Category: Diversity

By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I’d been wanting to see “No Impact Man” since it came out a few years ago. It’s a documentary of a family who tries to live for a year with zero net impact on the environment, phasing down gradually from the conveniences we take for granted.

Last night, we watched the movie. What I had never realized is that Colin and his at-first-skeptical wife Michelle are doing this in New York City—in the capital of consumerism, in the belly of the beast. And Michelle in particular came from a superconsumerist lifestyle, a self-identified shopping addict who purchased lots of designer clothes and either ate out or got take-out almost every night.

The Bicultural Perspective

Dina and I were both raised in New York City; we were both living in Brooklyn when we met. But 32 years ago, we moved from Philadelphia (we’d lived there for nine months) to Greenfield, Massachusetts, population 20,000 and the hub town for farmy Franklin County.

Six months later, when Dina got a job 40 miles south of us, we moved 20 miles south to Northampton, a hip, urbane small college/arts town of 30,000, also surrounded by farmland.

And then, after 17 years in Northampton, we moved across the river 15 years ago to Hockanum, a tiny village of about 200 souls. We live on a working farm that’s been in our neighbors’ family since 1806; they raise 400 cows as well as hay and corn to support the cattle.

Our farm neighbors sold us a house that was built in 1743, and they were only the second family to own it. Mount Holyoke (the mountain, not the college) is literally right behind our house; Mount Tom is just across the Connecticut River.

It’s pretty darn different from the 26-storey apartment building in a 35-high-rise complex where I lived during high school, or from the noisy urban melting pot neighborhoods of my earlier childhood and Dina’s entire upbringing.

For many years, we’ve called ourselves “bicultural.” We can still function well in the fast-paced, loud, crowded setting of New York. But after 32 years in the Pioneer Valley, we’re actually more at home with our country neighbors—talking about our gardens, hiking the hills, and sharing an ethic that values the land. Frugality and green choices have always been a part of our lifestyle, even before we left the city.

With this history, our viewing of “No Impact Man” reflects both our urban past and our rural present: two very different worlds. (to be continued tomorrow)

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By Posted on Posted in Diversity, poverty, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Today, I am proud to be an American.

When I attended my first same-sex commitment ceremony, sometime around 1980, I never thought I’d see so much progress, so fast. In 1982, I went to the first LGB pride march in Northampton, Massachusetts—and some of the marchers wore bags over their heads to protect their idenities.

In 2005, just 23 years later, my own state of Massachusetts became the first to legalize same-sex marriage. And now, with today’s Supreme Court decisions in favor of gay marriage, several major ripples happen:

  • California will likely become the 13th state to legalize marriage equality, and that will mean about 30 percent of the US population will live in a place where partners of the same gender can marry
  • The wretched DOMA, the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (I prefer to call it the Desecration of Marriage Act) is invalidated, and the numerous discriminatory practices it enshrined are nullified—creating economic equality for same-sex relationships in such matters as inheritance, hospital visitation rights, and spousal benefits (DOMA is the worst kind of compromise—the kind that makes no one happy)
  • The US is well on its way to joining the 14 other countries that have legalized gay marriage, and thus joined the 21st century on this issue: not just the progressive hotspots of Northern Europe, but even two countries in South America (with Brazil expected to join them soon) and one in Africa

So what does it mean? Living in a state where same-sex marriage has been legal for 8 years, I can tell you that it has broken down a lot of barriers. When people realize that the same-sex couples in their community are just neighbors, working with them on the block beautification committee or school parent association—struggling with the same issues, sharing the same triumphs—a lot of the prejudice goes away. Just as we’ve seen a huge change in relations between races after the legal apartheid of the segregated south went away, we’ll see a gradual dissipation of prejudice as people of different sexual orientations rub shoulders in multiple contexts.

Congratulations to the Supreme Court, to all my lesbian and gay friends, to the Obama administration that urged this decision—and to my country.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Arts & Entertainment, Diversity, General Commentary, language, media-general Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recently, a local high school was targeted by an out-of-state hate mail campaign because it chose to produce “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” a gay and lesbian retelling of the Bible by Paul Rudnick. Protestors from various church groups promised to picket the performances. The story even made the Huffington Post.

