Liberals tell me how…?

I ask all my liberal friends: please tell me how Geoff Colvin is wrong in his recent Fortune column?

Just because the Republican Party has devolved into a pack of Druids in bad suits doesn’t mean they can’t have a good idea now and then. And in fairness, Rep. Paul Ryan seems less Druid-like than most of them. Nor is he playing Chicken Little when he warns us that the budgetary sky is falling on top of us at this very minute, and the principal cause is Medicare.

It cost over half a trillion dollars last year and it is rising fast. “Well, the wars cost even more than that!” you reply? “So what!” says I. End them too; the hole we need to fill is big enough for both plus agriculture subsidies and one or two other big programs. (I nominate HUD, but that’s another post.)

Besides, money isn’t the only problem with the current system; it may not even be the biggest problem. Conservatives are right when they say little good comes from the government making health care decisions. That doesn’t mean they have no role to play, but when grandma is 92 and could use a new knee, or even worse, a couple of months in intensive care before finally kicking off, it is grandma and the family that should decide if the expense is really worth it – not the fact that, “Oh, what the hell, Medicare will cover it.” And grandma and the family should have some skin in the game.

Having some skin in the game would surely cut down on waste, fraud and unnecessary procedures. It might even put an end to ads for the Scooter Store (see 6/4/10 post), which is justification enough for me.

Colvin is correct in saying that “the people aren’t dummies,” at least most of the time but especially when it comes to spending their money. If you are worried that some people won’t do well at making health care decisions you would be right, but you could always join the ranks of the many that will step up and provide intelligent counseling to consumers who want it. In any event, it will cause less pain and suffering than the collapse of the entire system. Just remember, the U.S. has greater debt per capita than Greece; this isn’t a small problem we are facing.

So, how is Colvin wrong?

A question for Senator McCain

If the United States removes its troops from foreign countries but continues to be an active diplomatic voice and the largest source of both government and non-government aid, plus a major cultural and media influence around the world, how is it possible to call that isolationism?

The media conspiracy

I have a number of relatives who are Glenn Beck and Fox News fans. They regularly send me emails in which the underlying theme is that the “Lame Street” or “drive-by” media is the enabler of a liberal conspiracy to ruin America. One such email today, in combination with a sore back that kept me from going to the Y, prompted me to try to explain why this is a canard. I hate to waste nearly 600 words so I thought I’d post my response.

“I spent 30 years working for Time Warner, one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. It doesn’t make me the ultimate authority, but I think I have some insights worth considering if you believe the New York Times leads a conspiracy to drag the country into European socialism. I can’t prove you wrong but maybe you’ll at least consider how inherently illogical such a construct is.

I’ll begin by admitting that by-and-large, media people – writers, editors, producers, etc., are more liberal in their political views than the average American. But 50% of all people are more liberal than the average American, so that in itself doesn’t mean all that much. Look to the person on your left and then on your right. One of those people is probably more liberal – or more conservative than you.

But these folks are not defined solely by their political views. They are in the main regular working folks. For every Brian Williams pulling down $10 mil a year there are hundreds of people tolling in good but not great jobs, struggling hard to find a way to find profits in an industry whose customers expect everything for free these days. It’s these people who write the words that Brian Williams speaks each night on the news.

They have mortgages to pay, children to educate, car payments and all the other pressures of modern life just as you do, and just as those with more conservatives views have. They are not exempt from tax hikes, diminished public services, union excesses or financial disasters. They are no less oppressed by political correctness or the excesses that are a part of many well-meaning government/social engineering programs. There is no special category for them; they toil daily in an industry with steadily shrinking employment.

The business they are in is the business of building an audience. There are only two ways to bring revenue into a media company. Either the consumer pays to see/hear it, or advertisers pay them a sliding fee based on the number of people consuming what they produce.

