(#190-1 ) April 11 2015. The issue isn’t capitalism—it is the U.S. version of it that is the problem.

THE DEEPLY CORRUPT, PREDATORY, AMERICAN BUSINESS MODEL—BASED UPON PAYING MOST EMPLOYEES BADLY—AND FOCUSING SOLELY ON THE INTERESTS OF SHAREHOLDERS--IS A DISASTER FOR MOST AMERICANS

DO WE REALLY UNDERSTAND QUITE HOW DISASTROUS? I SUSPECT NOT

PRODUCTIVITY UP BY 80.4% SINCE 1973. MEDIAN MALE COMPENSATION HAS SCARCELY MOVED—IN OVER 40 YEARS!

THAT IS A DISGRACE

There are some signs now that people are beginning to wake up to the scale and significance of both income and wealth inequality—but I still see no clear evidence of the kind of mass outrage that will be required to change things for the better. Also, the system is now so tilted at every level to favor power and money that it seems likely that it would take decades to rebalance things—assuming Congress wanted to carry out reforms in the first place (which it clearly doesn’t).

Currently, Islamic fundamentalism seem to be have replaced communism as our most serious perceived threat—and we always seem to have a bogeyman. In my opinion, the current American Business Model is a much more real and serious threat to the quality of life of most Americans. Beyond that, as the impact of the recent Great Recession showed, it has an unhealthy degree of global influence.

I find all of this both fascinating (given my interest in economics, current affairs, and history) and horrific. A pretty evil force is at work and it seems to be facing no serious opposition. In fact, a great many Americans still don’t seem to be aware of what is going on.

Given the sophistication of the propaganda that saturates us every waking day—combined with who owns the media and who funds our political system—I guess that situation should scarcely be a surprise.

So what does the future hold?

More of the same, I suspect.

The American tragedy continues.

Senator Elizabeth Warren does seem to understand the realities. The following is from www.Vox.com

Elizabeth Warren explains the real way corruption in Washington works

It's not primarily about quid pro quo cash for favors. It's about whose voices get heard and what issues end up on the agenda. "The wind only blows from one direction," Warren said. "It only blows from the direction of those who have money." Yes, campaign contributions matter. But big interests have "invested in other ways," too. They've invested in paying attention to what happens and to having their agents show up constantly and make noise. Consequently, the concerns of the rich and powerful are present in "every rule that's written, in every conversation, in every discussion."

Warren's perspective on this is supported by my favorite book about influence peddling —Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why.

The authors show two things. One is that it's not true that the richest interest group always wins. Better-financed groups lose to less-financed groups all the time in DC. One big reason for that is that the American system is simply set up to make change very difficult. What normally happens is that the status quo wins, not necessarily the richer side.

But money does matter. Money matters because you have absolutely no chance of winning unless you can get on the agenda, and you can't get on the agenda unless you have money to spend. An ultra-rich interest group can be defeated by a merely rich interest group, but unless you can show up on Capitol Hill with some kind of sack of cash you can't get your voice heard at all.

(#189-1) April 10 2015. I happen to think the environment matters. Others think that short-term profit matters more. We differ.

‘CAN-DO’ AMERICA—IN THE SENSE OF A NATION THAT HAS AN EXTROARDINARY ABILITY TO SOLVE EVEN THE MOST SERIOUS PROBLEMS—SEEMS  TO HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY GRIDLOCK

BUT NOT ENTIRELY

I AM MUCH CHEERED!

A DRAMATIC EXAMPLE OF CLEARING UP U.S. AIR POLLUTION—NITROGEN DIOXIDE IN THIS CASE

Most of us don’t seem to realize how damaging air pollution is to our health. It kills more of us than car accidents and reduces the quality of life for millions of us in a very immediate sense (breathing difficulties) and longer-term sense (what we are breathing can cause cancer).

The following is from a www.vox.com story.

Nitrogen dioxide is produced when gasoline gets burned in cars or coal gets burned in power plants. It's been linked to a variety of respiratory problems, and can combine with other pollutants to form smog. It's also a good proxy for pollution more generally.

The EPA first began cracking down on nitrogen dioxide in 1971, and concentrations have fallen sharply over time. Power plant operators have installed scrubbers to remove pollutants from their smokestacks, and car manufacturers have adopted catalytic converters to curtail nitrogen oxides and other emissions. More recently, since 2005, many electric utilities have been switching from coal to natural gas in order to generate electricity.

VOR words 58.

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(#188-1) April 9 2015. The answers are out there—if you care to look. Reading helps (a lot).

A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY IN NAME

A PLUTOCRACY IN PRACTICE

The following is an interview between the estimable Sam Pizzigati—who covers income inequality  at www.toomuchonline.org and Northwestern political scientist Benjamin Page.

