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Archive for the ‘Quality of life’ Category

To you and those you love, tidings of comfort and joy!

From the Norman Rockwell collection

Best wishes to all my friends who are celebrating the Festival of Lights on this Winter Soltice!

Five years ago this weekend, we lost my father, Earl N. Brindle, just a few days shy of his 87th birthday. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how he’s influenced my life.

When Dad was a boy, some kid threw a rock which hit my father in the head and all but blinded him. From that day forward, he had to wear glasses with lenses as thick as Coke bottle bottles and his dream of becoming a pilot was ended. Dad didn’t complain about it. He just “made the best of it.”

My father was in the insurance business but he wasn’t a hard-sell kind of guy. Dad was a little ahead of his time because his approach was what would be described today as “consultative”. Of course, he wanted to do a good job for his company but he felt that the best way to accomplish that was by doing what was right for his customer. It wasn’t uncommon while I was growing up to have the phone ring at midnight or 2AM with someone calling to say that they had been in an accident or that there’d been a fire at their home. When that happened, Dad would help them through it and make sure that his customer got what they were owed from the insurance company.

Dad wasn’t really a social kind of guy. He was friendly, amusing and a good conversationalist in a social setting when he had to be. But my sense is that he was somewhat of a loner and, given the choice, would have avoided social scenes. Nevertheless, Dad was generous with his time and several people became his clients when he stopped to give them a helping hand with a flat tire or some other car problem.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to notice similarities between myself and my father. Our body types are more alike than I’d once thought. I like learning new things and sharing information with others that might help them to increase their understanding or improve their life. Although perceived by some to be an outgoing socializer, my nature is to be somewhat of a loner. At home, I’m not handy. Neither was he. But I know it and hire experts. He tried to do it himself. Then we brought in the experts!

At Dad’s funeral, I had an aversion to looking at his corpse lying in state. My mind went heavily into left-brain analytical mode. People were observing the usual “He looks at peace” or “He looks like himself” but my reaction was different. To me, the body wasn’t my father but his transportation vehicle, his “animal”. It was a lifeless husk which had lost much of his physical vitality and, in my mind, betrayed him as our physical bodies do to all of us if we live long enough.

In my eulogy, I spoke about my belief in something the mythologist, Joseph Campbell addressed. Campbell used the analogy of the human soul, our spirit, being like the energy of the light in a light bulb. When the bulb burns out, the light’s energy doesn’t go away. The energy moves back into the ecology of the universe ( “the body electric” ?) until it transforms again into another physical state. I believe that my father’s lifeforce (spirit?, soul ?) evacuated the degenerating husk that was his physical human body like the light from a bulb but still exists within the universe. As John Lennon wrote, “We all shine on.”

My mother had been mythologizing Dad for my brother, Alan and me ever since we were kids. In Mom’s eyes, he was perfect in every way. And my father was a terrific role model: self-educated, intellectually curious, ethical, compassionate, generous, friendly, self-deprecating, great sense of humor, civic-minded, concerned citizen, loyal & devoted husband, interested & involved parent, honest, reliable, trustworthy, helpful, courteous, kind, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. A solid, upstanding role model. As the first born son of a role model like this, it’s not a total surprise to me why I’ve had a problem with authority figures all my life!

Over the past few years, I find myself having conversations with my father especially during my morning walks. He doesn’t talk back but I do, in some way, feel his presence. He’s also been showing up as a participant in my dreams a lot more frequently. I’ll wake up and have to remind myself that Dad’s no longer “here”. I’m not sure what that means but were I to visit a psychoanalyst I’m sure that they’d have a field day with that information.

Dad grew up during The Great Depression. He would have easily done well in college but his parents were poor and couldn’t afford to send him. So, he did his best, served his country during World War II, worked hard, provided for his family, weathered adversity, and lived a productive, honorable life. We Baby Boomers may feel like we’ve been having a tough time during these past five years but my father and most others of his generation lived through and survived during much tougher times. Somehow, they made it through and managed to thrive. Rather than whining and bemoaning our losses, we need to learn from their example, do what’s best for our country and humanity, and get on with our lives.

