Category: 2010 and Beyond

The trap was set. Walter Mondale was debating President Ronald Reagan who was running for a second term. Mr. Mondale looked into the camera and said that both he and President Reagan knew that taxes had to be raised, but that only he had the courage to tell the truth to the American people.

President Reagan took the bait. He couldn’t wait to deliver his famous line, “There you go again”. But Mondale was ready. He noted that the first time Mr. Reagan delivered that line, then President, Jimmy Carter had been right. Reagan did attempt to cut Medicare once elected. And Mondale was certain that he, too, had cornered the market on truth.

Astute political observers came away from this exchange with two important insights:

1. The Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale, was absolutely right.
2. There was never going to be a President Walter Mondale.

It is really difficult to win an election when all you’ve got are facts. Don’t believe me? Ask President Kerry.

President Barack Obama launched his reelection campaign last Saturday afternoon. He and the First Lady wowed a crowd of about 14,000 at OSU’s Schottenstein Center. MSNBC broadcasted the entire introduction from Mrs. Obama and the President’s new stump speech. CNN showed the into and most of the President’s speech. I wanted to watch this on FOX. I got to see the start of Mr. Obama’s speech, but certainly not all of it. The crowd was too hot, too engaged, so FOX went back to the studio to give us another interview with yet another middle-aged white guy who was there to tell us that there is a whole lot less excitement on college campuses.

Ignore what you are seeing. Trust us, our guy is just as loved and respected.

My Republican friends may have wanted someone else such as Gingrich or Santorum or whoever, but they’ve got Mitt Romney. My Republican friends may not love Mitt Romney, but they hate Barack Obama. Why? Got an hour or two? My guys will fill that time and beg for more. And though I generally don’t agree with these guys, I have to admit to being disappointed and frustrated by some of the President’s programs and policies.

My personal frustration does not cloud my judgment. I am positive that Barack Obama will be reelected. Why? Because you can’t beat something with nothing.

Take Saturday’s speech. Mr. Romney couldn’t deliver that speech, that seemingly effortless 36 minutes of human interaction, if he shut down his campaign and practiced daily till October. It’s just not in him.

Not that Mr. Romney would qualify, but we are not electing our most successful businessman. We are not electing the smartest American or our most talented technocrat. We are electing a president. And we want our presidents to be so much more.

The great American myth, the one that we were told again and again as children, was that in America any boy could grow up to be president. That has been amended to now be any boy or girl. Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush made that seem almost possible. Barack Obama proved it.

Do your kids want to be Mitt Romney? More importantly, would the Mitt Romney circa 1994 want to be the coreless Mitt Romney running for office today?

I found myself at a nude beach wearing only a turtleneck, flannel-lined khakis, long underwear, and three pairs of socks.

It was an hour before sunset on a warm April evening and I was at Lizardville, a temple to alcohol in a Cleveland suburb. It was darker inside than out. The walls had posters of old beer ads, beer paraphernalia, and cans and bottles of one type of alcohol or another. Wine bottles were by the entrance. Wood tables and chairs were readily available for those who chose not to stand.

I was there for a beer tasting. There will be several accounts of this evening. Some may be more factual.

We were served a variety of small pizzas, sausages, and cheeses. But we, a group of bloggers, were there for the beer. I was totally out of my element.

I have been to any number of wine tastings, even the old fashioned kind that included spitting instead of swallowing the beverage. I have been to scotch tastings. Orchestrated tastings are not my favorite way to experience either wine or scotch. This was my first time with beer.

I was ill equipped for the experience. To begin with, I’m not a huge drinker and beer is hardly my favorite beverage. I probably have fewer than a dozen beers a year. My daughter and son-in-law, Jen and Matt, are beer aficionados. They have suggested interesting beers while we were having dinner at places like Hiroshi’s Pub. That’s when I will try something new or different.

At these dinners the beer arrives early, sometimes before the appetizer. I take a sip or two as an introduction. It is seldom love at first sight. Over the course of the next half hour or so I get to know the beer, that one glass or mug, through the meal. It is a courting process. Slow and nuanced. And when the meal has ended and the beverage gone, I have had a beer with a meal, a complete experience, and can honestly say whether I really liked it or not.

The beer tasting was not like that.

The food, though perfectly fine, finished a distant second to the beer. Pizza slices were consumed without comment. Sausages were noted for their spiciness. A little dish disappointingly held grapes instead of olives. No worries. The focus was on the beer.