It happened that the school producing the play was Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public High School, where both my children attended some years ago—a school known for its fabulous (reference intended) theater and dance departments. We’ve continued to attend many of the school’s performances even though my younger child is already a sophomore in college.

So of course, both to defend freedom of speech in the Pioneer Valley and to enjoy a night of theater we knew would be terrific, we attended. And we were gratified that in addition to the antigay protestors, a goodly multitude of pro-performance church groups were on hand to lend support.

The interesting thing is…if you accept the basic premise that gay and lesbian couples exist (and, in this play, were present at creation and right through modern times)—there’s almost nothing blasphemous in the play, which centers on Adam, through the ages, trying to find meaning in life. His questioning is very much rooted in the Old Testament tradition of prophets arguing with God. The whole alternate world is set in motion by a Stage Director (female, in this performance), which makes it clear from the get-go that this is an imaginary theatrical universe within the universe we all now, as opposed to any real redefinition of Biblical history. I found exactly one scene that fundamentalists might object to: 30 seconds out of a two-hour play that imply the Christ child was born of the play’s lesbian couple—and even this keeps the virgin birth intact.

Of course, the vast majority of those who protest this play wherever it is performed have never seen or read it. Fundamentalism, of any religion, leaves no window for dissenters and questioners.

By contrast, I just saw a 1999 movie called “Dogma,” a low-budget flick with a superstar cast (including very young Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as a pair of very foul-mouthed sin-avenging angels on a killing spree, George Carlin as a shady, street-tough Catholic Cardinal in New Jersey, Chris Rock as the delightful unknown 13th Apostle, and Salma Hayek as as a celestial being-turned-stripper). Early in the movie, we see Damon in an airport lounge, casting deep doubts about God’s existence into the mind of a confused Catholic nun. After she leaves, Affleck points out the irony that Damon’s character has known God directly.

An angel who kills with an assault weapon is only one of the many blasphemies—not all of them violent. The reimaging of several different pieces of the Jesus story as well as the portrayal of God will no doubt raise a few eyebrows among the faithful. Hundreds of people die in this funny but very gory film.

Now this is a movie that many Christians and religious Jews would find blasphemous all the way through—if they can stop laughing long enough to reflect on it. And yet, I didn’t remember any protests around it!

But Google has a better memory than I do; there were protests, actually. In fact, Disney’s Michael Eisner cut the film loose from his empire, under pressure from the Catholic League. Not only that, but the film’s director, Kevin Smith, infiltrated one of the protests—what a brilliant publicity move! He wrote and spoke (quite humorously) about his experience on this page, which also includes a TV news report of the protest, where he got recognized and interviewed.

I can understand that a film about a couple of angels cursing and shooting their way through modern America would upset people. But what does it say about our culture that people also get upset about sincere and committed expression of same-sex love?

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By Posted on Posted in Diversity, People Helping People, Politics, poverty Tagged with , , , ,

Not many politicians, even progressive ones with a strong sustainability commitment, would try to live on today’s food stamp budget. Hats off to Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker for this bold step–showing his colleagues what it’s actually like to be poor.

Of course, he can go back to his regular life any time he wants. An option not open to very many of those who live on SNAP assistance.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics Tagged with , , , , ,

The amazing thing to me is that 18 to 24 months ago, it looked like if the Republicans put up a candidate who could breathe and talk, the White House would be theirs. We don’t know exactly what combination of factors created Obama’s near-sweep of battleground states and overwhelming Electoral College mandate yesterday. So that allows the luxury of putting forth a list, and people can make their own choices about which ones were significant.

Here’s my list:

  • The American public is smart enough to see that the reason why Barack Obama didn’t make as much progress as we all wanted—despite his own reluctance to make this much of a campaign issue—can be laid directly at the feet of a recalcitrant and hostile Republican Party that consistently refused to negotiate in good faith, and whose stated priority (as expressed by its own Senate leader Mitch McConnell) was  not to rescue the country but to deny Barack Obama a second term.
  • Trust in Mitt Romney is very low, because on most major issues, he’s had at least two and often more contradictory positions. He has developed a well-deserved reputation for saying what he thinks people want to hear at that moment, and conveying the impression that he has no core beliefs or principles—and because his attack ads and debate points were so blatantly based on outright lies.
  • Mitt Romney managed to alienate enough constituencies that he sabotaged his chances: women, people of color, students, people on Social Security (although, surprisingly, he apparently carried much of the elder vote in general), gays and lesbians, even veterans and dog lovers.
  • Mitt Romney’s amazing gifts for putting his foot in his mouth and for presenting himself as completely out of touch with ordinary people didn’t help him. Barack Obama’s progress on the economy despite lack of GOP cooperation helped him strongly—in the Upper Midwest, especially.
  • Citizens United and the infusion of enormous amounts of money by the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS SuperPAC, Sheldon Adelson, and others may have actually created a backlash against the influence of money in politics (one that perhaps we can harness to create real and meaningful election reform). Even in Massachusetts, a state that was never in contention, we must have gotten somewhere between 30 to 50 calls and at least that many mailed fliers, to the point where we were totally sick of it. I can only imagine the barrage voters in battleground states were getting.
  • Despite massive reports of voter suppression and fraud (see for example https://www.thenation.com/blog/171079/whats-scope-voter-suppression-election, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/2012-elections-polling-places_n_2036228.html, and the truly despicable vote manipulation techniques highlighted at https://www.bradblog.com/?p=9706 (with video of a Pennsylvania touchscreen recording Barack Obama votes as Mitt Romney votes)—margins of victory were wide enough to prevent another election theft. However, this is a problem waiting to happen again, and a fix has been overdue since at least the aftermath of the 2000 election. I support electronic voting machines that use paper ballots, which can be scanned instantly for a preliminary tally, but then get safeguarded through proper chain-of-custody procedures and hand-counted over the next few days if there’s any question at all about the preliminary tabulation’s accuracy. Machines that do not keep a paper trail should be BANNED. end of story.
  • Polls can be wrong. Margins of victory were not even all that close in states like Pennsylvania and even Paul Ryan’s state of Wisconsin. Yes, Florida, Ohio, and Virgina, among others, were quite close—but overall, Barack Obama’s victory in the so-called swing states was generally decisive, with spreads in excess of five points.
  • Barack Obama was able to pull out his core constituencies to show up on voting day, even though these include groups that historically have had low voter turnouts: youth (pretty much written off by the pundits ahead of the election), people of color, women’s rights advocates, LGBT people and their supporters).
  • The US is getting more socially liberal: ballot initiatives supporting such causes as gay marriage and not just medical marijuana but even recreational marijuana passed.
  • The day of the ultra-right is drawing to a close. Even Missouri, which went for Romney, returned Claire McCaskill to the Senate, repelling a challenge by Todd “Legitimate Rape” Aiken. While the party has shifted so far to the right that I heard one commentator refer to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch as part of the party’s moderate wing, real moderates have nowhere to go in the Republican Party right now, so they vote Democrat. My personal belief is that if Mitt Romney had taken a consistent moderate platform—as he did when he was governor here in Massachusetts—throughout the primaries, he would have easily won the primary contest as all the other (extremist) candidates competed for the extremist vote, then gone on to win the presidency. I am glad he chose instead the “Etch-A-Sketch” approach. Trying to be first ultra-rightist then moderate was a failed strategy from the beginning, in an age of instant world-wide communication; it might have worked if there were still such a thing as private conversations from candidates to voters.
  • People saw this race as important enough not to risk anything on third-party candidates. The top six third-party candidates candidates together only got about 1.43 percent of the vote (fewer than 1.7 million votes out of a total of 116.8 million votes cast)—with just over a million of those going to Liberatrian Gary Johnson, bringing him 1 percent, and Green candidate Jill Stein (whose votes—including mine—I’m guessing were nearly entirely in non-swing states) got 0.3 percent, a whisker under 400,000.  votes. None of the others, not even comedienne Roseanne Barr, got even one-tenth of one percent. (all stats from https://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results with “display all candidates” enabled)
  • Other than during the first debate, Barack Obama outmarketed Mitt Romney, by presenting a better and more believable picture of the next four years to average Americans, and by at least making some sideways attempts to take credit for some of the substantial list he actually accomplished in his first term—and inspiring, once again, a horde of volunteers to get involved. While he was effective in this only compared to Mitt Romney (remember the 47 percent?), Barack Obama’s modest effort outshone Mitt Romney’s pathetic self-aggrandizing.
  • With galvanizing speeches by Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton, the Democratic Convention gave Barack Obama a significant lift that he never really lost.