Through his actions and his words, Earl N. Brindle taught me about being a generous and compassionate friend and neighbor, about being a trustworthy and equal partner in marriage, about being a good parent and about being focused on getting the job done right. I’m still his work in progress.

It’s Cyber Monday Week !

Ten Tips To Avoid Cyber Monday Scams (courtesy of Bari Abdul, VP at Check Point’s Zone Alarm):

1. Install, update & activate your security software
2. Use strong, unique passwords
3. Only connect to legitimate Wi-Fi networks
4. Make sure it’s the real site. (My affiliate link is legit)
5. Only shop on secure sites
6. Look for third party seals of approval like BBB or TRUSTe
7. Beware of deals that are too good to be true
8. Use a dummy email account
9. Use a credit card
10. Read privacy agreements

Enjoy a happy & safe online shopping experience !

It’s that time of year when we pause to reflect and take stock of our choices. May your blessings outnumber your regrets.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Pictured above: “Freedom From Want” by Norman Rockwell.
See more at www.nrm.org

In the spirit of transparency, let me tell you that I believe that capitalism’s impact on America has been mostly positive however I’m not a proponent of the selfish capitalism endorsed by Ayn Rand and her acolytes. It seems to me that we need to grow into an era of “Conscientious Capitalism” which encourages and rewards individual achievement, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial spirit and also embraces the “noblese-oblige” spirit of FDR and Nelson Rockefeller.

Personally, I endorse raising the age for Social Security eligibility to 75 (which would negatively effect me), increasing taxes, re-evaluating bureaucracies to eliminate waste, zero-based budgeting to reduce spending, and programs which encourage Baby Boomers to remain economically productive and contributing to the country’s tax coffers rather than retiring and taking Social Security. We’ve got to face the music sometime and there’s no sense in procrastinating.

In his Bloomberg BusinessWeek review of Tom Friedman’s latest book, David Camp takes Friedman and his co-author, Michael Mandelbaum to task for not recommending big, bold solutions to the problems and issues they discuss in the book but I’m not sure that that’s the authors’ job. However, Camp does commend them for doing a solid job of evaluating America’s current situation in the 2nd decade of the 21st century and bringing our challenges to light.

My daughter is a high school senior so we’ve been in college tour mode since July. Something I’ve noticed that’s emphasized at all the colleges we’ve visited is their focus on attracting students from outside of the US. Of course, each college’s freshman class has a finite number of openings and if a higher percentage of those positions are filled by international students the fewer that will be available to American kids. On the one hand, I don’t doubt that part of the schools’ strategies is to address globalization and broaden the scope of their institutions. But I also don’t doubt that part of the plan is to attract international students from wealthy families to make up for American students whose families may no longer to be able to foot the annual bill for these institutions.

Friedman and Mandelbaum make some disturbing points in comparing American students with their Chinese counterparts. They talk about how we in America tend to reward our kids’ efforts whereas in China a student is rewarded only for accomplishment. Chinese students are expected to acquire strong math and science skills. In America, our education system is designed more to push the students through the pipeline than to encourage/demand excellence in specific skill sets when they reach high school graduation time. The Chinese see education as an economic issue. In America, we see it as a social issue. Friedman & Mandelbaum tell a sobering story about a small, obscure liberal arts college in the Midwest whose freshman class has a few hundred openings but which received applications from 900 Chinese students all of whom had perfect SAT math and science scores. Our kids need to be able to compete with these challenges.
The book talks about the types of employees that American businesses are seeking in order to be competitive as we move forward. We need creators and we need servers who add value which is unique and irreplaceable such as abstract analysis skills. The authors note that there are four catagories of workers :
1. Creative Creators
2. Routine Creators
3. Creative (inspired) Servers
4. Routine Servers
The Routine Creators and Routine Servers will be at the most risk of having their positions eliminated.

Just to get interviewed for a job these days, a candidate will need the following abilities: critical thinking skills, the ability to accomplish non-routine tasks, and the ability to work collaboratively. To get hired, a candidate will also need the ability to enhance, refine, and invent along with a proven ability to innovate. (“What was your best innovation during the past year?”, “ What projects are on your drawing board?”). Think Google.

Our schools need to teach and encourage students to visualize, identify, decide and direct within a competitive learning environment. They need to understand how to adapt and to innovate.