There was a certain promiscuousness to the way we flitted from one beer to the next. No courtship. The beers were introduced, one at a time, in two ounce glasses. There was a pilsner, an amber ale, a Belgium Triple, a porter, an oatmeal stout, and an IPA. We were told about noble hops, golden monkeys, and bears with antlers. Sip it. Drink it. Chug it. It didn’t really matter. The most important thing to remember was to not get too connected, to not get too involved. Another glass was going to be out soon.

And when it was over, the only thing I knew for sure was that I had been to my last beer tasting. It was not for me. And there was this one beer, a Founder’s Porter, that I met briefly, but never got a chance to really know.

I may try, one day, to get that porter alone.

I finally laid to rest the last victims of the great flood of ’96. That was the first major sewer back-up at my house in Shaker Heights. The basement had been fully furnished. Gone. My entire record collection had also been down there. And though I never played those records again, I still had them. They spent the last six years sealed in boxes. Now they are in the dumpster.

I’m moving. The Why’s and Where’s will have to wait for another couple of weeks. Today is about moving on, the emotional exercise of letting go of one’s past.

Tossing the albums, literally, into a dumpster was not easy. I had to first admit that those boxes probably held more mold that music. I emptied the storage closet of items that I was never going to use again and that were of no value to my children. Between the storage closet and my second bedroom I’ve got nearly two car loads’ of stuff for the Salvation Army.

I found pictures of my children, step-children, and assorted relatives while sorting through the boxes. There were mementos of trips to Paris, Israel, and Australia. Some of the pictures were rally old. I still had brown hair.

I was getting a lot done. Productive. Efficient. I confidently chose which keepsakes were meaningful and which, like the program from the 2009 Senior Open at Canterbury, I could toss. And then I opened a box of wooden plaques. And I stopped.

If you visited my office sometime between 1992 and 2010, you have seen those plaques. I was a national leader for a wonderful company that no longer exists. Those awards, that wood on the wall, meant something to me. They represented a relationship. They represented a commitment. And now they represent the past. I closed the box and walked out of the room.

I’ve lived in this apartment for six years. With pen, legal pad, and an adult beverage, I’ve sat on this balcony and written more than a few of these posts. And in the waning hours of sunlight on a warm Sunday afternoon, I can convince myself that I needed a break and a little fresh air.

But I know what I have to do. There’s still room in that dumpster for one more box. And it is time for me to be movin’ on.

The boys at the table shifted in their seats nervous in their anticipation. They imagined a variety of scenarios. Will she? Would she? It was all so exciting. Yes, porn again. Political pornography. My right-wing Republican friends were dreaming again of Hillary.

Yes, that Hillary. These guys hated her in the nineties. They mocked her Senate campaign. And now? They now have a grudging respect for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They will tell you that they prefer her to the current occupant of the White House. Don’t take the bait. Their fantasies don’t include a Madam President Clinton. These daydreams are about havoc. Floor fights! Divided loyalties! Maybe an invigorated Bill caught with a campaign aide or three!

If the Democrats self-destruct, maybe, just maybe, the Republican nominee can win. True, they also debated $5 a gallon gasoline and 9% unemployment, but the Hillary scenario allows them to win without sacrificing the country.

The table, my collection of some of my most conservative friends, was initially thrilled with last week’s Supreme Court hearings. They have already waved good-bye to the individual mandate. The vote? Perhaps 9 – 0! The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? That is probably gone, too.

My friends mocked the Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. They asked me why the President couldn’t come up with a better advocate for “Obamacare”. They were sure that they could count the still secret votes of the nine justices. They were celebrating until a shadow covered them.

What if Obama had thrown the fight? What happens if the Supreme Court eliminates the individual mandate and then kills “Obamacare”? He could run against both Congress and the Supreme Court. That is the Republican’s territory. He’ll win. He’ll install single-payer. We’re doomed to four years of Socialist rule. We will lose capitalism and the United States we know and love.

The President Obama who is naïve and ill-prepared looks just like the President Obama who is a political mastermind.

Since I don’t pretend to know what the Supreme Court will decide, I just sat back and fed their paranoia. Of course, several of my Conservative friends who are so adamantly opposed to federal spending and big government are financially dependent upon Washington. Irony, however, is lost on ideologues.

The table shifted to Rush and his take on the shooting in Florida. There is nothing like a good liberal conspiracy to lighten their moods. They were feeling better about themselves and their world until I mentioned Santorum’s latest gaffe.

That is when they returned to fantasizing about Hillary.

I was talking to a beautiful girl. Perhaps I should write that I was speaking with a beautiful woman. Young woman might be a better description. In truth, she was far more interested in age than me. Her actual age is a state secret. It is sufficient to disclose that she is much younger than me.

