Creative Legislating, Part II

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Last week we had the Virginia legislator who did this:

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.

The amendment ended up being a symbolic gesture as it was defeated and the original bill was passed.  This week we have this story from Indiana:

Rep. Jud McMillin, a Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly, took back his drug-testing bill after one of his helpful Democratic colleagues amended it ever so slightly.

The Huffington Post says Rep. McMillin, the sponsor of the bill advocating a pilot program for welfare applicants to be drug-tested, decided to withdraw it once his colleagues made a few tweaks.

"There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the bill," he said.

His reasoning is that it's currently considered unconstitutional to require drug testing for political candidates, and he wanted to make sure the bill wouldn't be struck down because of that. However, the precedent involved was for candidates, not those already in office.

 

 

Pink May Not Be So Pretty After This Week

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Having worked with multiple non-profits, both as a staff member and as a volunteer, I'm going to be watching with great interest what happens with Susan G. Komen for the Cure over the coming months. Why? Because they've had two significant PR events just this week that I think might affect them financially for at least the near future, if not over the long term.

The first event was the announcement that they are cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings. Their stated reason is that they have a new policy that prevents them from funding organizations that are under investigation by the government, but it's been pointed out that the implementation of the new policy is conveniently timed to coincide with the launch of an investigation by a conservative Florida congressman. The new policy hasn't prevented them from accepting funds from organizations under investigation by the government (Bank of America to name one). It's also quite a coincidence that Komen's Senior VP of Public Policy is a pro-life Republican who ran for Governor of Georgia two years ago. At a minimum the organization looks disingenuous and quite frankly I think they've offended a huge segment of their supporters.

As if that's not bad enough a new documentary about Komen is getting ready to hit the indy theater circuit this month and given the organization's recent missteps I have a feeling it will get even more attention than the producers could have dreamed just a week ago. Judging by the trailer (see below) it doesn't look like this is a glowing tribute to the organization, and added to this week's developments I have a feeling it could put a serious dent in Komen's fundraising activities. Depending on your view that could be a good or bad thing – there's an argument to be made that the money that doesn't go to Komen could go to other worthy causes – but I think it will be a case study for non-profit managers to study for years to come.

Coolest Thing Ever for a Bunch of Weekend Warriors

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I've played in rec leagues (basketball, tennis, soccer, softball) for as long as I've been able to bounce a ball and have continued doing so to this day (much to the consternation of my wife). I can tell you without hesitation that if I'd been one of these guys I'd have had the time of my life:

Thanks to Kristen Daukus for sharing this on Facebook.

Letter of Note

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Letters of Note, a blog I came across in my internet travels, has a letter written by a freed slave to the man from whom he was freed. As someone pointed out online at the beginning of the letter you're thinking "this poor man had a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome and then by the end you realize he's written a letter infused with sarcasm:

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance…

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire…

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.

Ogilvy on Copywriting

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It's easy to make fun of advertising folks because, well, far too many of them produce some truly crappy work. On the other hand there are some tremendously talented ad professionals who produce truly inspiring work. In other words advertising is like every other industry out there, populated by the good, the bad and the ugly.

One of the paragons of advertising was David Ogily and this letter he wrote about his process for copywriting shows that his process was anything but painless:

1. I have never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home. 

2. I spend a long time studying the precedents. I look at every advertisement which has appeared for competing products during the past 20 years. 

3. I am helpless without research material—and the more "motivational" the better. 

4. I write out a definition of the problem and a statement of the purpose which I wish the campaign to achieve. Then I go no further until the statement and its principles have been accepted by the client. 

5. Before actually writing the copy, I write down every concievable fact and selling idea. Then I get them organized and relate them to research and the copy platform. 

6. Then I write the headline. As a matter of fact I try to write 20 alternative headlines for every advertisement. And I never select the final headline without asking the opinion of other people in the agency. In some cases I seek the help of the research department and get them to do a split-run on a battery of headlines. 

7. At this point I can no longer postpone the actual copy. So I go home and sit down at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad-tempered. If my wife comes into the room I growl at her. (This has gotten worse since I gave up smoking.)

8. I am terrified of producing a lousy advertisement. This causes me to throw away the first 20 attempts. 

9. If all else fails, I drink half a bottle of rum and play a Handel oratorio on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy. 

10. The next morning I get up early and edit the gush.

11. Then I take the train to New York and my secretary types a draft. (I cannot type, which is very inconvenient.)

12. I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editings, it looks good enough to show to the client. If the client changes the copy, I get angry—because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose. 

Creative Legislating

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Who needs reality shows when you have politics? Virginia might have the best show going right now:

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.

"We need some gender equity here," she told HuffPost. "The Virginia senate is about to pass a bill that will require a woman to have totally unnecessary medical procedure at their cost and inconvenience. If we're going to do that to women, why not do that to men?"

The Republican-controlled senate narrowly rejected the amendment Monday by a vote of 21 to 19, but passed the mandatory ultrasound bill in a voice vote. A similar bill in Texas, which physicians say has caused a "bureaucratic nightmare," is currently being challenged in court.

 

Why Innovation in the Textbook Market is Hard

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On his AVC blog Fred Wilson shares an interesting piece from the American Conservative about why innovation in the textbook market is so difficult:

Within the world of regular public school education, educational professionals have distinctly limited ability to express any kind of preferences – and the Bush-era education reforms have reduced this scope even further. The target market for textbook publishers is the politicians who set the curriculum for the nation’s largest school systems where that curriculum is set statewide: California and Texas. It matters very little what an individual teacher in Houston or Oakland wants or needs – or thinks their students need.

If you want to see disruptive change in the textbook market, then, you’d need to identify both a potential supplier of the product with no stake in propitiating the incumbents, and a buyer of the product for whom the product solves a problem.

My suspicion is that your best bet would be to have the supplier and the purchaser be, in some sense, the same entity. And I can think of two parts of the educational landscape where that situation might obtain: the KIPP network of high-performing charter schools and the home-schooling movement.

In the past I've shared my frustration with the whole textbook cartel. I'd love nothing better than for someone to blow that industry up and figure out a better way to get teachers and students the tools they need.

Does “Forsaking All Others” Still Cut It?

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Newt Gingrich's purported request to his second wife for an "open marriage" prompted a couple of economists to look at the marriage contract:

Marriage can be strengthened by shifting to individualized marital contracts that emphasize those things essential to making each relationship work. Is “forsaking all others” essential? What about splitting the housework? Should we live near my parents, yours, or neither? Who stays home from work when the kids are sick? Should we be spenders or savers? Will we retire at 55 or 75? How many kids? How will we allocate time between work, family, friends and each other?

These questions are at the heart of married life, but only one of them — sexual fidelity — is in the standard marriage contract…

The great Nobel laureate Gary Becker has suggested a way out of this bad equilibrium. What if it were compulsory to write a personalized marriage contract with your spouse, tailored to your own circumstances? Replacing today’s default marriage vows with compulsory personal contracts would create the space for two adults to seriously and soberly sit down and decide what it is that they want from married life.