Regardless of any one person’s political point-of-view, that person puts his job in jeopardy if he gives his political views a higher priority than building a larger audience. He risks failure if he aims his story at only those who will agree with his pov; he leaves money on the table if he alienates those he knows do not share his opinions. Despites these facts, it still happens sometimes, but if it happens too often his competitors will notice and will swoop in like the Barbarian hoards and take what has been left up for grabs. It is a blood-thirsty business – the media.

Finally, when you think of Time and Newsweek, think Coke and Pepsi. NBC and CBS? GM and Ford. The New York Times and Washington Post? They are IBM and Apple. It’s impossible to prove a negative, but these companies do not get together and agree to push a set of ideas and ignore another set of ideas. Did we not have electric vehicles for decades because GM and Ford met secretly to agree not to make them? There are naive people who believe this is the case, but logic and facts suggest the reason was that the public did not want them enough to buy them – until they did, and now everyone is making them.

It is no different with the media. The media produces what it believes will sell to an audience that has highly diverse political views. The rewards accrue to those who do that job the best. There are no rewards for political dogma disconnected from the moods of the broadly defined public.”

Going underground

This is going to be my last post for a while. I’m leaving Florida in 52 days and am starting to feel a little overwhelmed by my to-do list. Keep in mind that after 16 months in retirement I find it very difficult to commit more than a few hours per day to any task not directly related to nurturing my own comfort or amusement, but that’s how it is and there isn’t much I can do about it.

There is a lot to do, however, in preparation for my move to Ohio where I plan to begin a second career as an unpaid social provocateur. I’m not ready to talk about those plans yet, but they require complex planning and preparation. In addition, I continue to work on writing a book about something. Exactly what the something is keeps shifting on me. I’m certainly no threat to Stephen King in the category of “prolific authors.” After almost a year of pecking away I’ve written about 25,000 words, which is probably about 80 or so pages; I’ve a long way to go.

I really enjoy writing the Daily Blank. Of course has never been close to a daily, but I liked the name the moment McRik proposed it over a martini at Alfredo’s one cold winter evening after work (or was it over a shot and beer at Jimmy’s Corner?). And I enjoy reading your comments and getting a little conversation going even more. The last thing I want is for writing the blog to become a chore or an obligation rather than the fun it’s been the last three + years. I hope to be back this summer once the move is complete.

So while I'm going underground, I'll still be moving. And remember, the longest road out is the shortest road home.

The U.N. strikes again

I just heard that the U.N. may consider removing Libya from their Human Rights Council, possibly as early as next week. You can always count on the U.N. to take swift and effective action when the lives of people are at stake. The bad news is that Yemen is in line to take Libya's place.

On the road to visit Bam-Bam

A Florida road trip is just not a proper road trip. A proper road trip should take place as much as possible on state or county routes or other two-lane highways. Florida is the ultimate Interstate Highway state. They are everywhere and often it is all but impossible to get from A to B without spending at least part of the trip on I-something.

Going anywhere in south Florida for me demands a run through Orlando that is a one-hour, bumper-to-bumper, 70-mile-per-hour NASCAR simulation on a good day; on a bad day it is a 90 minute slog behind an endless string of minivans and SUVs, filled with kids, driven by Midwesterners and Canadians, each one searching for Disney World, Universal Studios or Bibleland (official name: Holy Land Experience). However, they all intuitively know the one unbreakable Florida traffic law: slower moving traffic keeps to the left.

If you do find a back road worth driving you will find the parts of Florida Tosh.0 describes as “flat, hot and dumb,” not that you can see anything because you will now be behind either an RV, an SUV pulling a boat or jet-ski, a landscaping crew in a king cab pulling a trailer loaded with eight lawnmowers, a full sized pesticide van, an F-150 4x4 jacked up at least 24 inches, or a Ram Heavy-duty with four tires on the rear axle. If you pass it, another will be right there in front of you. If you are the first car stopped at a light, three of them will turn from the cross street into your intended path as you wait helplessly for the green.

