Category Archives: Opinion

It’s Not My Fault

4 Replies

As a parent one of the hardest lessons for me to teach is personal accountability,  mainly because I often feel like a hypocrite.  For instance the other night Celeste and I were giving our oldest son grief for his interim grade report which to much of the world would have been fine but to us smacked of underachievement.  Our opinion is supported by the fact that his grades are regularly dragged down by incomplete or missing homework assignments.  Of course his initial reaction is to state that his grades are better than all his friends’ which just throws fuel on our fire and he’s learned to keep his mouth shut.  But I can see in his eyes he still thinks it.

My problem is that I have to come down on him knowing full well that I did the same, if not worse.  Of course if I didn’t get on him and stay on him I’d just be coasting as a parent and I’m not going to do that.  I fully expect my kids to grow up and be better people than I could ever be and I’m going to do my damndest to help show them the way.

Unfortunately I don’t think my kids are getting good object lessons from the leaders of our country when it comes to taking personal responsibility for their actions.  President Bush would be an easy target for this so I won’t take that shot, but I will point to one current example of someone needing to learn to accept responsibility for her actions.  Rep. Cynthia McKinney had a little altercation with a Capitol Police officer when she forgot to wear a lapel pin that identifies her as a member of Congress and then after breezing past the security line at the Capitol (members are allowed to do that) was asked to stop three times by the officer.  When she failed to stop he touched her and she slugged him.  She says that he was overly aggressive and touched her inappropriately and believes that even without the pin he should have recognized her and that his actions were prompted by the fact that she was black.

Rather than acknowledge that she may have contributed to the situation Rep. McKinney played the race card.  How nice.  She could have said, "Well I should have worn my pin and I probably should have stopped to identify myself, but the officer was entirely too aggressive in stopping me and I think it had something to do with the fact that I was black" and this would be easier to swallow.  Instead she accuses an officer she doesn’t even claim to know of racism and assault and can’t even admit that she may have contributed to the situation.  Isn’t it a form of racism to assume another person is racist because they offend you and happen to be of a different race.  Couldn’t it just be that you are an onerous jerk?

I’ve always found the race card an interesting play because it tends to appear and disappear depending on the situation.  For instance I doubt that Rep. McKinney would claim that she is probably elected only because she comes from a heavily black voting district, not because she’s the most qualified for the job.  Of course if she lived in a diverse or heavily white neighborhood and lost an election she would probably claim it’s because she’s black. You see, playing the race card to avoid personal responsibility also precludes you from recognition for personal achievement.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely think there should be laws and regulations against excluding people from business, neighborhoods, organizations, etc. because of their race.  I also believe that preferential treatment specifically because of race is a mistake because it denies those receiving the preferential treatment from their due recognition.

And that’s the lesson I want my kids to learn.  They need to take responsibility for their actions and when they do they’ll be able to pridefully enjoy the achievements that are sure to follow.

Life Without -ologists

3 Replies

My brain is tired today and that means it has been wandering more than normal, which is the inverse of what happens to my body when it is tired.  Anyway one of the thoughts that my brain tumbled to is this: the more -ologists in your life at any given time, the worse off you are.  For instance:

  • If you are seeing any medical -ologist you are probably feeling either physically or emotionally threatened. Who wants to start their day getting ready to see an oncologist, endocrinologist, cardiologist, psychologist, etc. ?
  • If you work with an -ologist of any stripe you’re most likely a miserable SOB.  Who wants to be surrounded by apologists (Democrats), numerologists (Republicans), sociologists (we’re all screwed and here’s why), pathologists (I see dead people), climatologists (the sky is falling!) or theologians (a form of -ologist, but with a holier-than-thou bent)?
  • Exception that proves the rule: Sexologist.

Thankfully my life is barren of -ologists right now and I’m knocking on wood as I write this in hopes of keeping it that way.

I’m Confused. Is it Because I Read the Newspaper?

1 Reply

As usual I began my day by reading the local newspaper, The Winston-Salem Journal.  I think the Journal compares well with other small-city newspapers and I actually enjoy being able to read the entire paper over a cup (or six) of coffee.  But as I read the business section today I became confused.  My problem began with an AP story that had the headline "Looking Jollier" (ed. note: they use a different headline for the online version of the story) and details the rising consumer confidence index.  As part of the story they have this sentence:

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said that sales of new single-family homes rose by 13 percent last month, the biggest one-month gain in more than 12 years.

