Brindle Media

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During the past few months, I’m having this experience more frequently. It’s been happening when I sign into my Linkedin account after being alerted that someone has endorsed me or when I check Facebook to learn which friends are celebrating birthdays.

I’m confronted with the profile of a dead friend.

Has this been happening a lot to you, too? If it has, what do you do about it?

The practical part of me wants to delete the person from my list of friends. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Deleting them from my Linkedin connections list or “unfriending” them on Facebook seems, somehow, disrespectful to their memory. I guess, in some weird way, the uncritical emotional part of my psyche believes, if I keep their profile active, that they somehow remain “alive”.

But, I’m being confronted with this issue more frequently this year. Today, at least three different deceased friends confronted me either on the endorsement pages of Linkedin or on my Facebook birthday list.

Has this been happening to you? If you were me, how would you handle it?

Our youngest began her college career this Fall but the process started over 10 years ago when we first invested a significant chunk of change in her 529 college fund. Unfortunately, when it was time for her to enter college, rather than multiplying in value that fund was worth about the same as it was when the money was first invested. Of course, that situation impacted her final decision on which college to attend.

Fortunately, she attended a high school which provided terrific guidance in planning for college. Her counselor provided her with a list of 40 schools, including stretch, reach, and safety schools which might be a good fit for her skills and career aspirations. We visited 18 of those campuses over the course of 18 months. Fortunately, most of them are within a 4 hour drive of our home.

During our campus visits, I made sure to have a conversation with the college rep about how a 4 year undergrad degree today is worth about the same as a high school diploma was when I entered college. So, the question was: Does it make any sense in this economy to spend close to a quarter million dollars (tuition plus room & board) on an undergrad degree? Or, would it make more sense to spend the first two years in a much cheaper community college to earn those credits which are the basis for most of a college student’s first two years and then transfer to a four year school to complete the degree?

There’s also a consideration for those teens whose interests and aptitudes might make them less suited for a typical 4 year college degree than to pursue a path which places them in a community college for two years with the goal of joining an organization which will pay for the remaining two years of their education and train them in a thriving industry where their skills, talents, and passions are sorely needed. We’re hearing a lot these days about companies who can’t find the workforce with 21st century skills that they need to compete in today’s economy.

It’s something to consider.

Presented by Degree Jungle “Is College Still Worth It”

I’d also recommend that, along with the U.S. News & World college rankings, you check out the Washington Monthly’s reviews.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/toc_2012.php

Listening to the conversation during the past year about the recent US Presidential elections, I had the distinct impression that many of my fellow citizens equate the belief that the person who holds the office of American president is “the most powerful (person) in the world” with a notion that s/he is omnipotent. It seems like magical thinking. That, somehow, an American president can just declare something   ( wave a magic wand, so to speak) and it will become so. Of course, the world is more complicated than that.

Last April, I attended Bob Woodward’s lecture at Union College and was surprised that Woodward seemed to have a negative attitude toward President Obama. I was recently reminded of that experience while listening to Jon Meacham discuss his new book about Thomas Jefferson and the similarities to our current political situations. According to Meachan, Jefferson explained to his constituents (I’m paraphrasing here) that they should expect to be disappointed in some of his decisions because he had more information about situations than they did. The idealists who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 have been actively critical of some of the President’s actions and decisions during the past four years. In this book, Woodward seems to delight in pointing out contradictions between what Mr. Obama said and what he did. Again, I’m paraphrasing: “The president said: ‘I don’t want to lecture you” and then proceeded to lecture them.”  The guy was a college professor. Is it a surprise that lecturing is his default mode of communication?

This book concerns the negotiations during 2011between the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans regarding the national budget. Woodward’s usual style is to interview as many participants and observers of conversations, both on and off the record, as possible in order to reconstruct those situations. The amount of distrust that Republican political leaders display during these interviews towards President Obama’s attempts to arrive at a bipartisan agreement is disconcerting.  I understand that during negotiations each party positions itself towards the extremes so that they can eventually create a compromise for which each side can save face and claim victory. We don’t get any sense from this book that such was the case during these negotiations. Even when Obama is making clear the administration’s willingness to sacrifice for the sake of negotiation, there’s a sense that the Republican leaders believe there must be some evil intent.