Thank God for the blues. I had a couple of Roadhouse episodes on the iPod and heard some good new (to me) stuff including Doug MacLeod and Chainsaw Dupont.

I went down to Ft. Myers to see my former Fortune colleague Bruce McNaughton, now 77 and retired; that’s him above. He may be the most memorable character I’ve ever known and no one I know was ever better able to force a major corporation to shape itself around his idea of how to do his job. I learned a lot from him over the years and I wanted to ask him a few questions for a writing project I’m working on. That’s going to take some time to complete, but you might enjoy a short anecdote that sheds a good deal of light on the essence of the man.

It was 1980 and I had just joined the ad sales staff at Fortune. I was 31 which was then pretty young for the job. One quiet afternoon Bruce’s 300-pound, bald countenance suddenly filled my office doorway.

“What are you doing right now kid?” he bellowed, which was his soft voice.

“Nothing special. Why?”

“Come with me. I want to show you how to treat a customer.”

I grabbed my suit coat and followed him down the hall, down the elevator and through the lobby of the Time-Life Building. We crossed 6^th Avenue past Radio City. Bruce, often referred to as BAM (an acronym for his full name: Bruce Angus McNaughton) carried a gift-wrapped box which I was sure held a bottle of Glenfiddich single malt Whisky.

“Where are we going?”

“BBDO” he shouted over his shoulder as I struggled to keep up. At Fifth Avenue he turned north in front of Sak’s.

“I thought we were going to BBDO” I asked. ”Why are we going uptown?”

“I need to pick up the rest of the parade.”

At 54^th Street there was a busker dressed in full Scottish garb – kilt, sporran, tam – the works -- playing the bagpipes, a tip box at his feet. Bruce handed him a twenty and commanded him to follow us as we turned towards Madison and continued our journey to BBDO.

We entered their building and in those pre-9/11 days there were no ID checks or other formalities. We got in an elevator and Bruce punched 18. At 16 the last people in the car who were not part of our little parade got out. As soon as the doors closed Bruce shouted, “Hit it!”

I simply lack the words to describe what it feels like to be in an enclosed elevator car inches from a bagpiper in full throttle. I’ll just say it’s nothing I recommend unless you’re the sort of person who sits in the first row of the Daytona 500 without ear protection and enjoys it.

The doors opened on the executive floor of BBDO and the world stood still. The receptionist rose half way up and froze in her place. We marched out of the car and past her without a pause; Bruce in the lead followed by the piper and then me. I felt like the guy the Second City cast had pulled out of the audience to be a part of some unfathomable improvisation. I nodded sheepishly to the receptionist who looked right through me.

We entered the office space and time stopped. The pipe’s volume ended all phone calls and conversations instantly. It was as if someone had pushed the ignition button on an F-16 inside the building. Heads popped up from cubes. Closed office doors opened and open doors filled with gob-smacked faces.

We turned down one corridor and then another until we reached a corner office where the object of our visit stood slack-jawed in awe of the approaching chaos. I’ve long since forgotten who he was; he could not have been too important or Bruce would have worn his full Scottish kit as well. This fellow was important, but ranked only a bottle of Glenfiddich and a serenade. When I visited Bruce last week he confirmed that he made this sort of musical presentation a number of times and he did not recall this particular event.

But I can guarantee you that the recipient never forgot it, or the man who brought the magic to his door.

Mini road trip

I'm heading down to the Gulf Coast tomorrow for a few day to visit relatives and to interview Bruce Angus McNaughton for my book project. Those of you who know Bam-Bam should feel free to suggest questions for the interview, although I'll be lucky to get a question in edge-wise.

FYI, it is forecast to be 78 - 80 and sunny in Ft. Myers and Naples this week.

Also, I'm still laughing over a line from Gail Collins last week where she compared the Republican budget cuts proposal to a someone who is 50 lbs over weight deciding to cut down on their intake of kale.