Sam—who I don’t know, by the way—seems to be neither a fanatic nor an extremist. He just feels, as I do, that the current American Business Model is tilted to favor the rich, deeply flawed, and needs to be re-thought. He supports his beliefs with a great deal of data.

The issue here is not capitalism, but our particular form of it. As matters stand, American capitalism is deeply corrupt—and clearly isn’t delivering for most Americans. It has also subverted our democracy.

And all this is happening in plain sight. It is both tragic and unnecessary.

This interview is really too long to publish in this way, but it is too important to be missed. It answers a question of fundamental import.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY POLITICAL SCIENTIST BENJAMIN PAGE: “A democracy ought to have a government that responds to the wishes of its citizens.”

What happens — to democracy — when income and wealth concentrate?

A half-century ago, that question hardly seemed worth asking. In the decades right after World War II, Americans were living in a nation — and a world, for that matter — growing ever more equal.

But that America no longer exists. Robber barons once again walk among us. Grand fortunes once again tower over America’s social landscape.

Political scientists have noticed. They’ve begun generating a wealth of scholarship on wealth’s impact on our politics, and no researcher may be more central to that scholarship than Northwestern University’s Benjamin Page.

Six years ago, Page and the University of Minnesota’s Lawrence Jacobs co-authored Class War? What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality, an in-depth look at 70 years of public opinion polling on wealth and opportunity in America.

Last year, Page and Princeton’s Martin Gilens released what one commentator has called the “first-ever scientific study” of whether our contemporary United States still ranks as a democracy.

And what did that study conclude? Too Much editor Sam Pizzigati explored that question and more with Page last month in an interview conducted just off the Northwestern campus in Evanston, Illinois.

Too Much: A good many pundits these days are wondering why Americans aren’t doing more to protest inequality. Most Americans aren’t protesting, one school of thought holds, because they admire the rich and want to become rich themselves. You’ve spent a great deal of time studying poll data. What have you learned?

We have all sorts of evidence that people are really quite unhappy with the present extent of inequality.

Ben Page: That conventional wisdom is about half right. Average Americans really do like the idea of social mobility, of having a chance to get ahead. In fact, people have exaggerated ideas about how well they or their kids might do.

But we also have all sorts of evidence that people are really quite unhappy with the present high level of inequality and unequal opportunity.

The more complicated question: What do they want to do about it?

If you ask abstract questions about whether the government should take money from the wealthy and redistribute it, there is not a lot of support for that.

But if you ask about concrete policies — like taxing the wealthy at higher levels or getting rid of loopholes that favor hedge fund managers — average Americans turn out to favor many policies that would have strong redistributive effects.

On the spending side, we see lots of support for things like jobs programs, the earned income tax credit, and Social Security. Most people want to increase these programs — at the very time when many political figures and pundits are telling us you have to cut, cut, cut.

Too Much: So do we have, in effect, a silent egalitarian majority?

Average American turn out to favor many policies that would have strong redistributive effects.

Ben Page: Larry Jacobs came up with a phrase for our Class War book, “conservative egalitarianism.” Not so much egalitarianism in the abstract, but a great deal of desire for the government to make it easier for people to get ahead and to help those left behind.

Too Much: You’ve observed in the past that most Americans don’t really realize how unequal we’ve become as a nation. How wide has the gap grown between inequality’s reality and public recognition?

Ben Page: There is a gap, but it’s not as big as it once was. People have figured out what’s happening. If you ask what proportion of the wealth is owned by the top 1 percent, the average person now comes fairly close, saying 40 or 50 percent.

But if you ask people what a CEO of a major corporation earns, they’re way low in their estimates. And likewise for hedge fund managers and even surgeons and other top professionals.

But what’s remarkable: Even with these income misperceptions, people still feel that individuals in high-paying positions should be paid less than they’re paid now.

Too Much: Your recent work with Princeton’s Marty Gilens looked at the question whether the United States can rightfully claim to be a democracy. How do you go about scientifically answering a subjective question like that?

Ben Page: The subjectivity has a lot to do with what you think a democracy is. Marty and I start from the premise that democracy means a government that responds to the wishes of the average citizen. If you take that premise, it’s quite feasible to investigate this question objectively.

Affluent people want some significantly different things from what the average person wants.

But it takes a lot of work. Marty Gilens spent about ten years gathering and analyzing data on 1,779 different policy issues that faced the federal government over a 20-year period.

Marty basically compared what comes out of the political system with what different groups of people want. Affluent people, roughly the top 20 percent, turn out to want some significantly different things from what the average person wants.

Marty also gathered data on organized interest groups, and he separated business corporations and business groups from mass-based groups.

You can do two things with all these data. You can simply compare how often these groups get what they want, and that tells you something descriptive about democracy, if you want to call it that.

By that measure, average citizens get what they want roughly two-thirds of the time. On the other hand, if you look at affluent people, they get what they want almost all the time. And organized interest groups also tend to get what they want more often than the average person.

