Category: General Commentary

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, Uncategorized

I have been writing about abundance for many years–and particularly the idea that you can have an abundance-filled life even if your wallet is approaching empty. This is the focus of my first website, Frugal Fun, which I set up back in 1996–and of my fourth book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook, from back in 1995.

So when my friend Bob Burg wrote in his wonderful Winning Without Intimidation newsletter about Kyle MacDonald, a young Internet- and media-savvy Montrealer who traded a single paperclip, and then traded the resulting trades, until he ended up–in only 14 steps–the proud owner of a house, I went off to view the TV segment.

ABC’s 20/20 did an eight-minute profile on Kyle’s journey–and eight minutes on network TV is kind of like the amount of coverage when a major head of state dies. Many news segments are under two minutes.

He started by posting his paperclip, and his dream, on Craig’s List, and it spiraled out from there to inclue encounters with rock star Alice Cooper, among others.

It took him exactly a year. Oh yes, and he clearly had a great deal of fun along the way!

Each trade was carefully documented–though the TV segment doesn’t answer the question of who flew whom around the US and Canada to connect, and at what cost. The recent trades, obviously had a lot of media attention, and probably a lot of media footing the bill. But I wonder how it worked out in the beginning. If the goal is to create abundance, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to interject plane fare.

Kyle’s own site is called, not surprisingly, One Red Paperclip–and perhaps also not surprisingly, it’s actually a Blogger blog–which means it’s free.

You go, guy!

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Events, General Commentary, Uncategorized

For several years, I’ve wondered about the failure to scramble fighter planes on 9/11 to intercept the hijacked jets. I’ve ready all the conspiracy theories, and agree that the series of coincidences is not plausible, and probably not random. However, now that the transcripts of NORAD’s Northeast control center (NEADS) have been released, it seems very clear to me that whatever conspiracies might have been in play, NORAD’s controllers weren’t a part of it.

Michael Bronner, writing in Vanity Fair, uses the actual transcripts of NORAD/NEADS control room operations on that fateful day, with his explanation and commentary. Bronner, an associate producer on the movie United 93, has the background to interpret what the cryptic military language actually means–and most of his commentary is simply explaining what we hear (yes, you can actually listen to several brief clips).

The article is long, and includes large sections of actual transcripts. I recommend printing it out and reading carefully (and listening to some of the clips).

What I come away with…

  • NORAD did absolutely the best job they could, given the lateness and dearth of information that should have been pouring into them from the first moment it was known that one plane had been hijacked
  • The government was completely unprepared for the possibility that planes would be hijacked by trained pilots who would know to turn off the transponder beacons that establish aircraft location for air traffic controllers
  • They only had four fighter jets to scramble, and they did scramble them, as well as call in additional resources so that by day’s end, 300 jets were patrolling American cities–but because of the late notice and the equipment’s failure to track planes with transponders disabled, they couldn’t intercept–and misinformation such as the belief that American flight 11 was still airborne and headed for Washington (not to mention that there were reports of over a dozen possible hijackings) didn’t help
  • There may have been a cover-up in NORAD’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission–but the incorrect testimony just as easily could have been faulty memory or misunderstanding rather than malice
  • Any order to shoot down civilian aircraft could only come from the President–and as we all know, GWB was reading children’s stories in Florida at the time
  • Dick Cheney lied about agonizing over the decision whether to shoot down Flight 93, which crashed in the Pennsylvania farm field within seconds of his first being notified that it was off course

    • What this article establishes in my mind is that NORAD’s people behaved phenomenally well under conditions more stressful than any in history–but they had antiquated and inadequate equipment, antiquated and inadequate and in some cases completely false information, and no chance to preemptively block the hijackers from reaching their targets.

    I commend their courage, and I thank Vanity Fair for running the article. Now…was there a conspiracy involving other aspects of 9/11?

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    Here in Massachusetts, the failure of the massive road project in central Boston known as the Big Dig has been front-page news for about a week. A recently-married motorist was killed when a tunnel ceiling collapsed on her car; her husband managed to crawl out a window and escape.