There are other factors too, but I’ll stop there.

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By Posted on Posted in Diversity, Politics Tagged with , , ,

A court here in Massachusetts decided the state should pay the bill for a sex-change operation for a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, calling it a “serious medical need.” I’m a strong supporter of transgender people’s rights, and I think it might be totally appropriate to let her have the surgery. But I’m sorry, the taxpayers should not foot the bill. At least not until we have a single-payer healthcare system where the government pays all health care expenses.

As a Massachusetts resident, I am very much looking forward to consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren sending Senator Scott Brown packing in November. I usually disagree with him on issue after issue. But when he calls this “an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars,” I think he’s absolutely right.

I don’t think the state should be paying for this surgery for anyone. If someone can’t afford it, there ought to be some foundation money out there someplace.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, poverty, privacy, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

As a professional marketer and speaker, I look at speeches differently from a lot of other people. I look not only at what the speaker says, but at how effectively the ideas and emotions are communicated: how it impacts the listener. Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention [link to a transcript] gets an almost perfect 9.9 from me. I think when people remember the great speeches of the 21st century, this one has a good chance of making the list. Just as we remember 20th-century orators like Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, and Maya Angelou, we will remember Michelle as an orator alongside Barack. People are still talking about Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 National Convention, and about his speech in Cairo early in his presidency. I predict that people will be remembering Michelle Obama’s speech [link to the video] years from now. Why?

  • Without ever calling the Republicans out, she made a clear distinction not only in the candidates’ values, but also in their origins; Mitt Romney constantly struggles to connect with people less fortunate than he, while Michelle Obama gripped the audience with the unforgettable images of Barack picking her up in a car so old and rusty she could see through the floor to the pavement…of his proudest possession back then, a table he fished out of a dumpster.
  • She reminded us over and over again of the hope and promise of the 2008 campaign, and connected this year’s campaign to that same hope, even while the youth who were so inspired four years ago are disappointed in what Barack Obama has accomplished. Her message to youth was clear: we are not done yet, and we are still here for you—but you need to get out there and vote (italics are taken directly from Michelle Obama’s speech):

And if so many brave men and women could wear our country’s uniform and sacrifice their lives for our most fundamental rights—then surely we can do our part as citizens of this great democracy to exercise those rights. Surely, we can get to the polls and make our voices heard on Election Day. If farmers and blacksmiths could win independence from an empire. If immigrants could leave behind everything they knew for a better life on our shores. If women could be dragged to jail for seeking the vote. If a generation could defeat a depression, and define greatness for all time. If a young preacher could lift us to the mountaintop with his righteous dream. And if proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love—then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.Because in the end, more than anything else, that is the story of this country — the story of unwavering hope grounded in unyielding struggle.

  • As my wife, D. Dina Friedman, pointed out immediately afterward, she positioned some of Barack’s liabilities, such as his insistence on building consensus with Republicans who not only won’t reach consensus but who are actively sabotaging his efforts, as strengths:

I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as “us” and “them” — he doesn’t care whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or none of the above. He knows that we all love our country. And he’s always ready to listen to good ideas. He’s always looking for the very best in everyone he meets.

  • She reached out to many constituencies: veterans, teachers, firefighters, poor people working class people, those with disabilities, single moms, grandparents, dads, people facing serious illness, those in the struggle for women’s reproductive rights, recent grads under pressure of student loans or other crippling debt, those who remember the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, gays and lesbians and those who stand with them in the struggle for marriage equality. And time after time, she reached out to moms and identified as a mom.
  • Above all, her delivery was from the heart. She connected to her audience as a person, a mom, and as an advocate for the best of American values. She was both sincere and enormously likable. Even her little hint of a stammer came across as endearing. She didn’t need props or PowerPoint. My guess is she didn’t even need the teleprompter that no doubt was in her view.