So that’s the descriptive part of this. But the tricky thing is figuring out who’s exerting the influence. These descriptive results really don’t tell you how much influence the average citizen has.

For that you have to use multiple regression analysis. You have to look at what happens when you consider all these groups at the same time. Which ones get their way when they disagree with the others?

If you look at affluent people, they get what they want almost all the time.

When you analyze the data that way, it becomes clear that affluent people exert a lot of influence. Interest groups also have very substantial influence. That’s especially true for corporations and business-oriented groups.

The so-called mass-based groups, on the average, don’t represent the average citizen very well at all — and don’t have much impact anyhow.

Too Much: What would be an example of a mass-based group?

Ben Page: Anything with a large membership, including the NRA, American Legion, ethnic and religious groups, and so forth. Most of these groups take positions that are somewhat out of touch with the average citizen, except for labor unions and AARP, which tend to be very close to what the average person wants but have much less influence than the Beltway wisdom says they have.

The bottom line we’re getting to here: If you take into account all these interest groups and affluent individuals, average citizens have no detectable influence at all upon federal policy. Rather amazing.

Too Much: You’re currently coordinating a project that’s collecting data on the political machinations of America’s billionaires. Any surprises in what you’re finding?

Ben Page: It’s hard to study billionaires, because you can’t just knock on Bill Gates’s door and expect to get half an hour to talk with him. So what we’re doing is looking at all the public statements and recorded actions of billionaires, with “Web-scraping” techniques my colleague Jay Seawright developed. Anything that’s been reported and shows up on the Web, we’re organizing to develop systematic data.

Average citizens have no detectable influence on federal policy.

We started out looking at the 100 wealthiest U.S. billionaires. Based on a Chicago-area pilot survey of multi-millionaires that the National Opinion Research Center did for me and Larry Bartels and other political scientists, we suspected that our billionaires would not be enthusiastic about things like taxes, social spending, or government regulation.

But we discovered that many of these billionaires, who could get quoted any time they want, actually go out of their way not to say anything in public about issues like these.

So we pursued this a little further. Are these billionaires apolitical? Is that why they’re not saying anything?

It turns out that’s not the case at all. A number of the billionaires who say nothing do a lot. They contribute large amounts of money to candidates and ideological PACs with definite policy positions, like cut taxes on the wealthy, privatize Social Security, or abolish the estate tax.

We call this “stealth politics.” Billionaires can influence what happens in politics without any accountability. They don’t even have to answer questions from journalists about why they favor what they favor. And that’s a serious problem for democracy.

Too Much: The new book you’re working on carries the title Democracy in America. At what point does a democracy cease to be a democracy?

Ben Page: I would say there are degrees of democratic responsiveness. You can imagine perfect democracy, or a situation without any democracy at all, or anywhere in between. Drawing a line to say precisely when democracy begins would be arbitrary.

Billionaires can influence what happens in politics without any accountability.

But if you observe the United States right now, you discover that the average citizen has no detectable influence on policy. That’s not much of a democracy.

Too Much: Back in the mid 20th century, a period of much greater equality in America, the political science mainstream seemed to revolve around the notion of “pluralism,” the idea that we had many different actors — like business and labor — vying for political influence. Where does the political science mainstream flow today? How close to your perspective?

Ben Page: There’s been a big change since the pluralist days in the 1950s. That was during the Cold War, and you could be considered unpatriotic if you said anything about the United States that wasn’t wholeheartedly enthusiastic. In that era, David Truman and other political scientists made an argument that to some degree goes back to James Madison.

Madison worried about tyranny. He didn’t like democracy particularly, but he believed that popular control could help prevent government tyranny over what he considered natural rights.

And so Madison liked the idea of diverse interest groups, all contending for power. If you had a diverse large republic with many different interests, Madison felt that everyone would come out reasonably okay because different interests would offset each other.

The pluralists in the 1950s took that a step further, a step too far I think. You could read David Truman and think, gosh, the average American citizen really is doing great. Everybody’s interests are getting represented and everything’s coming out fine.

Almost no one today would openly make that argument.

Average people can do something positive about inequality.

Too Much: We all understand that labels tend to oversimplify. But if you had to pick one label for the political system we have in the United States today, what label would use? Democracy? Oligarchy? Plutocracy?

Ben Page: To me there are two different ways to put it, and I’m not really positive where I come out. One would be “biased pluralism.” That is, you believe that politics works more or less in the way David Truman said, but you see big biases in representation. The average citizen has little or no voice, and business comes out way ahead.

But the bigger that bias is, of course, the closer we come to the concept of “oligarchy” or “plutocracy.”

My colleague Jeff Winters is really marvelous at analyzing oligarchy, but it’s not a term I use. Perhaps that’s because I’m a wishy washy liberal and it seems too alarming. But also because I want to stick close to the data that I have actually analyzed.

When Marty and I wrote our article for Perspectives on Politics, a big fuss on the Internet got going when somebody used the word oligarchy in a subject heading. A Princeton study, the bloggers were saying, showed that we have an oligarchy in the United States. Nice juxtaposition.

Now we don’t really show that with our study. We do show that the average citizen has no influence or almost none. But our study doesn’t show exactly who within the affluent has the most influence.

Logically, you would think that the more wealth people have, the more influence they would also have. So our findings are consistent with the possibility that a very small number of very wealthy people are exerting an awful lot of influence. That’s consistent, but we didn’t really demonstrate it with that study.

Not every nation has as messed-up a response to inequality as the United States.

Too Much: The creator of Downton Abbey, the wildly popular TV series on the British aristocracy in the early 20th century, is going to be doing a new series on America’s original Gilded Age of the late 19th century. Imagine that you served as the historical adviser for this series. If you had the role, what would you want Americans today to learn from the series?

Ben Page: You could have a lot of fun, of course, showing the lifestyles of the Gilded Age rich and famous. But I would hope that this new series also gives some picture of what was happening to the average person.

The original Gilded Age was not a good time for American workers. They were getting pushed around and shot at. They were paid low wages and faced terrible working conditions. There was little regulation of business practices, working hours, or even child labor.

But I also would want the series to hold out some hope that average people can do something positive about inequality. I’d like people to see that things can change — because, in fact, things did change in the United States, in two big waves of political action, the first during the Populist and Progressive period that started in the late 19th century, the second in the New Deal era.

The Populists and Progressives made really big changes. They won a progressive income tax, regulations on railroads and other monopolistic enterprises, the beginnings of federal regulation of the economy. Then the New Deal came in the 1930s and much more thoroughly did the same kinds of things.

It’s very easy today to get cynical and despairing about inequality. But I think that’s the wrong response, particularly if you look around the world. Not every nation has as messed-up a response to inequality as the United States.

The Social Democracies and Christian Democracies of Western Europe have suffered stresses, but their social welfare systems remain largely intact. These nations just don’t have the extreme inequality and the misery at the bottom that the United States does.

Too Much: We beat back the original Gilded Age. What will it take to beat back our second Gilded Age?

Ben Page: It will definitely take mass mobilization. And that’s what the Populists were so terrific at. Starting in the South and the West with farmers’ cooperatives, they developed grassroots organizations that got people involved in politics and aware of what the big banks and railroads were doing to them.

But a lot of the ideas for economic and political reforms that originally came from the Populists weren’t enacted until the Progressives gained power.

The Progressive movement had two characteristics essential to making things happen. The Progressives operated in both major parties. The bipartisan symbols of that would be Theodore Roosevelt the Republican and Woodrow Wilson the Democrat.

The second characteristic: The Progressive movement operated as a cross-class alliance, across income and wealth categories.

You can’t do anything in the United States without having support from economically successful people. And the Populists learned that lesson. They resented even small-town bankers and many of the same people who later became leaders in the Progressive movement — and helped make things happen.

Now to have a cross-class alliance, you have to make compromises. Historically, some of the Progressive-era compromises weren’t great. A lot of working people actually became disenfranchised at the same time that women were getting the vote and senators were being elected directly. The nation saw changes that made urban politics in particular less democratic.

So creating a cross-class alliance can be tricky and difficult, but I think it’s essential. Nothing good is going to happen without an alliance that includes some wealthy people.

Too Much: Is this an exciting time to be a political scientist?

Ben Page: I’m excited about the work I’m doing, but I think it’s a discouraging time to be an American. And that’s really the bigger concern for me. We have a lot of work to do to make things better.

Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the Institute for Policy Studies online monthly on excess and inequality. His latest book: The Rich Don’t Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class (Seven Stories Press).

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VOR words c.50.

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(#187-1) April 8 2015. Full circle.

MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT THINKING, MEMORY, WRITING,

AND KANBAN

I think a great deal about thinking—primarily because I have long been conscious of my cognitive deficiencies and have spent my life searching for workarounds.

I wasn’t diagnosed with my particular form of dyslexia until my early fifties. When a child, I became accustomed to concealing my inadequacies—mental and otherwise—because I was ashamed, and it seemed to me that both my mother, and life in general, would pounce on any weaknesses—and I came across generally as pretty intelligent.

I was—and I remain so—but being intelligent doesn’t mean you don’t have cognitive weaknesses. It does help you to conceal them rather better—and to appreciate that other people have their inadequacies too.

On top of that, my mother was doctor averse. She didn’t trust the profession, loathed what they cost, and her own experiences with them hadn’t worked out too well.

She had tried sending me to shrinks when I was four and five to make me more biddable—I was always a fiercely independent child—and when that, and sustained violence, had failed (and had nearly resulted in my death), packed me off to boarding school to sink or swim (and to my grandmother or aunts for most of my vacations). The first nine years of my life were pretty tough. The situation eased greatly when I was about nine.