    To his credit, Republican Governor Mitt Romney cut short an out-of-town trip, stepped in, assumed (long-overdue) control over the project, and began immediate inspections–inspections that revealed thousands of glaring safety errors in many parts of the project.

    Throughout its decades-long construction, the Big Dig has been plagued by cost overruns, corruption, allegations that inferior materials were used, and other problems. And almost as soon as the tunnels under Boston Harbor were opened (not that long ago), they began to leak. We already knew it was a boondoggle. Now it seems that both the design and engineering were deeply flawed and the largest/most expensive single road project in US history has been a failure.

    One has to question whether proper government oversight, complete with thorough inspections at every step of the way, would have shown the shoddy materials and flawed engineering without someone having to die.

    Meanwhile, here’s another example that corruption has human costs.

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    By Posted on Posted in Customer Service as Marketing, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    My good friend and colleague Bob Burg, author of Winning Without Intimidation, recommended Robert ringer’s newsletter. I was surprised, since Ringer is best known as the author of Winning Through Intimidation.

    But on Bob’s recommendation, I went in with an open mind. And so far, I’m impressed.

    Visit his most recent newsletter and scroll down to “Letting Go of Your Pacifier.” He tells people to get a grip, not to be seen as overwrought, and remember that first of all, things that seem like life-and-death matters often turn out not to be so, and second, that often, we grow and learn from the crises and not just the opportunities. Oh yes, and if you’re the kind of person who gets so caught up in, say, a major sports event that you start throwing things at your TV, he tells you to get a life. (He’d probably say the same about my addiction to politics.)

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

    Looks like famous hatemonger Ann Coulter doesn’t always write her own stuff. A very informative article in the New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch, last time I checked, and not exactly a bastion of liberalism) documents at least three instances of cribbing in her latest book, “Godless,” and numerous more instances in her columns.

    She even cribbed a section from one of her frequent targets: Planned Parenthood:

    One 25-word passage from the “Godless” chapter titled “The Holiest Sacrament: Abortion” appears to have been lifted nearly word for word from Planned Parenthood literature published at least 18 months before Coulter’s 281-page book was released.

    And this woman is supposed to be telling us about morality? Yuck on her politics, and yuck on her ethics.

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    By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    This has nothing to do with business culture, government, or most
    of the things I usually blog about–but it does have a lot to do with
    ethics, with the idea of acceptance of difference and with gender
    identity, angels, terminal illness, justice, conformity, and more.

    I’ve just read a remarkable novel, What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci, published in 2002 by Harcourt. Written for older teens, it has a lot to say to anyone.
    Told
    from the point of view of a teenage girl living an isolated and
    conventional life on an island off the New Jersey coast, the story
    involves this girl’s friendship with the gender-bending new kid in
    town, whom no one else likes, and how their brief friendship before his
    murder? disappearance? changes everything for her.

    Amazon stocks the mass-market edition of this book.
    It may or may not be easy to track down the trade paper edition (ISBN
    is 0-15-216813-3)–but either edition will be worth the effort.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, General Commentary, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

    This is too weird: The New York Times went back and forth with senior General Motors executives about a letter to the editor from a GM vice president, attempting to rebut a highly critical article by Thomas Friedman. The letter said accusations in the column were “rubbish”; the Times refused to allow that word in the letter.

    Writes the PR guy, Brian Akre,

    Now, you’d think it would be relatively easy to get a letter from a GM vice president published in the Times after GM’s reputation was so unfairly questioned. Just a matter of simple journalistic fairness, right?

    You’d also think that the newspaper’s editing of letters would be minimal — to fix grammar, remove any profane language, that sort of thing. Not so.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Customer Service as Marketing, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    My progressive friends may be shocked. But even though I’m a staunch supporter of gay and lesbian rights, I actually side with the owner of a video duplication service who is being sued for anti-gay discrimination because he refused to duplicate a film on the early gay rights movement.

    The service owner, Tim Bono, found the content of the film offensive. I don’t happen to share his taste–but I totally agree that he should not be forced to do work that violates his moral code, even if it’s quite opposite from my moral code.

