Buckeye bound

d'blank is taking a little road trip to the Buckeye state and will return with tales of the heartland late this month. For those of you who occasionally play a little golf, I am planning a few rounds while I'm gone, including one on a Donald Ross course that charges $39 including the cart -- about what one disburses in tips on an average day at a private course in the New York area. I may not come back.

The heart of the matter

I’ve always thought that Lee Iacocca was a little batty, so when one of my brothers sent me a quote from his latest book today, I was prepared to roll my eyes. But I didn’t because he’s saying exactly what I’m thinking: “I’ve had enough!”

I made a cursory effort to confirm the validity of the source and couldn’t do it, but in the end I decided it didn’t matter who said it. It’s word up.

Lee says:

“Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course'

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for.

I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A Hell of a Mess So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.
Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm.

Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan . Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?"

Recommended reading

Fortune magazine veteran Brian Dumaine has just published a highly readable new book. It will be of interest to anyone in need of having their spirits lifted from the assumptions that we will be hostages forever to third world oil despots, or that global warming must inevitably lead to Pittsburgh being the next great beach town.

“The Plot to Save the Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions to Global Warming” identifies technological advances that are likely to play a significant role in lessening our middle east oil Jones, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What makes this an exciting read is that these are not theoretical laboratory experiments, these are tested technologies that are already working their way into daily economic life, or at minimum are in the prototype stage. My favorite is the algae that eats carbon and poops biodiesel.

Dumaine is a guy who looks more at home in wingtips than Birkenstocks – another reason to feel some optimism after reading the book. He has done his own research and filtered all these ideas through the screen of how much venture capital each idea is attracting. The VCs get plenty of things wrong, but it is not usually because they have failed to thoroughly consider the economic viability of an idea, and these all pass the test.

Read it. You’ll sleep better.

(Full disclosure: I’ve known Brian for 20 years.)

Movie: In case you are feeling like you have a hard life, 12th century Mongolians had it harder. Don’t trust me, go see “Mongol,” a movie about the early life of Genghis Khan. It’s amazing the man born as Tumudgin lived to adulthood, let alone conquered the world. This is a beautiful, engrossing movie that was nominated for a “Best Foreign Language Film” Academy Award. (More disclosure: It’s in Mongolian with subtitles. Also, it was a violent era.)

More fun with charts

Here is an animated chart. It has been around for a while so you may have seen it, but it is just such a simple and powerful expression of why we are suffering the financial woes related to the collapse of the housing market, and the underlying debt that was supporting it, that I had to post it. What goes up…

Click here to see the real estate roller coaster.

(Note the passing year in the lower right hand corner, and stick around for the graph at the end.)

Chart magic

I love charts. These two are interesting. Perhaps one activity drives the other. I keep looking for some correlation but it may just be coincidence. The chart above plots consumer confidence levels in the U.S., and the last nine months has been a race to the bottom. And this chart doesn't even reflect the events of the past two weeks.

The chart below compares usage rates for both marijuana and cocaine among 17 industrialised nations. Finally -- something in which America can still claim worldwide leadership!

America’s biggest hypocrite

Jesse Jackson is a man of so many facets one hardly knows where to begin describing him. Liar. Extortionist. Philanderer. Egomaniac. Thief.

The man who called New York “Hymietown” in 1984, and who in September told a South Carolina newspaper that Barack Obama was "acting like he's white," yesterday said on a open mike, in a Fox News studio no less (you can’t make this stuff up), that Senator Obama was “talking down to black people” and that he (Jesse) would like to “cut his nuts off.”

Jesse feels that Obama, by saying in a speech he gave in a church recently, that more black fathers need to be present in their family, was being condescending to black people. Some people might see this as Obama taking a responsible stand on an important social issue, and one that has deep personal meaning to the candidate since he was raised in a fatherless home.

Unfortunately, Jesse isn’t in this fight to do what’s right. He’s unhappy that he’s no longer America’s favorite black politician, and he even unhappier that Obama doesn’t seek his blessing before speaking his mind.

It hasn’t been a full day yet, but one has to wonder if the ever politically correct media will mention any of the following:

• That 23% of non-Hispanic white children live in single parent homes, but 65% of African-American children are similarly situated.


• If using castration and lynching metaphors are off-limits to white people why is Jesse getting a pass on the racially insensitive nature of his remark?


• If someone had performed this procedure on the Reverend 30 years ago, he wouldn’t have had his out-of-wedlock daughter, to whom he provided a fatherless upbringing.
  

A party of one

What is it with the Democrats? Are these people just completely retarded? It’s no wonder Rush Limbaugh has made a fortune out of making fun of them all these years – they could screw up a two-car funeral. They’d certainly never agree to drive to the cemetery via the same route.

This November should be a cakewalk for the Dems but they seem determined to make a race of it. Democrats of every stripe are sniping at Obama now whenever his rhetoric fails to fulfill their personal vision of government.

Say what you want about the Republicans, but even though McCain was never the perfect GOP candidate, once it was clear that he had the nomination even the far-right of the party pretty much shut its mouth and got behind him as their best option.

But not the Dems. Oh no. The U.S. Army (oddly it seemed to me) used the tag line “An Army of One” in their recruiting efforts for some time. I always thought it should be the Dem’s tag line: “Join the Democratic Party and Be a Party of One.” Every man a Secretary of State. Every women the head of the EPA.

• Don’t like that Obama is OK with executing child rapists? Then screw him. Don’t vote.
• Don’t like the way Hillary is being positioned in the speaking line-up in Denver? You’ll show them – vote McCain!
• Think Obama is not adhering strictly enough to the dictates of the Kyoto Protocol relative to permissible greenhouse gas emissions in 2030? Disband the party!

And God forbid that there would be any discretion in the Iraq timetable. Obama will be tarred and feathered if he doesn’t pull out immediately -- regardless of whether it is the intelligent thing to do, or not, in January 2009.

Really, why do they bother associating themselves with a party at all? Why doesn’t every Democrat just vote for him or herself for President? It would be the ultimate expression of political narcissism from the party that gave us Bill Clinton.

Gone fishin'

I'll be dangling my toes in the clear, cool waters of Pine Island Lake for a few days. See you next week.

Barack's money

I'm tempted to suggest everyone read every David Brooks column, but today's is an absolute must. He provides a fascinating disection of where Obama's campaign donations are coming from, and in the bigger picture, how different population segments vote with their political donations and what that might mean for the future balance of power. You can read it here.