• My mother married my much-loved step-father, Alfred Lyons—a man about a decade younger than her—who succeeded in calming her down (for a while). Eventually,  predictably, and tragically, she would destroy him. I knew from my early teens that this would happen—and that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. When I heard that Alfred had died prematurely—under decidedly grim circumstances—part of me died too.
• I was removed from my first boarding school, St.Gerard’s, in Ireland—where I had been younger and smaller than my peers—so bullied unmercifully—and sent to a boarding school in England, where I was the same age as my peers.
• I grew, taught myself unarmed combat from books, discovered I could defend myself more than effectively—and bullying ceased to be a problem.
• I started to thrive academically—and ended up academic top of my prep school.

All I knew, prior to that diagnosis of dyslexia, was that although my brain worked extraordinarily well in some ways, it couldn’t cope in others. For instance, I can’t remember telephone or car tag numbers, seize up when faced with forms, and couldn’t remember my character’s names when I started to write.

Hard to believe, but true. A character might start as Mary and evolve into Julia because I wanted to keep writing and was too impatient to check back. Eventually, I learned to keep a list of their names pinned up. Over time, my cognitive abilities—where writing is concerned—have improved dramatically. Where other matters are concerned, the less said the better.

If you think that doesn’t sound too bad, reflect that I’m only giving you a sample. Overall, my life would be vastly easier if I was decidedly less cognitively gifted—and flawed.

It truly amazes me that I can write at all—and I don’t mean a short school essay. Short, relatively simple essays don’t put too much of a strain upon the memory—and originality, style, humor,and technique can distract from other deficiencies.

Books—particularly the kind of long books I am partial to writing—are another matter entirely. They typically run to over 400 pages, and though my writing style is relatively clear (or so I hope) are packed full of plot surprises, twists, turns and characters to the point where it must seem to the reader that I must have an extraordinary memory to keep track of it all.

The truth is, of course, that I don’t have to keep track of it all—all the time—except in a broad sense. I merely have to anchor myself to a broad outline—and I am pretty good at thinking holistically—and then focus on the 2,000 words I intend to do that day.

We writers tend to think in words whereas readers think in pages. 2,000 words is roughly six pages (depending on typeface, paper size etc.).

I also rely heavily on memory joggers of one sort or another which capitalize on the fact that I am very responsive to either visual or auditory stimulus. Give me the title of a book and I may well not be able to recall too much about it—except in a general sense. Show me the physical book and my recall rockets. Similarly, if I have interviewed someone, my recall based upon my notes alone, will be modest. On the other hand, if I hear the sound of their voice—typically by starting to replay the recording—the content of the whole interview will come flooding back.

It would appear that my problem is less with my memory, as such, than with my searching mechanism—which, all too often, requires prompting. It searches well enough, but has a tendency to forget what to search for—and when. Some ideas are hard to classify and go into my brain without a tag attached. Trying to find a nameless idea is a squirrely pastime. We are back to memory joggers.

Over the years I have tried a wide variety of techniques to cope with this need, but have never found a complete answer—and doubt I ever will. Working in a book-lined study helps because all those spines are a constant source of inspiration. I also use ring-binders with labeled spines for much the same reason. Out of sight has a disconcerting tendency to be out of mind where I am concerned.

I am not averse to other techniques. I have long relied heavily on notes and databases—though I am an indifferent note taker. I tend to focus too much on the subject if I am interviewing someone—and, unfortunately, do not know shorthand. Recording solves that problem.

As for databases, they mostly work well enough in their different ways, but they function more as a memory extension than as part of the planned structure. In short, having the necessary data buried deep in my memory or database isn’t enough. I need to be reminded—frequently and thoroughly—to retrieve it and use it in a timely manner.

Checklists are an obvious solution—and I use them with some degree of success. However, unlike a Gannt Chart, for instance, they don’t visualize time—except as a series of dates—and they don’t lend themselves naturally to being viewed from different perspectives, and aren’t particularly easy to modify. True, you can cut and paste to change priorities, but the structure is essentially linear and connected.

So is there a better way—or a more complementary way? I say ‘complementary’ because I have no intention of giving up check-lists. They don’t do the whole job, but they do what they do exceedingly well.

I am increasingly beginning to think that the Kanban approach may be the solution. It displays tasks as if on a matrix of index cards. It can be used in a wide variety of ways, but the way I have in mind—for a story, for instance--the vertical would be characters and the horizontal would be time. Each card would represent an action and include a sense of place and any other relevant information. Where computerized index cards are concerned, you are not limited by space. You can drill down for all associated detail—including graphics, and multimedia.

For a publishing project, the vertical might be an action that needed to be done, the horizontal would be the time, and the card might indicate the specifics of the action and the status. 

Kanban started off as a simple system used to help with Japanese lean production, but has proved to be so flexible and effective that there are now numerous variations (both physical and computerized).