An impression I take away from Woodward’s book is that Obama senior advisors Valerie Jarrett and Rahm Emmanuel contributed to this perceptions, perhaps without the president’s knowledge.  Especially following the 2008 election, Woodward reports that both Jarrett and Emmanuel responded with arrogant “Tough luck. We won” attitudes to Republicans while President Obama was working to convey his willingness to create bipartisanship.  GOP leaders presumed that Jarrett and Emmanuel were speaking for the president but, given the problems that Obama was having with the left-wing idealists of this Liberal constituency during the first two years of his presidency, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

There’s one fact I recall from this book which I find to be quite ironic. The Republican leadership’s emphasis was on cutting costs.  Of course, their emphasis was on “entitlements” and they reacted very negatively toward any considerations about to cut the Pentagon’s budget. However, when the Department of Defense was asked how many people they employed, their response was “somewhere between one and nine million”.  When pressed, they couldn’t be more specific.  Republicans are the political party of business. I find it difficult to believe that any company CEO or president would react well if, when asked about the number of people their company employed, HR provided such a stunningly vague response.  If the number of people employed by the Pentagon is “somewhere between 1 and 9 million”, it seems like there much be some fat which could be cut from its budget.

As  I write this in late November 2012, President Obama has won re-election, Republicans are still resistant to returning to Clinton-era rates for those earning more than $250,000, and the “fiscal cliff” looms ahead of us. Let’s hope our leaders have all learned some valuable lessons from the experiences described in Woodward’s book.

Evaluation is a process. 

Judging is a decision which implies approval or disapproval.

As an analytical personality type, it’s been my experience that I’m frequently thought to be “judging” when, in fact, I’m “evaluating”.

When I attempt to explain that I’m simply in the process of information gathering to personality types who are from more of a “shoot-from-the-hip” orientation, they often become dismissive and agitated. They seem convinced that I’m judging them or a decision they’ve made in a negative way.

It can be quite frustrating.

What’s been your experience?

May your blessings outnumber your regrets.

Norman Rockwell’s “Thanksgiving”

Steve Van Zandt of E Street Band and Sopranos fame has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 by October 24th for a combination concert/ theatrical event he’s producing for the reunited Young Rascals “Once Upon A Dream”. The concept is being described as “a Rock “N Soul dance party meets The Jersey Boys.”

The project has exceeded its $100,000 goal. In return for support, Van Zandt offered ways to make donors part of the show including what’s described as “killer merchandise”. Donors could pledge as little as one dollar although some pledged at the $ 2,500 level and some at the $ 5,000 level.

If you were a Rascals fan in the 60s  here’s a link to learn more http://kck.st/RYqWcj

Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)” –

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?
Were you in the yard with your wife and children
Or working on some stage in L.A.?
Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke
Risin’ against that blue sky?
Did you shout out in anger, in fear for your neighbor
Or did you just sit down and cry?

Did you weep for the children who lost their dear loved ones
And pray for the ones who don’t know?
Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble
And sob for the ones left below?
Did you burst out with pride for the red, white and blue
And the heroes who died just doin’ what they do?
Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer
And look at yourself and what really matters?

[Chorus:]
I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell
You the difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is love

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?
Were you teaching a class full of innocent children
Or driving down some cold interstate?
Did you feel guilty ’cause you’re a survivor
In a crowded room did you feel alone?
Did you call up your mother and tell her you loved her?
Did you dust off that Bible at home?

Did you open your eyes, hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep?
Did you notice the sunset the first time in ages
Or speak to some stranger on the street?
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Or go out and buy you a gun?
Did you turn off that violent old movie you’re watchin’
And turn on “I Love Lucy” reruns?

Did you go to a church and hold hands with some strangers
Did you stand in line and give your own blood?
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love?

[Chorus x2]

And the greatest is love.
And the greatest is love.

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

(Written & sung by Alan Jackson)

It’s Labor Day Weekend and another summer is coming to an end. As an AlphaBoomer, a member of the oldest cohort of the BabyBoomer generation, I’m finding that each summer seems to pass much too quickly and is gone before I’ve been able to settle into the season.

Someone once compared the experience of aging to watching the water drain from a bathtub. As the water level lowers, the flow through the drain appears to move faster and faster. An apt description in my experience.

For some reason, as I got in my car on Friday afternoon, a series of summer songs popped into my head and I started singing along. I hadn’t thought of them all summer and all of a sudden I yearned to hear them.

Here’s my personal list of favorite summer songs:

*Summertime, Summertime- The Jamies

*Summertime Blues- Eddie Cochran version

*Summer- War

*In The Summertime- Mungo Jerry

*Hot Fun In The Summertime- Sly & The Family Stone

*Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer-Nat King Cole

*Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini-Brian Hyland

*Summertime- (either the Billy Stewart hit version or the Broadway version)

What’s on your list?