So why do I give a 9.9 and not a 10? I deduct one tenth for staying behind the lectern. That is much more distancing; when I speak, I stand to the side of the lectern, so there’s no barrier between me and my audience, yet I can still see my notes. However, she was able to overcome that distance and connect personally and viscerally with the live audience and those watching from afar. If Barack Obama does win a second term, I think Michelle Obama will deserve some of the credit.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Diversity, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Hands down, my favorite commercial of the Olympics so far–and in fact my favorite TV commercial of the last several years, in any context–is Nike’s “Find Your Greatness: Jogger” (The full transcript,and the one-minute video, are at that link.)

The entire video is an overweight kid running at the camera, starting quite some distance out. Working hard, but not being fazed.

When I saw it on TV, I thought it was an  60-something overweight man. Looking again, I see it’s a kid. But the message of empowerment is the same.

Especially when the voiceover says (in part),

Somehow we’ve come to believe that greatness is a gift reserved for a chosen few, for prodigies, for superstars, and the rest of us can only stand by watching.

You can forget that.

Greatness is not some rare DNA strand, not some precious thing. Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing.

As a somewhat overweight guy who will be 60 in five years–and who has lost 15 pounds since upping my daily exercise regime from 30 to 60 minutes, to 60 to 120 minutes. The ad resonates with me. And not a lot of ads do.

 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Green Business, Green Marketing, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

I’m a long-time fan of Van Jones, and one of the things I love is that he can frame things in ways that those on the other side of the political continuum can relate to.

Too often, the left frames things in its own language (often couched in liberal guilt)—and the right dismisses us as silly and naive. Listen to minutes 30 to 35 of this speech to see how Van Jones puts the argument for going green into an issue of individual economic liberty, and turns the don’t-subsidize-solar argument into a compelling Tea-Party-friendly argument for ending oil subsidies (why doesn’t he talk aobut nuclear, which would not exist as an industry without subsidies?)

Later in the talk, he discusses solar and wind as farmer power, cowboy power, etc. And demonstrates that organic farming is traditional, and that we should return to our roots after a century of “poison-based agriculture.” And calls not for subsidy for green initiatives, but for green as entrepreneurship, enterprise, and job creation—arguments that both liberals and conservatives should relate to.

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Shel's Personal Life

Thought you’d like a follow-up to my last post, about the impending driving trip to a French-speaking world in Quebec Province. Here’s how the trip went.

My last post was about how lucky we are to be able to drive to another country and another culture–and then I left for five days in French-speaking Quebec Province.

In Drummondville, where we spent most of the trip, hardly anyone spoke more than minimal English, and even though we were attending a major music and dance festival an hour and a half from the US border–we did not encounter anyone else from the US.

I don’t speak French but can get little pieces, especially when there are cognates with English or Spanish. My wife can speak a bit but often doesn’t understand the responses. We found ourselves using a weird combination of Spanish, French, and English. It worked reasonably well in one-to-one conversation. We were completely lost when, for instance, the various festival MCs did their 10-minute introductions of each performer.

I actually think this is a very healthy thing: to be reminded that the US is not the only culture, and English not the only language. When we visit foreign countries, we shouldn’t expect others to understand English on our behalf. If I’m going to one country for a period of time, I’ll try to listen to an introductory language CD or tape set (libraries often have these). So for instance, when we went to the rural Czech republic several years ago, we were armed with two cassettes’ worth of phrases. And even with our very rudimentary knowledge, we were translating for many of the other people in the music camp we attended.

We’ve been around a lot of other places in Quebec where French was the dominant language, but plenty of people spoke English: Montreal, Quebec City, and our second destination on this trip–the lovely city of Sherbrooke and the charming nearby village of North Hatley.

Canada is theoretically bilingual. However, just as in many parts of English-speaking Canada, people have little or no French–here, many people in the smaller cities had little or no English, even though they’d supposedly studied it in school. Signage was pretty much entirely in French, though we did find one bilingual exhibit at a cheese factory.

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