She grouped and categorized her suitors by their ages, as if by going out with a twenty-one year old home for spring break would make her a coed again. Would a tryst with a thirty-eight year old result in grey hairs? Would dating a fifty year old, G-d forbid, necessitate Crestor and orthopedic shoes? This is normally the province of vain middle aged men reliving a youth that never happened.

I bring this to your attention as a way to highlight the diminishing differences between men and women. It is not unusual for women to focus on their age. My mother is still twenty-two. Really. Ask her. There are any number of industries dedicated to making women look and feel younger. Defining beauty, a moveable target, may involve hair, skin, clothing, plastic surgery, or even hideous things like Spanx. Men, potbellied and balding, measured their ages by their escorts, as if a twenty-eight year old is the equivalent of vitality. Another line got blurred today.

My friend is retaining her youth through her lovers.

 But there is a price for this – conversation. Some of these May / September relationships work. Many of them only succeed in the bedroom. What do you talk about when you don’t share any cultural references? Music, politics, and sports all have a timeline. The big moments, the big players are well known, but the perspective is very different. The Beatles, the first moon walk, and Richard Nixon’s resignation are very real to me. They would be history, important history at best, to someone just ten years younger than me. And someone twenty years younger, born in 1975, would have become politically aware as Reagan was leaving office. Are there shared events? Certainly. But the connections trend toward the physical.

My friend is retaining her youth through her lovers. It appears to be working. She has never looked better or more confident. So who am to judge? Still I wonder if the gentlemen know or care about her age. Would a thirty-one year old feel older and more mature is she was dating me? Is age contagious?

It appears that the only person you can always fool is yourself.

I got caught speeding 24/7 in a 35 – 40 zone. And when I hit the when I hit the wall, and I did, I didn’t stop or even slow down. I just kept on going.

I finally realized, the first week of February, that I had not had a day off since Thanksgiving. What was the tip-off? What did the wall feel like? It wasn’t the lingering cold. It wasn’t the bout of Shingles. It wasn’t even when my back went out and I had to
drag myself to the massage therapist.

My moment came while sitting at my desk, 10 o’clock in the morning, when I found myself contemplating that evening’s cigar. That’s when I knew that I had had enough.

Four months of intense effort had come to this. I had been working on several major cases, one huge and the others terribly complicated. And though I welcomed the challenges and the opportunity to mine thirty plus years of experience, I may have had too much of a good thing.

Some people talk about their inner child. I don’t have an inner child. Never did. I have an inner adult, and he is an even bigger S.O.B. than me! He hates waste. He accepts few excuses. There are no breaks till all of the work has been completed. No extras or luxuries until the necessities have been covered.

My vacation had been scheduled for months. The last week of February is dedicated to going someplace where Sally can get a real tan. Cancun, Punta Cana, or a cruise. She lays out in the sun while I enjoy the warmth and hide in the shade. We had booked a cruise and I was suddenly finding myself counting down the days till we left.

And when the time came, I took my laptop out of my luggage. My Blackberry afforded me limited contact with my office while I was gone, but I eliminated most of my access. I paid the price for this peace – 863 emails were waiting for me when I returned last Monday. Still, I got some needed rest and I’m ready to get back to work.

No tickets. No walls. I’m hoping to schedule another day off soon. I might even get in a little golf.

I hold in my hand my last Newsweek. A thirty year relationship ends this week.

Some people may view a weekly newsmagazine as an anachronism. Others may feel that a magazine subscription is a wasteful expenditure. And there are people who could never find the time to commit to reading a weekly. None of those apply to me.

I am not dropping Newsweek in favor of an online publication. I tend to print long articles from the New York Times and other publications when I find something of value online. I’m willing to spend the money on books or magazines to read at my leisure. And yes, I make time to read, to learn, and to understand what is happening both here in the States and around the world.

No, I am dropping Newsweek because Newsweek has abandoned me. The magazine that I hold in my hand more closely resembles the gossip rags one finds on the racks by the grocery store check-out and in doctors’ waiting rooms than the comprehensive newsmagazine I read and loved.

Tina Brown, Editor in Chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, is attempting to convert her online site into a tangible ink and paper publication. Instead of pictures enhancing articles, we now have copy explaining pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Ads are up. Content is down. The magazine assumes that we have the attention span of a beagle. Paragraph. Paragraph. Squirrel!

I miss the great writers and thoughtful, in-depth reporting. There are weeks that I have scanned this version in less time than it would have taken to read a Fareed Zakaria article.

So good-bye Newsweek. Thank G-d I still have Esquire.

The dinner was phenomenal. Stuffed veal chop. