, or San Jose, or New York. 

North Carolina has enjoyed a vibrant tech/startup economy and Bob's Red Hat and Lulu.com are two of its best known successes.

The ultimate impact of Amendment One's passage is yet to be known, and probably won't be known for years to come. It will take time for the courts to sort things out after the inevitable lawsuits are filed, for our communities to determine exactly how many of their members have moved to greener pastures, and for companies in our increasingly complex industries to assess the impact on their ability to recruit a talented workforce. 

Earlier in his post Fred referenced a discussion he and the partners at his firm had just had with economist Paul Romer, who referenced the impact William Penn's policy on religious liberty had on Pennsyvlania and the reaction of its neighboring colonies:

William Penn was a Quaker and when King Charles II gave him a large piece of his land holdings in America, Penn created the colony of Pennsylvania and grounded it in the notions of tolerance and religious freedom. Instead of limiting Pennsylvania to Quakers, they welcomed all comers. And the result was that Philadelphia became the fastest growing city in America with a vibrant economy and lifestyle.

The neighboring colonies, which were initially centered around a single religion, reacted to Pennsylvania's and Philadelphia's economic success by opening up their cultural norms and becoming more tolerant as well.

It has been pointed out that until the passage of Amendment One North Carolina was the exception in the Southeast. Now, in a reversal of William Penn's approach, North Carolina has decided to join the less tolerant crowd and in the process has given away a competitive advantage it had on its regional economic competition. That's not likely to lead to greater prosperity for North Carolinians, and that's just more salt in the wound that the amendment inflicts on its citizens.

Of course that's the opinion of one person who was among a significant minority of the voters yesterday (only 39% voted against the amendment). The voters of NC have spoken, and now all of us will have to live with the consequences, whatever those might be. 

How Will Amendment One Affect Primary Voting?

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If you live in North Carolina and aren't living in utter seclusion, you're aware that the "Marriage Amendment" is on the ballot in today's primary. Normally a primary held after the presidential nominees have alreay been determined would draw only the hard core party faithful, but because of the amendment there's been an extraordinary amount of attention paid to this year's primary and it will be interesting to see how that affects the results.

Some questions to ponder:

  • In a state where 25% of the voters are independent how many of those unaffiliated voters will be drawn to the primaries because of the amendment?
  • Democrats make up 43%, and Republicans 31%, of registered voters. If independents decide to participate more heavily in the Republican primaries will they affect the outcome of some close races for NC Senate/House, city councils, county commissions, etc.?  
  • With either the Democratic or Republican primaries will the participation of independents skew the votes towards more centrist candidates?
  • If the independents participate more heavily in the Republican primary they will likely have a greater impact since there's a smaller pool of Republican voters. Assuming the independents will lean more towards the center will their participation hurt the more conservative candidates? If so, will the conservative Republicans' strategy of putting the Amendment on the primary ballot end up being viewed as a mistake in hindsight, even if it passes?

The 2008 primary was dramatic on the Democratic ticket because the presidential nomination was still up in the air at the time, but this year's primaries are dramatic all the way around due to the amendment. The debate about the direct consequences of the amendment has been well documented, but there hasn't been much exploration of the potential collateral damage the amendment might incur politically, and it will be fascinating to see how it shakes out.

Is Wealth Distribution a Problem?

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Dilbert creator Scott Adams has an interesting thought over at his blog:

Suppose you could snap your fingers and instantly reduce the huge disparity in income distribution across the globe. Would you do it?

Many of you will probably say yes. You'd take some of the "extra" money from the rich and use it to help the needy. But suppose I put one condition on this magic power of yours. Suppose the only thing you can do by magic is reduce by half the wealth of the top 1% while knowing the money would be transferred to no one. The money would simply cease to exist. The rich would have half as much, while everyone else remained the same. Would you use your powers then?

Of course he's right that burning half of Person A's money doesn't make Person B's life any better, but it's ludicrous to say that taking some of Person A's money and giving it to Person B wouldn't help make Person B's situation more comfortable. On the other hand giving Person B the money doesn't guaranatee he'll be any happier – money can't buy happiness and all that – but you can almost guarantee that Person B won't be any better off if Person A keeps all the money and helps engineer a system that insures that Person B won't have a chance to earn more money this year, next year and the years beyond.