Writer Bill Bryson owns a house in the English countryside. While searching through his attic one day, he discovered a door which led to a small roof and a view of the surrounding area. The experience led Bryson to start thinking about the history of his new community and his new home. Those thoughts, in turn, led to his study of the various rooms in which we live, the contents of those rooms, and their origins. Here are a few of the insights which Bryson shards:

*The dining table was originally just a plain board which was put up at meal time. Eventually, the term “board” came to signify not only the table but also the meal itself. Thus, the expression “room & board”. Also, expressions such as “above board” meaning honest because ones hands were visible and “under the table” meaning dishonest.

*The creation of the fireplace changed everything. It enabled a building to have two stories which added more rooms and the opportunity for privacy.

*In 1884, just 128 years ago, a New England company introduced the concept of preserving food during ocean voyages by using ice from Wenham Lake in Massachusetts.

*Thomas Jefferson created the American French Fry.

*English clergymen preached against eating the potato because it grows underground (the domain of the Devil) and because the potato wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible.

*Ironically, people like Thomas Chippendale whom we no admire for their craftsmanship are also the people who created mass manufacturing.

*Christopher Columbus never set foot on the American continent. One significant accomplishment of Columbus’ voyages, however, was to introduce syphillis to the population of Europe.

*The Pacific Ocean was much bigger than Magellan anticipated. His crews ran out of food and were reduced to eating a mixture of rat droppings and wood shavings in order to stave off their hunger. (Yummy!) Only 18 members of Magellan’s original crew of 260 men survived the voyage. They became the first humans to circumvent the globe.

*60% of the world’s food varieties today originated in the Americas.

*The first coffee shop was created in London in a shed behind a church in 1652 (very pre-Starbucks!)

*In his diary entry for September 25, 1660 Samuel Peeps recorded the first known English language mention of tea.

*Bryson suggests that classes on the history of marketing begin with the story of how the British encouraged opium sales in China.

*If you flush a toilet with the seat up, germs linger in the air for up to 2 hours.

*During the early days of indoor plumbing, water closets were reserved for the servant class. The upper classes thought indoor toilets were demeaning and preferred outhouses.

*In 1716, Thomas Jefferson built Monticello on the edge of the known world. It’s telling that he faced the front of the house toward the wilderness rather than toward civilization.

*When Jefferson died on 7/4/1826, he was $ 100K in debt. His daughter tried to sell Monticello for

$ 70K but eventually sold it for only $ 7,000.

*Prior to the Revolutionary War, the British enforced a law which ordered that goods sold to America had to first pass through England. Consequently, something produced in Cuba would have to first travel across the Atlantic to England and then back to the American colonies.

*Falls from stairs rank as the 2nd most common cause of accidental death.

*Amazingly, we’ve had electricity and phones for as long as we’ve known that germs cause disease.

*The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, who lived in Massachusetts and was a Yale grad, increased the amount of slavery in the South. Prior to the cotton gin’s invention, slavery was on the decline. Its invention also turned child labor into a necessity because the kids were small enough to access problem areas and paved the way for the Civil War. (Talk about unintended consequences).

*Bryson makes Charles Darwin’s sometimes tragic story come alive in a way that I’ve never heard it told before.

*It takes the average citizen of Tajikistan a whole year to produce the same amount of carbon emissions as it does for the average European to produce in 2.5 days and for an average American to produce in just 28 hours.

These are just a few of the interesting insights which Bill Bryson brings to our attention about many of the things we take for granted in our daily lives. If you’re as fascinated about this stuff as I am,  I think you’ll enjoy this book.

In closing, Bryson gives us something to think about: Is it possible that in our endless quest to fill our lives with comfort and happiness that we’re creating a world that has neither?

I love Billy Joel’s music and I respect him as an artist. But I have to disagree with him on his generalization that “Before MTV music said LISTEN to me, and after MTV it said LOOK at me.”

I’d argue that pre-MTV rock music artists like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and KISS were very much visual as well as music acts. Fashion and attitude have been part of Rock N’ Roll culture since its inception.

During MTV’s early years, our team of researchers surveyed MTV viewers in those markets where the channel was available in order to learn their reactions to the songs we played. We used a methodology common to radio where the respondent was asked to rate a song based on how familiar they were with it and their level of positive or negative reaction to it. Early on, we were trying to determine a way to factor the visual variable into the equation and we found that the MTV viewers we spoke to frequently responded “I’ve seen that song”. Consequently, we changed the language in our survey to ask “Have you seen this song?”.

During my four years as MTV’s Director of Video Music Programming, it was my observation that the video component might have created some initial interest in a song but, if the music didn’t strike that responsive chord with viewers which catapults a song into the level of viable hit, the video was going to provide the necessary momentum to save the song.

It’s always been about the music.

Image may attract attention but, in the end, it’s the relevance of the music and the emotional connection it makes with the listener that really matters.