Ironically, back when I was in business in the early Seventies running an operating selling adding  machines and calculators, I controlled our entire marketing operation with the equivalent of a Kanban board without knowing the name at the time. I worked out the approach from first principles and implemented it using physical T-Cards (see below). T-cards display only the header, but extra information can be displayed on the concealed part.

I seem to be going full circle except that this time I will be using the computer equivalent. That said, I may be tempted to try the physical.

It is simple, powerful—and it works.

I regard the fact that I can and do write—and deal with considerable complexity—as something of a miracle and a triumph of the human spirit.

I never cease to wonder at it. From my perspective, being acutely and painfully aware of my cognitive limitations, I’m doing the impossible.

It is a truly exhilarating feeling.

But, I’ll get used to it—and take it for granted.

No, I won’t. I’ll continue to give thanks every waking day. It’s a wonderful thing to overcome one’s deficiencies (some of them) to achieve one’s goal.

To be able to write is really all I have ever wanted to do in life.

But, don’t be fooled. Writing may sound like a modest ambition. It probably doesn’t encompass either fame or fortune, for instance.

Maybe not—but writing is a license to explore every facet of our existence. It is the key to high adventure—and that is what I dreamed of—more than anything--when I was a prisoner in boarding school.

What do I seek when on my adventures?

Gold for the mind—insight. And I’m finding it.

Is it everything I hoped for?

It is way, way, better. It is a rich, deep, profound feeling that I have never been able to explain adequately—or describe in words.

I never will.

VOR words 1,617.

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(#186-1) April 7 2015. Thinking can be hazardous—but how can one write without thinking! Perhaps that is why we writers kill ourselves more often.

THOUGHTS ON ORGANIZING MY THOUGHTS—AND EXECUTING

I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND AN APPROACH I’M ENTIRELY HAPPY WITH

DO YOU KNOW THAT WRITERS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO COMMIT SUICIDE AS THE GENERAL POPULATION!

This gem about suicide is—reportedly—true, and stems from work done by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Researchers there looked at 1.2 million patients with various mental disorders and came to this somewhat disturbing conclusion (especially if you are a writer). The control was an accountant—who, one supposes, represented sanity and normality.

God preserve us!

Suicide has featured in my life more than I like to think about. Indeed, my first book, GAMES OF THE HANGMAN, was sparked off by an actual suicide—or what was presumed to be a suicide because there was no serious investigation (something that has always haunted me and which led to the book).

Hangings are normally assumed to be suicides (unless judicial). So, if you want to murder someone, hang them—but make sure there are no signs of a struggle.

The only suicide I have actually witnessed—which was legal suicide under Washington State’s Death with Dignity Act—is something I have written about before so I won’t go into it again—but suffice to say I have had some connection with suicides, to a greater or lesser extent, surprisingly often. Sadly, suicide has impacted my immediate family as well—multiple times at that.

Well, I have been surprised. On the other hand, perhaps suicides are more common than we generally care to admit.

I find any and all suicides singularly distressing. It is a terrible thing to despair—to absolutely give up hope—and suicide is a fairly clear indicator of that—though I rather like the reason normally given in my part of the world: “due to the balance of the mind being disturbed.”

I was brought up Catholic—though I no longer practice—but I recall being taught that the ultimate sin was to despair because it meant you were denying the existent of God. According to dogma, with God in the game, there is always hope.

I find it hard to accept the logic implicit in such dogma, but I proffer it for historical interest. Given the terrible things that God seems to allow in this world, I’m not sure that God’s idea of hope quite matches what we humans have in mind. I find much of theology a stretch—and incredibly convoluted.

I debate whether a failure to organize my thoughts is quite an adequate motivation for taking one’s own life—though I suppose it would depend upon the thoughts.

In fact, I organize my thoughts quite well when it comes to writing. The process of writing develops and enforces such a discipline—and, generally speaking, my mind performs well under such circumstances (unless I’m dog tired—like now). Practice does not make perfect, but it certainly enhances a facility.

One of the many attractive things about writing is that, if you stay with it, you do become better over time. Aging, if you are a writer, really does have its compensations—unless and until you lose your faculties. I have thought about that a great deal and have come up with these thoughts.

• If I can’t write in any other way, I shall continue to write in my mind.
• I shall console myself with the thought that I have had a good run—with memories to match.
• If I lose my mind, it won’t matter anyway.

I’m really talking about the collecting, indexing, storage, retrieval, and effective utilization of such information—and primarily the latter. The aspects that are now challenging me most are those involved with execution.

How do you filter out only what you need and present it in such an optimum way that you are reminded in a timely manner—because there is almost always more to remember than my mind seems able to cope with. Yes, I’m talking serious projects here. Projects start off with a vision but their effective execution requires coping with endless detail in some time-relevant sequence.