The books cites Carlson’s Law: “In a world where so many people now have access to education and cheap tools of innovation, innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart. Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb.” It’s all about collaboration. This sounds like the theory that Gen. David Petraeus employed in Afghanistan.

I love the observation cited in this book by former Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm that “the electric car will be an iPad on wheels”.

Someone else makes this suggestion. Why not offer companies located anywhere else in the world five years of local, state, and federal tax relief if they open and maintain factories in the US which create jobs for that 5 year period.

It’s no surprise to anyone who reads Friedman’s columns that he’s a strong proponent for America to get past its oil fix. To Tom Friedman, “talent is the new oil”.
The 24 hour news cycle has made it even more attractive for journalists to turn national politics into theater. It’s all become a “who’s up/who’s down” game. Friedman & Mandelbaum talk about the impact of gerrymandering which is a process of dividing up political districts in order to provide political advantage to the party in control of the process. As the authors describe it, gerrymandering essentially assures the party in power that its candidate will win the primary election. Since most states allow only registered Republicans and Democrats to vote in primary elections, those of use who prefer to remain politically independent are excluded. That allows the rabid partisans to control the elections. Given the cost of multi-platform message distribution in the media these days, that leaves the winning candidate no choice but to placate the zealots. (Witness what’s been happening with President Obama and the left-wingers in the Democrats and Mitt Romney with the Republican Tea Partiers). The majority of Americans who want to see our politicians collaborate and compromise are left out of the conversation. Friedman & Mandelbaum favor a Teddy Roosevelt/Ross Perot-type third party candidate who has no hope to win but can influence the Presidential election. It wouldn’t surprise me in the 2012 Presidential election to see Barack Obama, the Republican candidate, and independent party candidates representing zealots on the left and right.

“That Used To Be Us” says that America’s fate in the 21st century depends on how we deal with the following challenges: globalization, the IT revolution, the deficit and energy consumption.

I found Tom Friedman’s last book to be somewhat tedious. This book is disturbing, enlightening, and inspiring.

“When you rule out an entire class of people from doing a job simply because of their appearance, you’re less likely to find the person best suited for the job.”-Michael Lewis in MONEYBALL.

Michael Lewis is a journalist who writes like a novelist. The first time I encountered Lewis’ work was in his book, THE NEW NEW THING. Understand that I’m a very slow book reader. My reading tends to be in the snack-o-tainment style of magazine articles and , now, blog pieces. It can easily take me a month to 6 months to read a book which is why I tend to prefer audiobooks which I can “read” during commutes.

THE NEW NEW THING was an exception. While accompanying my wife on a weekend business trip to Phoenix, I couldn’t stop reading it and completed the whole book in a couple of days. That’s when Michael Lewis became one of my favorite writers.

I don’t buy audiobooks. I get them free from the library. But I did buy the audiobook of MONEYBALL because I was fascinated with the concept of using sabermetrics to assess performance. To me, it was more like a textbook than a mere reading experience. But I was a little surprised when I learned that the book had been made into a movie. Guess I shouldn’t have been given that movie adaptation of “The Blind Side” was such a big hit.

During an interview about the movie version of THE BLIND SIDE, I’d heard Michael Lewis talk about how once he sells the film writes to a book he relinquishes control and is usually eliminated from the project. In his recent interview with Jon Stewart, Lewis indicated that he’d expected the movie adaptation of MONEYBALL to be a disaster but that he’d been pleasantly surprised.

We saw the MONEYBALL movie last night.

Apparently, Paul DePodesta, who is a central character in the book, did not want to be represented in the movie. So the character of Peter Brand as played by Jonah Hill was created as an amalgamation of DePodesta and other members of the Oakland A’s staff. Hill’s movie career has primarily been playing obnoxious geeky characters in Judd Apatow movies. He’s geeky but vulnerably likable in this role.