Adams seems to be addressing the whole Occupy Wall Street – The 1% vs. The Rest of Us phenomenon, and focusing on the actual income disparity between the two groups in the process. That's a mistake. The real issue people have is with a system that appears rigged to insure that wealth continues to flow disproportionately to the already wealthy, and often to the detriment to those they employ. 

How can people not be enraged by a situation where executives garner huge financial rewards by running their companies for short term stock gains, without an eye towards long term health, and then walk away as their companies lay of thousands of employees in order to avoid bankruptcy? How can they not be disgusted by an economic/governmental system that rewards the executives who mismanaged their massive financial institutions to the point that it almost crashed the world economy? How can they not want to find a way to redistribute money from hedge fund managers who made their billions by not giving a flip about the common weal as they played with the economy like it was their own private bingo game?

Isn't it funny how you don't hear anyone complaining about how much the local car dealer, community banker, or restauranteur is making? No one cares because they can see what that person is contributing to the community, but that's not the case with the vast majority of the 1%, because most of them are perceived as leaches on the economy rather than contributors to it. That's probably not a fair assessment across the board, but in this world perception is reality and that's the perception many folks have of the 1% and that's why Adams' argument won't hold much water with the 99%.

Having Their Cake and Eating It Too

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According to an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal the Triad affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure is experiencing a deep decline in its fundraising after the Planned Parenthood controversy the national organization created last year. That's not terribly surprising, but a quote from the president of the Triad affiliate is a bit befuddling:

Natasha Gore, president of the Triad affiliate, acknowledged the challenges that the local group faces, stressing that most of the money raised here stays in the region. She also expressed frustration that some would-be donors do not differentiate between the local affiliate and the national organization.

"A lot of the time, people think we are one and the same," Gore said. "If they're boycotting us because of something happening with the national organization, it does not really fit with what's going on."

The quote is befuddling because it's amazingly naive, if not downright disingenuous. Of course people are going to confuse the organizations because in the grand scheme of things they are the same organization. Sure the local affiliate has it's own board, staff, volunteers, grants, etc. but it has affiliated itself with the national organization, which means it benefits or suffers from the national organization's activities. The Triad affiliate certainly benefited from the national organization's advertising and branding activities and I don't recall hearing any concerns about brand confusion from the local affiliate before the controversy.

So the donors aren't confused, rather they're saying loudly and clearly that they've lost faith in the organization and it is up to organization on both the national and local level to win back that faith. If the local affiliate thinks the brand is too damaged to repair then they might want to consider:

  • Disassociation from the national organization
  • A name change (would likely be required by the national group anyway)
  • A clear articulation of the local group's principles/standards and how they're different from the national group's
  • An ad/branding campaign to introduce the "new" organization to the Triad, and to highlight all of the organizations that benefit from its grants

In the end an affiliation is like a marriage: you're stuck with it in good times and bad, and if the bad gets horrific then your only choice might be a divorce.

Dunning the Sick

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Whenever I hear people debating health care reform or talk about "Obamacare" I almost invariably hear the statement, "Well, even with the system today everyone is able to get medical care – hospitals aren't allowed to deny anyone care." I've always thought that to be a dumb argument because it seems like it's an incredibly inefficient and expensive way to provide health care to those who can't afford it, and reading this article on collection agencies working in hospitals seems to support the argument that it is indeed supremely stupid and expensive:

Still, hospitals are in a bind. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — predominately unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the hospital association estimated.

So it's no surprise that hospitals would try to recoup some of their money through collection agencies. Unfortunately, the tactics at least one of these agencies is using seem to be encroaching on the health care delivered by the hospitals:

Collection activities extended from obstetrics to the emergency room. In July 2010, an Accretive manager told staff members at Fairview that they should “get cracking on labor and delivery,” since there is a “good chunk to be collected there,” according to company e-mails.

Employees were told to stall patients entering the emergency room until they had agreed to pay a previous balance, according to the documents. Employees in the emergency room, for example, were told to ask incoming patients first for a credit card payment. If that failed, employees were told to say, “If you have your checkbook in your car I will be happy to wait for you,” internal documents show…

Patients with outstanding balances were closely tracked by Accretive staff members, who listed them on “stop lists,” internal documents show. In March 2011, doctors at Fairview complained that such strong-arm tactics were discouraging patients from seeking lifesaving treatments, but Accretive officials dismissed the complaints as “country club talk,” the documents show.

Nah, we don't need no stinking health care reform.