World War II In Real Time
It takes a lot to impress me. A six-year commitment to tweet out the events of World War II as they happened certainly gets my attention. RealTimeWWII started tweeting the events of 1939 and has kept tweeting what happened in chronological order.
It is as if you were sitting next to a newswire in the 40′s learning of things for the first time. In fact, such is the detail, you often are learning it for the first time. What genius! Melding social media and history, bringing it to us just like people lived it.
The history doesn’t stop at 140 characters. Often there are pictures and articles linked to the tweets which add to the depth of the information being presented. For you non-Twitterers there is also a Facebook option to access the posts. Without a doubt this is the best thing I have ever seen on social media!
To the producer of the this effort, congratulations for hitting it out of the park.
Courtesy Interview Really Courtesy?
If you have been involved in hiring any length of time chances are you’ve been asked to do a ‘courtesy interview.’ This is an interview where the candidate is someone you know going in you will not hire. They may have been referred by someone your company is involved with, a colleague, or the always popular ‘he knows someone.’ The ‘someone’ is well up the food chain from you. So you bring him or her in, burn an hour firing questions at them, leading them to believe they have a shot.
I have long opposed the practice as misleading, if not just plain dishonest. Of course the person who made the referral looks good because Johnny Candidate has an interview. The rest of us look not so good. Time is the asset those looking for work prize most. Productive activities toward finding the job is key. Serving as a time sponge is not my thing. You could argue I am helping Johnny Candidate with his interviewing skills. Shouldn’t he know that going in?
At its conclusion the courtesy interview creates a series of thank you notes, emails and phone calls inquiring about where they stand. At best I can say the interview process is ongoing. Once the opening is filled, one more applicant has to needlessly hear, ‘We’ve filled the position.’ to which the words ‘and its not you!’ magically register in their mind’s eye.
Another stake driven through their heart. As Nick Lowe sang, ‘You’ve got to be cruel to be kind..’ We raise hope only to dash it.
Is the Courtesy Interview a courtesy or applicant abuse?
Wakefield Teaches Class
Sports fan or not, we all have something to learn from the retirement of baseball pitcher Tim Wakefield. On Friday, Wakefield called it a career hanging up the spikes as a member of the. Boston Red Sox. His decision to move on from baseball stretched through the off-season. The roughly five-months of contemplation saw the Red Sox refuse to offer the 45-year-old a contract, instead saying he could show up at spring training and try to make the team. Most players would be insulted by this treatment.
It would be typical, if not expected, in today’s environment for us to hear a running commentary about how the team was ‘disrespecting me.’ Wakefield is not typical. He publicly stated he wanted to retire as a Red Sox. What makes him different is he meant it. When his agent came to him with an offer, Wake asked, ‘Does the team play in Boston?’ The answer was ‘No’. Offer rejected. It comes as no surprise that at 45-years-old an athlete’s career comes to a close. In fact, he lasted longer than most.
Yet closing the door on what you’ve spent your life building involves a whirlwind of emotion that is not logical, nor is it easy to contain. Life is about transitions, small and large. How we handle these defining moments cement the impression others have of us. Tim Wakefield’s actions not words behavior serve as a model for us all. He was honest with the fans and himself. For me, he is 100% class act.
Costly Coffee
My New Dealer.
I received a Keurig Coffee maker for Christmas. The single serving coffee maker works great. You get a sampler packet in the box offering a variety of flavors which to try. Once those are consumed ,and you need to go to the store by new ‘K-cups,’ as they are called, sticker shock sets in. I paid $12.00 for a box of 18 cups of coffee. That is 91-cents a cup!
Of course I am seduced by the ease of popping the K-cup into the coffee maker and having a great cup O’Joe in a minute. The incredible selection of flavors on my kitchen counter defeats any rational analysis of my new coffee addiction After a few weeks reality begins to creep in as I order a a refillable brew basket which I can fill with any coffee.