The obvious solution is some kind of project planner. Here, the problem is not availability but an excess of choice compounded by a learning curve. The kicker is that to evaluate any single package properly you really have to learn it first. On that basis, it sometimes seems to me that I will be evaluating software for the rest of my natural life.

But, fun though it is, I tend to believe that my mission is life is to write—and books at that.

I’m looking for something simple, flexible, visual, color coded and near creative writer proof (A tall order?). Currently, I’m looking at the Kanban area and am discovering that simple though Kanban is superficially, the devil, as always, lies in the details.

I can’t seem to get away from the damn things.

Currently, I’m evaluating Trello. That is not nearly as colorful as KanbanFollow but allows hot links to be included and is slightly more flexible. None of these apps operate exactly as I would like, but, where software is concerned, I have learned to compromise..

Let me close by commenting on my approach to research. A valid alternative to my current routine could just to research when faced with a specific question (much less work). Instead, I endeavor to keep up to date with my areas of interest in the belief that the ongoing research will sponsor creativity in itself (and keep my brain exercised).

Does it? Yes, I really think it does because my  assumptions are constantly being challenged by new information. For instance, where economics is concerned, I can’t rest on what I learned at university because so much of what I learned then has been proven to be demonstrably wrong.

But, time is finite—and research isn’t writing.

Hard choices hover. Frankly, I don’t recall a time when they were easy.

Let ‘em!

VOR words 970.

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(#185-1) April 6 2015. I know why I blog. Why do other people?

THE THOUGHTS OF A FELLOW BOOK LOVER

ON WHY HE BLOGS. WELL, I GUESS HE SHOULD KNOW AFTER 1,500! HIS NAME IS BRIAN FEINBLUM AND HE IS A BOOK PUBLICIST

Posted: 04 Apr 2015 06:30 AM PDT

This is my 1,500^th blog post.  Actually, it's a few past that. I write and post at such a prolific pace that I can't keep up with myself. 

If I were to guess, I believe I have published three-quarter million words.  If each blog post averaged 500 words over these past four years, I would have produced the equivalent of at least a dozen books.  I haven’t been paid one cent to blog and chose not to get advertising.  To date, BookMarketingBuzzBlog has been viewed over 566,000 times.  So why do I do it?  Why should you blog?  The answers to these questions will likely overlap.

I blog because it helps me brand myself.  Anyone can see what I’ve written and hopefully come to value the perspective I bring to the discussion of book publishing, book marketing, writing, free speech, literacy, cultural trends, and book publicity. The blog helps form a positive image of someone with experience, ideas, and passion.

I blog because I hope it attracts new business to the public relations firm that I work for.

I blog because I like to give back and help others.  I am a teacher and therapist at heart and I understand the challenges, fears, and needs of aspiring writers, struggling authors, publishers, and all those who make up the realm of mass media.

I blog as a therapeutic tool, to release my emotions and give voice to my life.

I blog in hopes of lobbying and influencing others, even changing policies, procedures, and patterns that individuals and institutions blindly follow or enforce.

I blog to highlight things that need a spotlight – both the very bad and very good.  I’m not a journalist or a member of the media but I do like to serve as a watchdog over the public domain of news.

I blog about books because I love the written word and cherish it with all my heart.

I find writing my blog keeps me grounded and focused.  I never feel a slave to it when it comes to the writing part.  But I do wish I could stop myself from spending an hour each day marketing it.  That time could be better used to serve a for-profit venture.  But what’s the point in writing a blog that no one reads?  If you value the words you pen you need to put in the time, effort, and resources to get them exposure.

I would think my readership understands what’s involved in publishing a daily blog, and I assume they are appreciative of it, but I don’t hear from the vast majority of readers.  I don’t get more than five responses a day – and some are just spam posts placed in the comments section.  But I do this for my own reward and it’s something I choose to do and don’t feel obligated to do.

Who knows where the next 1,500 posts take me, but I’m glad you’re along for the ride. Please live the blog – then share it with others.

Brian Feinblum's blog URL

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(#184-1) April 5 2015. Don’t buck the system. It will crush you. On the other hand, it will crush you anyway. But maybe not if you are a first principle thinker.

AMERICAN ENTRPRENEURSHIP IS IN DECLINE

ONE REASON GIVEN IS OUR SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT AND “THE RELENTLESS PRESSURE TO CONFORM.”

BUT WHO CREATES OUR SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT?

NOW THERE IS A THOUGHT WORTH CONTEMPLATING. COULD IT BE THAT ‘THEY’WANT US TO CONFORM?

Despite our self-image as being a nation of rugged individualists, we are, in fact, a remarkably conformist society—largely because we are subject to a truly relentless stream of propaganda which instills in us the notion that the American Way of Life is the best in the world—and that America, itself, is exceptional. As a consequence, we really don’t have much to learn from other nations—so why bother to?

Mostly, we don’t.

In fact, our media have largely closed down their foreign bureau. Why not? Americans don’t care about what happens abroad—and, anyway, everything worthwhile is happening here.