Great news that new home sales are increasing right?  Well, yesterday there was another AP story on the front page of the business section with the headline "Sales of Existing Houses Go Down."  "Okay," I tell myself, "so sales of new homes are soaring while sales of existing homes are tanking.  But wasn’t there something else in yesterday’s article about future building?"  So I pulled up the old article and found this:

The weakness in existing home sales followed an earlier report that construction of new homes and apartments fell by 5.6 percent in October, the biggest setback in seven months.  Applications for new building permits, a good sign of future activity, fell by 6.7 percent, the biggest decline in six years.

Hmmm.  What does it all mean.  To make it even more interesting, or confusing depending on how you look at it, there’s another item in today’s paper that says that the sales of existing homes in the local region rose two percent in October, which means that the local market did better than the nationwide market. 

So what am I to think?  Obviously there’s a mixed economic picture, but since I’m not an economist I’m not sure exactly what it all means.  I could hope for the newspaper to provide me some guidance, but they are only spitting out data, not providing context or guidance.  In all fairness to the paper this is simply one story of many that they can cover, and Lord knows they’re stretched thin by their current business problems.  But maybe they have their current business problems because of stories like these.

It has become abundantly clear to anyone who hasn’t lived in a cave the past 10 years that information (news) is a commodity.  Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can spew data to the world, but what takes time and talent is providing background, a sense of scope and most importantly perspective.  Is it because most people equate perspective with opinion that the folks in the news business shy away from injecting their own thoughts or analysis into stories?  If so I think that’s a flawed assumption that leads to a product of limited or no value.

Let’s be clear: straight opinion belongs on the op-ed page.  But editors and reporters can create value by giving us the news and then providing some perspective without crossing the line into opinion.  Some newspaper pieces identified with the tag "Analysis" that we see in the paper on an infrequent basis are a good start, but they are too few and far between.  What we need is for each story to be "framed."

Most stories in most papers are simply regurgitations of what happened, when it happened and to whom it happened.  Rarely do newspapers frame the story for us, give us an idea where it fits in the larger picture.  It’s this framing, this perspective, that would give a story depth and value.

For an example look at the two stories I highlighted.  Instead of simply reciting this economic data give me an overview of the data and then put it in perspective and make it relevant to my life.  For instance, does it mean that while the national housing picture is indicative of a slowdown the local housing market is actually on the rise?  Tell me why that is.  Tell me that it’s probably because the local economy has been hammered for the last five years while the rest of the country has been on a great economic ride.  Tell me if we’ll see more construction jobs here, if local housing inventory is shrinking, if the value of my house is probably going to continue to rise. 

In short tell me what it means, because if you don’t I probably won’t continue to subscribe and I know for damn sure that the kids coming of age now will have no time for you.  But just like me today’s young adults need someone to help them understand what all this information means, and if you could tell them they would pay for it.

As things stand I’m still confused.

How Much is Enough?

Leave a reply

Via Ed Cone I just read a piece by Dave Winer called Transcendental Money that he wrote five years ago.  This excerpt will give you the gist:

Now I can define my term. Transcendental money is the amount of
money required to transcend time. It makes just enough money to satisfy
all your reasonable needs, wants and desires, but no more. You can do
the math yourself, factor in the cost of living where you live, or want
to live, it’s just arithmetic to determine what your transcendental
money number is.

Once you have your real number, the true nature of money reveals
itself. No matter how much you have, you never feel secure. Sorry, I
didn’t make the rules, have a talk with your god, or your dog, or
whoever you turn to for spiritual guidance. The unhappy ending for all
of us is death, we all lose this game, there’s no winning strategy, and
no matter how much money you attain, you can never feel secure, unless
you trust nothingness, because that’s where we’re all headed.

So money offers a chance, in its absence, to find a happier purpose to
life. I believe that no matter how much money you have it can’t bring
you that secure "I Will Exist Forever" feeling that our hearts all feel
we deserve.

Now, having no money certainly offers a chance to postpone living until
you get the money. I’ve been there, done that, got the prize. But I’ve
seen people with huge piles of money-sweating money who believe that if
they just double their fortune they will feel truly secure. I can’t
help these people, but I can help people who are truly poor.

I read this at an opportune time.  I’m getting ready to head to D.C. to join with some of my fraternity brothers (Iota Xi chapter of Sigma Chi) to help out a brother who’s hit some hard times.  I also know someone going through a divorce and navigating some rough economic waters, literally having a hard time paying the bills and putting food on the table.  So money, or the lack there of, is definitely on my mind.

Part of me feels guilty.  Why, I wonder, am I so caught up in the day-to-day of my own existence, worried about things that are so petty in comparison to the problems that some friends are facing?  I know, I know, it’s human nature, but that knowledge does not alleviate the guilt and quite honestly I don’t think the guilt is misplaced.

Far too much of life is spent in pursuit of more; more money and the supposed security that more money brings.  Mind you I’m not arguing that money is not important. It most definitely is critical to our every day existence just as healthy crops and ample game were critical to our ancestors.  What I’m saying is that even when we have enough money we don’t perceive it as being enough so we spend an inordinate amount of time seeking more. 

Reading Winer’s piece it occured to me that he was on to something.  Money, or at least having it, truly is transcendent.  Most of us have experienced cycles in our life when we have less or more money.  When we are in a down cycle money is our means for survival and when we are in an up cycle it is merely the means through which we get ourselves more stuff, more vacations, etc.  Of course if we don’t control ourselves during the up cycle then we can quickly spend our way into a down cycle, rinse and repeat.

And then there’s the unknown that the future holds.  We’ve all known people who fall on hard times, sometimes by their own hand and sometimes by fate (failing health, natural disaster, etc.).  The uncertainty of the future causes us to feel the need to stockpile money "just in case."  Of course that’s prudent, but only to a point.  Figuring out what that point is, when enough is enough, is critical to being able to take the focus away from day-to-day economic gain and placing it where it belongs, on day-to-day giving.

Just Being a Professor Doesn’t Make You Smart

Leave a reply

There’s a quote from a professor in an article in the Arizona Republic titled "iPod Era of Personal Media Choices May Be Turning Us Into an iSolation Nation that I think highlights the dangers of listening to an academic make pronouncements about the cultural impact of, well, anything related to the real world.  Here it is:

"What concerns me is that we are developing an information
segregation," said Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor and media
watcher at DePauw University in Indiana "People are ending up exposing
themselves only to the ideas, issues and entertainment that suits them.
And I don’t think that’s healthy in the long run."

What universe is this guy from?  People have always segregated themselves and they have always segregated their information, no matter the medium.

To give you just one example take the newspaper scene in Washington, DC.  For years there have been two papers, The Washington Post and The Washington Times.  Ask any native of DC and they’ll tell you that the average Post reader is likely to be liberal and perhaps a little elitist.  On the other hand they’ll tell you that the average Times reader is either a staunch conservative, black or both.

Look at TV news. We haven’t always had the "conservative" media like Fox, but we have had choices.  Back in the day you could often be classified by the broadcast news you watched.  Were you a Cronkite guy or a Brinkley gal?

All we have with the new media is a lot more variety, more complexity and perhaps more defined segments to choose from.  So what if you TiVo your TV programming now?  That just means that instead of going to the fridge during a commercial you fast forward through it.  So what if you listen to your iPod instead of the radio?  That just means you find your music through avenues other than the 50 or 60 songs being rotated ad nauseum on the radio.

Sounds to me that Mr. McCall is a member of the camp who feels that we need to be nannied to death.  We can’t possibly enlighten ourselves, we must rely on someone else to do it for us.  But that ignores the other great human trait we all share and that is curiosity.

As I said people have always segregated themselves but we’ve also always been a curious lot.  Anyone who argues that just because we can choose what we want to hear or read and thus will never find "new" music or ideas has obviously never been stuck in their car listening to the same mix CD for a few hours on end.  We’re human, we get bored and we’re constantly on the hunt for something new. 

The almost infinite number of choices at our disposal are a great thing.  We now have an idea of how much we don’t know, the scope of what we may be missing.  I’d argue that with our curiosity piqued we will actually broaden our horizons.  Sure we’ll still be looking for those pundits we agree with and for the music we already know we like, but in the process we’ll more than likely discover something new that we like more than we ever expected.  What could be better than that?

Reading List September 1, 2005

Leave a reply
  • Kids Just Get It (The Post Money Value) – While at dinner Rick Segal overheard a child say the following after hearing about benefit concerts being put together for Katrina victims: “How come they have to do music to get help, don’t people just want to help?”
  • Fred Barnes to Katrina Victims: Drop Dead (New Hounds) – Conservative pundits behaving badly.
  • Rant on the Hurricane (The Chairman’s Corner) – The Guilford County (NC) Republican Party is in deep doo-doo.  Why?  Just read a few posts from this guy’s blog for some clues.
  • Wedding Canceled (Patrick Eakes) – Anecdotal testimony from people on the ground in Louisiana.

Googol = Incredibly Large Number or Antonym for Number of Respectable Politicians

2 Replies

One of the advantages of driving to DC from North Carolina instead of flying is that it gives me time to think.  On this latest trip I spent a lot of time thinking about politics and religion.  (I know it’s sad, but it is what it is). None of the following is earth shattering, but I figured I’d get my opinion on paper before I forget what it is, and yes I reserve the right to change my mind.

I was just reading this piece in the Washington Post about all the perfectly legal ways that politicians can be paid off, uh, I mean incentivized, and it reminded me of my train of thought during the drive up.  That train of thought can be best summarized as: why are so many politicians slimy little bastards?

Harsh words?  Yes.  True?  I think so.

Here’s my stink test: Can you name more than three politicians that you respect?  Note that I used "respect" and not "like" or "agree with."  Really, how many politicians do you believe have well articulated principles, have a track record of sticking to those principles, treat their colleagues and constituents honorably and seem to sincerely have the good of the country/state/county/town at heart as they do their jobs?  How many have the courage of their convictions to the point that they can do what they feel is right even when they know they’re going to get hammered for it? How many have the humility to say "I was wrong" or "I stand corrected?" (That last was for President Bush).

Yes there are good people in politics and I would like to believe that they are the majority, in fact I very definitely used to believe that, but that’s no longer the case.  Here’s why I think most politicians are rather despicable:

  • Politicians, like stars in every other public arena like sports and entertainment, are by nature self-centered.  They are their own "brand", their own "product" and so the only thing they have to promote is themselves. Their own economic and psychological well being must be their top priority, followed by everything else.
  • Politicians are as susceptible as anyone, if not more so, to the human frailties of greed and vanity. They are easy prey for the hucksters, er lobbyists.
  • The traits that help politicians succeed (see above) are the antithesis of many of the traits that most of us value: honor, integrity, humility.
  • Politicians are "me" people, not "we" people.  We’ve all had dinner with "me" people and it isn’t much fun.

A corollary to all if this is the theory that the higher up you go the more pronounced the bastardization seems to get.  In other words I think I’m more likely to meet an honorable politician on the town council than I am in the halls of Congress.  That’s because:

  • The more a person succeeds in politics the more pronounced the personality traits outlined above.
  • If you’re a US Congressman the economic benefits of doing whatever it takes to survive are much greater than if you’re a member of the town council.
  • The member of town council isn’t separated from reality.  A councilperson has a day job, doesn’t generally have a staff and definitely doesn’t have a bunch of groupies telling her how great she is.  Members of Congress are surrounded by sycophants.

So there’s my opinion about politicians.  For the record I have a lot of respect for the people who run the town where I live (Lewisville, NC).  They do a lot for a very little and they truly seem dedicated to building a great community.

Also for the record the only politician on the national stage (US) that I can come up with that I really respect is John McCain, if for no other reason than he seems to be able to march to his own drummer and has the guts to take on anybody.

How about you?  I would love to be proven wrong, so please feel free to nominate a US Congressman, Senator, Vice-President or President for the status of "I’m Not a Sleazy Bastard." You can do it in the comments of this blog or by sending me an email at jon.lowder AT gmail.com. If we can come up with 51 Senators, 218 Congressmen, one Vice President and one President then I’ll stand corrected. In fact if we can come up with that many politicians who would win an "I’m Not a Sleazy Bastard" contest then I’ll have my head shaved.

Reading List August 7, 2005

Leave a reply
  • Web 2.0: It’s a Great Time to be an Investor (Venturepreneur Partners) – An article by a venture capitalist that explains how the Web is changing from a "medium where information is simply published and remains static, into a
    platform where applications reside and services are distributed."
  • How to Write Using Stream of Conversation (Rexblog) – "I believe those of us who try to understand and interpret what is
    taking place when social media intersect with traditional media often
    place an emphasis on the idea that the article is the beginning of a conversation. However, reading Joi’s complete post, I’m reminded that an article (or post or story) comes mid-stream in the conversation."
  • Outgrowing the Grownup (Moore’s Lore) – How Eric Schmidt might be screwing up Google.
  • Google Balances Privacy, Reach (CNET via Moore’s Lore) –  Is Google a threat to your privacy?
  • The War on Truth (A-Clue.com) – An opinion piece about the "war on truth" currently being waged by conservatives in American politics.
  • The Drawdown Lowdown (Reason Express) –  Possible scenarios for US troop reductions in Iraq.
  • The London Flypaper (Reason Express) – "Standard pro-war flypaper doctrine has all the young Muslims
    flocking to Iraq to die for Allah, not staying home and trying to blow stuff up.
    Pointing this out does not mean claiming that George Bush is to blame for the London bombing of 7/21 or 7/7,
    the straw man that Bush supporters love to toss up."
  • Up in Smoke (New York TImes Magazine) – The Freakonomics guys look at what happened to crack cocaine.
  • Ostentatious Obscurity (Reveries.com) – Owners publicize their restaurant by making it a secret; unlisted phone number, no signs, hostess that denies its existence.  Only in New York.
  • Rules of Success-The Path of Least Resistance (Blog Maverick) – Mark Cuban says that the secret to success is providing the path of least resistance, or in other words make things as easy as possible for customers, not yourself.

Judge, Reagan Appointee, Doesn’t Seem to Like Bush Policy re. Bringing Terrorists to Justice

1 Reply

My mom wasn’t a big fan of Ronald Reagan (nominee for understatement of the year), but one of his judicial appointees might pass even her scrutiny.  From Lex Alexander’s Blog on the Run I found this post about the sentencing of the "Millenium bomber" Ahmed Ressam by District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee.

He then posts an excerpt that you can read from the original remarks posted on Crooks and Liars. Here’s the most important part of the quote:

Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite
the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American
citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the
opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12
ordinary citizens.

Most importantly, all of this occurred in the
sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no
indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.

The tragedy of
September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we,
too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, some believe
that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a
Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and
which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to
prevail, the terrorists will have won.

I think the policy that he is alluding to is one of the things that has bothered me most about the Bush administration. Their tendency to aggressively change the rules to serve their short term purposes is a long term fiasco.  I’m sure they think it’s necessary for security reasons or whatever, but I’m also sure that many bad things have been done for seemingly good reasons.

Many of my more conservative friends and colleagues perceive any condemnation or critique of the administration’s policies towards the terrorists or "enemy combatants" to be a "liberal" tendency towards softness.  Well, I can’t think of anything I’ve heard or read from the "liberal" side that indicates that they want to be soft on the terrorists.  No, they want justice as much as the conservatives do, but they don’t want us to sacrifice our scruples in the process.

One of the reasons that America’s system of due process has been held up as an ideal is that it compensates for the universally human habit of making mistakes.  How often are people arrested because they were mistakenly identified by an eyewitness only to be cleared later by physical evidence?  The system, while not perfect, provides for the opportunity to right the mistakes that we will inevitably make. 

In the case of our round up and detention of suspected terrorists we need only look at the recent shooting of a misidentified suspect in London as evidence that there is a very good likelihood that we’ve nabbed a few innocent people.  Of course I could be wrong, but without due process it becomes much harder to know.

On the practical level the administration’s secrecy also denies us the true reward of our justice system, namely the ability to clearly define what is right and what is wrong, and what the penalties are for those who do wrong.  In other words we aren’t able to make an example out of those who are guilty because we can’t prove to the world through the application of our system of justice that these men are evil.  We can only ask the world to take our word for it, which just isn’t good enough.

Finally the current policy also harms us in our relations with other countries.  We look like we’re willing to "talk the talk" as it relates to democratic ideals of justice, but we’re not willing to "walk the walk."  Or more specifically we look like we’re willing to "walk the walk" only when the path is paved, but not when it’s rocky.