Still I hang with the K-cup. Then it happened. The New York Times figures out we are paying $50 per pound for Folgers in K-cups. That is about $40 more than I am paying for Folgers at the Big Y Supermarket! Since my head snapped back into place I’ve filled the brew basket with my supermarket Folgers.
Interestingly enough in the New York Times article I learned than I had fallen into the mental trap of comparing the price of the K-cup to the price of a cup bought at a coffee shop. That is really dumb thinking. I can’t say the makers of single serving coffee makers reframed our thinking, but certainly they and the makers of ground coffee were in position to grab our wallets.
Today’s Massacre
The issue of what is commonly called ‘Indian Affairs’ has long fallen off , if it ever was on, the public radar. Then you read some thing that should get the attention everyone. A South Dakota Native American tribe is suing several beer companies for selling beer to them. On the face of it this whole thing sounds ridiculous.
For many in our news brief society the headline is as far as they will get providing for interesting water cooler and lunch time conversation. The problem here is that alcoholism runs rampant in the real ‘discoverers’ of America. Add to that the town that borders the reservation, population 14, has four beer shops. Four.
These shops are selling brands of malt liquor to the Oglala Sioux Tribe at the Pine Ridge Reservation with names like Hurricane and Evil-Eye. A Washington Post blog (see link at top of page) says the stores are ‘selling the equivalent of 11,000 beers a day’ to people racked with substance abuse and a myriad of other health/poverty related issues.
Even if the beers per day total is exaggerated, how could this be anything else but predatory? We impose special penalties for dealing drugs in school zones and prevent liquor stores from opening near schools. Would we allow beer vendors outside an alcohol treatment center? Yet we allow the vultures to circle while tearing apart a people.
The United States Department of the Interior has an Indian Affairs Bureau. You have to wonder about its advocacy and effectiveness in working with Native American issues. It is as if our nation’s policies toward the tribes has not evolved since the 1800s. The video above provides a good look at what the Oglala Sioux face in their daily existence. Surely we can do better.
Pelosi Ain’t No Comic
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has, for some reason, felt it necessary to come out with an anti-Stephen Colbert video. I get it that Democrats, whom Pelosi leads, are reintroducing the Disclose Act, which failed once at getting PAC money out of politics. Now the dems need some buzz and what better way at getting some cheap buzz than by trying to draft on Colbert’s attention getting South Carolina primary commercial.
So here is an ‘F’ for originality. The other ‘F’ Pelosi is missing is FUNNY. Colbert’s commercial is priceless because it is funny by being over the top in dealing with a serious subject matter. The dems created a milk toast production poking fun at no one, unless you think saying someone does not like cats is cutting edge comedy!
Nancy, stick to speakering and avoid stand-up at all costs!
The Elephant In The Room
Newt Gingrich has risen from the dead again winning the South Carolina Primary. His resurrection attributed to blasting away at the Republican establishment, élite media and the power of oratory. The debates have been good to Newt, particularly successful is the strategy of attacking debate moderators. Hey, it plays well to the audience in the debate hall. What is good for the ‘Grich’ may not be good for Republicans looking to mount a successful challenge to President Obama. It may also signal something far worse for the Grand Old Party itself.
-85 Year-Old South Carolina Voter To The Washington Post
One of the things particularly concerning is the constant references to being a ‘Reagan Republican’. This is followed by an allegiance to a ‘Reagan ideology’. This all sounds great as it as become Republican boilerplate, an accepted way of making your GOP bones. Reagan was not wedded to an ideology, in fact Reagan worked to get consensus as the basis to build on his agenda. The exact opposite of the polarized political environment we currently suffer.
President Ronald Reagan served from 1981-1989. What does it say about a political party when a candidate has to reach back 23-years to find and inspirational leader whose legacy has been perverted to make it work? Why the constant need to look back and not forward? Has the party not had a leader worthy of building on in almost the last quarter century? This general trend of dependence on the past is worrisome.
I was watching the replay of a C-SPAN panel discussion from the University of Chicago this weekend. Two of the panelist, political strategist Alex Castellanos and New York Times Columnist David Brooks, gave voice to the problem of having a party than seems overly prone to looking backward.