And it’s bigger, better and more profitable!

Actually, it is not (please check for yourself) but propaganda says that it is—and most of us tend to go with the flow. Independent thinkers are not that common.

One side effect of this never-ending, brain-numbing flood of lies, distortions, exaggerations, and inaccuracies, is that is that our willingness to question the status quo is either suppressed or eliminated—which suits the movers and shakers just fine. They like things the way they are.

However, a disconcerting side effect is that the kind of people who used to break away, pioneer, and set up new businesses, are conforming as well.

It is easier to conform—and vastly less risky. And over the last half century or so, economic life in the U.S. has become decidedly more risky as corporations have withdrawn from any sense of social responsibility to focus on maximizing shareholder value—a disastrous philosophy if ever there was one (which crosses the line into thoughtless and then inhuman all too often).

It should quite unnecessary to say this, but though a corporation is normally set up to achieve the maximum rate of return for its shareholders, it cannot function in any way without:

• The legal structure granted by the state. This is incredibly important and valuable because without out it, a corporation doesn’t exist. Accordingly, you might think that a corporation might feel a certain obligation to the state that grants it. Sadly, all too often, you would be wrong.
• The infrastructure—federal, state, and community—which it utilizes so that it can function. Infrastructure, in this context cover everything from attack by a foreign enemy to the broad range of facilities—from education to standards to ports, airports, roads and sewers which we avail of every day.  A corporation cannot exist in a bubble. It is dependent upon a highly sophisticated support system.
• Its employees (directors, managers, and workers). Without its employees, a corporation is just a piece of paper.
• Its suppliers of goods and services.
• Its professional advisers
• Its customers.

It is self evident that it has an obligation to all the above—yet the current dogma followed by all too many U.S. corporations is that the only corporate obligation is to shareholders.

Nuts!

The belief that a corporation’s only obligation is to maximize shareholder value is now deeply embedded in the culture of the American Business Model—and is taught in many business schools—despite its moral corruption and the lamentable performance of U.S. business since it was introduced. But, to be fair, it has made a small number of CEOs and ultra-rich shareholders even richer.

Most Americans have suffered from it. The damage it has inflicted on the economy is incalculable.

The following is an interesting perspective by Matt McFarland from the Washington Post of April 3 2015.

The individuals who have founded some of the most success tech companies are decidedly weird. Examine the founder of a truly innovative company and you’ll find a rebel without the usual regard for social customs.

This begs the question, why? Why aren’t more “normal” people with refined social graces building tech companies that change the world? Why are only those on the periphery reaching great heights?

If you ask tech investor Peter Thiel, the problem is a social environment that’s both powerful and destructive. Only individuals with traits reminiscent of Asperger’s Syndrome, which frees them from an attachment to social conventions, have the strength to create innovative businesses amid a culture that discourages daring entrepreneurship.

“Many of the more successful entrepreneurs seem to be suffering from a mild form of Asperger’s where it’s like you’re missing the imitation, socialization gene,” Thiel said Tuesday at George Mason University. “We need to ask what is it about our society where those of us who do not suffer from Asperger’s are at some massive disadvantage because we will be talked out of our interesting, original, creative ideas before they’re even fully formed. Oh that’s a little bit too weird, that’s a little bit too strange and maybe I’ll just go ahead and open the restaurant that I’ve been talking about that everyone else can understand and agree with, or do something extremely safe and conventional.”

An individual with Asperger’s Syndrome — a form of autism — has limited social skills, a willingness to obsess and an interest in systems. Those diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome tend to be unemployed or underemployed at rates that far exceed the general population. Fitting into the world is difficult.

While full-blown Asperger’s Syndrome or autism hold back careers, a smaller dose of associated traits appears critical to hatching innovations that change the world.

“A typical child might just accept, ‘Okay this is just the way it’s done, this is how we do things in our culture or family,” said Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Center in Cambridge. “Someone with autism or Asperger’s, they kind of ask those why questions. They want more logical answers. Just saying ‘Well we do this just because everybody else does,’ that doesn’t meet their test of logic.”

Baron-Cohen says the autistic are interested in what’s called first principles, fundamental rules used to inform their decisions. First principle-thinking happens to be a tactic Elon Musk, the innovative leader of Tesla and SpaceX, says has contributed to his success.

“Rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and you reason up from there,” Musk has said. “This is a good way to figure out if something really makes sense or if it’s just what everybody else is doing.”

To be great, you can’t think like everybody else, and you probably won’t fit in to the herd. As a child Musk was bullied and beaten so badly that as an adult he struggled to breathe through his nose and needed corrective surgery.

John Doerr, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins, who was an early investor in Google, Amazon and Netscape, has said that great entrepreneurs tend to have “absolutely no social life.” Great innovators, like those with Asperger’s, just don’t fit in.

VOR words 561.

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