The book chronicles the pre-Oakland A’s experiences of several key characters: Billy Beane, Paul DePodesta, Chad Bradford, and Scott Haddeberg. We hear anecdotal observations about Beane and his mercurial nature but we don’t really get to know much about him. The movie is more centered around Billy as the main character and, with Brad Pitt in the starring role, we get to learn more of his experiences as a person. It could be titled “Moneyball:The Billy Beane Story”. I’m unclear about how much of the personal interactions between Billy Beane, his wife and her new partner or Billy and his daughter are fictionalized but they play well in the context of a movie. Pitt’s performance is relatively low-key with occasional outbursts and you find yourself rooting for both Beane and his team of outcasts as the underdogs. My emotional reaction reminded me a lot of those I experienced while watching the movie version of “Seabiscuit”

The book ends with the story about how Scott Haddeberg inadvertently broke his Louisville Slugger contract by grabbing the wrong bat when he was unexpectedly called in to pinch hit for what turned out to be a record-breaking game. The movie doesn’t include that story and instead ends with Billy Beane in a “dad” moment.

It works.

Postscript: I’m an advocate for Billy Beane’s sabermetrics approach but there is a certain irony that Tony LaRussa, who Billy forced out, has been the manager of two World Series contending teams since leaving the A’s organization while A’s have yet to make it into the Series. Tony likes to employ all those old baseball tricks like sacrifice bunts, etc that sabermetrics indicate are ineffective.

With all the tributes and commentary since Steve Jobs’ death, I was wondering how NPR’s Scott Simon was going to avoid sounding trite with his inevitable commentary during Saturday’s Weekend Edition show.

I’m glad to report that Scott met the challenge. Here’s the transcript:

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/08/141177659/steve-jobs-whose-imagination-invited-us-to-play

(Memorial logo created by Jonathan Mak)

The 2011 World Series was supposed to feature the National League’s Philadelphia Phillies versus either New York’s Yankees or Boston’s Red Sox representing the American League. Oops! Those of us who are underdogs in business, life, or both should take heart that this year’s World Series champs might turn out to be Tigers or Brewers.

Postscript: Given the way things have been going in the playoffs so far, it’s doubtful that we’ll be seeing the Tigers or the Brewers in this year’s World Series.

I expected this book to contain information about various sociological discoveries and David Brooks’ interpretations of what they mean. Instead, Brooks has written an allegory to create a story about his protagonists which represent coalesce and represent various research findings. We learn about factors which influence their development (and our own) from conception, through childhood, young adulthood, middle age, and old age.

For instance, regarding sexual attraction, men tend to prefer women who have a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio. There’s also equivalent information about qualities which unconsciously attract women to men but I don’t recall off the top of my head what they are. However, I don’t believe it had anything to do with hand and foot size.

Brooks tells us that research shows infants at a very early stage of development can “taste” sweetness in the foods that their pregnant mothers are ingesting which can influence the child’s appetites after birth. There also appears to be some credence that an infant in the womb responds to music which its mother is listening to.

The research does appear to show that we are responding emotionally even when we believe that our responses are based on rational thought.
For instance, the qualities which appear to be most important in predicting our ability to achieve and succeed have to do with our ability to detect patterns, to be attuned to others so that we can learn from them, the ability to be taught, our ability to be open-minded, and our ability to objectively weigh the strengths of our beliefs against the strengths of the actual evidence for or against those beliefs.

During an episode described in The Social Animal, one of the characters experiences a sense of personal fulfillment. Brooks explains that research has discovered that when our personal vision of the world is fulfilled, we experience a surge of pleasure from the release of chemicals in our brains.
He told a story to Charlie Rose during an interview about how Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest complaint about, “The Social Network” was that the movie didn’t do a good job of conveying the sheer passion and joy experienced by a programmer who gets the code right. That observation seemed to reinfornce Joseph Campbell’s advice to “Follow your bliss”.

If you’re interested in how evolution has affected our reactions to our physical environment, how our emotions are created, how ethnic cultures impact our responses to stimuli, and how the aging process affects our physical and emotional development, you should find a lot of food for thought in this book.

I listened to the 16 hour audio book with my teenaged daughter as we drove around the Northeast visiting various schools on her pre-senior year summer college tour. She found it interesting, as well. I would have preferred that the audio version was read by David Brooks but Arthur Morey does a good job and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Here’s David Brooks’ TED Talk about The Social Animal
http://youtu.be/rGfhahVBIQw