“When you go to the campaign, at every rally in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, is a bunch of middle aged white people saying the country is going down the toilet, you do begin to wonder if this is people pining for a country that will never come back.”
“The Republican Party is pinioned to declining parts of the population and declining institutions.”
-David Brooks
“Nothing new grew under the shade of the big Bush tree…our next crop isn’t quite ripe yet.”
“There is a Republican Party out their that attracts younger voters with socially libertarian policies, but fiscally conservative…we’ve got a new world to conquer.”
-Alex Castellanos
The fact is the world has changed. America is more diverse than ever. The power structure and social structure has shifted and will continue to shift. To most of our 25-year-olds Reagan is just a picture on a chart of presidents. It is past time for the Republican Party to get current. The elephant in the room is change. If the GOP is not careful, a lack of change will squish the life out of the party.
C-SPAN Video: University of Chicago: Path to the Presidency. Broadcast January 19, 2012. Quotes taken after the 58 minute mark in the video.
Super Bowel
I love football. I love the New England Patriots. I love sports radio. Put those three things to together and I should be in heaven. I’m not. In fact I have avoided sports talk radio since the Patriots won the AFC Championship two weeks ago. How many ways can you listen to someone breakdown a game? Anyone who can spell football , and some who can’t, have been deemed worthy to be football experts and are afforded airtime to talk utter nonsense.
Gronk’s ankle, the quickness of the Giants pass rush, Eli’s coming out party and Brady’s ‘place in history’ are discussed ad infinitum. Friday morning I decided to check into Boston sports radio to hear Marv Levy, former Buffalo Bills coach, introduced. Here is a guy that knows something, I was hooked. The ‘interview’ devolved into endless plugs of his book, which is fiction, and its applications to the game. I couldn’t hit Pandora fast enough. Media row at the ‘Super Contest’ is basically a sewer line. All this babble is sucking the life out of the game itself. The sideshows of media day, the halftime show and Super Bowel pregame programing starting six-hours before the game is way too much.
The NFL is the most successful sports league. It is raking in the money and television ratings. The question is whether the sideshow is in danger of eclipsing the game itself? A friend of mine remarked that he remembered when the ‘Big Game’ was on in the afternoon and as a kid going outside after it was over to reenact the game with his friends. I have the same memory. Those actions made us fans of the game and built the league’s success. I wonder if today’s kids will have the same passion for the game and get the enjoyment I have from following my team? It would be a shame if for them this all becomes about the fluff.
Murdoch Style ‘Journalism’ Bankrupt
The stench emanating from the fall of Robert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid, I can’t call it a newspaper, continues to worsen. Scotland Yard has arrested four former executives at the now defunct publication for allegedly bribing police. The interesting thing is that the collars come as the result of News Corporation (read Murdoch) handing the police some information that led to the arrests.
The Telegraph reports that those inside the company referred to the move as ‘draining the swamp.’ Of course to drain the swamp one must own, if not have created the swamp. One of, if not the most powerful media conglomerates has been shown to have no journalistic standards and an equal amount of morals.
What is of concern is that somewhere in News Corp’s plans has to be increasing revenues from the United States. Already owning FOX Television FOX News and the Wall Street Journal, it is safe to assume there are varying degrees of standards among the company’s news properties. In particular FOX News’ conservative bent make me suspect of their reporting, the same way I am suspect of MSNBC’s liberal stance. At least these biases are outwardly visible allowing the viewer the opportunity to make a judgement as to the value of the ‘information’ presented.
Once the attention over the operation of the Sun fades will it be business as usual at News Corp? More importantly, will the tabloid style spread to America? It is fashionable among the American media establishment to say the ‘British style’ would never work here. Never say never when it comes to making money. If News Corp were able to get ratings/circulation would the followers of Murrow and Cronkite serve as a bulwark against our mainstream media going down the slippery slope? After all big ratings shows that media is only giving the people what they want and if it makes a lot of money even better! The bottom line is at what cost?