    When I get an inquiry from a new prospect, I respond with an e-mail that says, among other things,

    Please note that I reserve the right to reject a project if I feel I’m not the right person for it. This would include projects that in my opinion promote racism, homophobia, bigotry or violence–or that promote the tobacco, nuclear power, or weapons industries–or if I do not feel the product is of high enough quality that I can get enthusiastic about it.

    And yes, I have turned down a few jobs because they promoted ideas I feel are reprehensible–including at least one job I turned down because of homophobia.

    I grant Mr. Bono the same right to follow his conscience that I claim for myself, even though we choose to exercise it for opposite philosophies. I would presume that if Lilli Vincenz came to him with a different project that was within his value system, he wouldn’t reuse to serve her because she’s a lesbian. To refuse her on the basis of who she is would in fact be discrimination, and she’d have every right to bring the Human rights Commission or the courts into the fight. But a principled rejection of her content is a different matter than discriminating against her because of who she is.

    No one should be forced to do work that goes against their own conscience.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    It’s not some flaming leftist saying this. George W. Bush himself, according to the Reuters newswire, told a German paper,

    “I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake,” he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

    Pretty sad. An administration so disgraceful, so scandal-ridden, such a failure in both policy and operations that even the president can’t think of anything he’s proud of.

    Georgie, my boy, let me prod your memory a bit–I can think of at least a few proud moments:

  • In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, you made a conscious and I believe sincere effort to distinguish between the terrorists and ordinary Muslims and Arabs. Of course, that didn’t stop various government agencies from coming down very hard on those communities, imprisoning people on spurious grounds, etc.
  • In one of your State of the Union addresses, you advocated hydrogen cars–a good thing, if designed in ways that foster sustainability and independence from the big oil companies. I think that was the same year your State of the Union speech honored Rosa Parks, who was in the audience.
  • And finally, in the very recent past you’ve said we must end our oil addiction. I’d like to think you’re sincere about that, and that you’ll follow up that statement with a significant infusion of R&D money into solar, wind, geothermal, even biodiesel (but not nuclear, for heaven’s sake). In the nearly two years left in your administration, you could go down in history as the president who solarized America–a rather better legacy than catching a fish!

    Your real legacy to date, however, is a lot less positive. To bring up just a handful of the many, many low points:

  • Lying repeatedly to get us into a stupid, stupid war in Iraq
  • Leaving New Orleans to drown
  • Doing nothing to prevent 9/11 even though evidence strongly suggests the attack was widely known, in advance
  • Overseeing an administration dogged by corruption, mismanagement, venality, yes-man-ism, and unwillingness to listen to critical voices
  • Turning over public resources for private gain
  • Squandering both the reservoir of international good will following 9/11 and the considerable surplus you inherited

    And on and on it goes–this list could continue for pages. We’ve had presidents who were outdoorsmen before, including both Roosevelts and Ronald Reagan, among others. But never a president who felt his best moment in office was catching a fish!

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Uncategorized

    This is an oddity: I know four people running for non-local office this year–and three of them are from the publishing world.

    Jeeni Criscenzo, self-publisher of a lovely novel about Mayan civilization, running for Congress in California

    Sander Hicks, whom I interviewed several Book Expo Americas ago–and who courageously published a critical biography of Geroge W. Bush after St. Martin’s pulled it off the market under apparent pressure from the Bush family–running in New York on the Green Party for Senate against Hillary Clinton

    Tony Trupiano, media trainer who moderates the teleseminar series from publicity firm Annie Jennings PR, and who is himself an author, running for Congress in Michigan

    (The fourth is my cousin-in-law, Aaron Klein, running for a seat in the Maryland Legislature. https://www.kleinformaryland.com )

    Isn’t that weird? Even weirder–I heard about all four of these campaigns from other people, and not directly from the candidates.

    It will be interesting to see what happens when media figures become political figures. Let’s hope we have better results over here than the Italians got with Berlusconi. Of course, we’ve had media politicians before–but most of them have been move stars, like Ronald Reagan and Clint Eastwood. Small-press publishers and their consultants are a rather different animal.

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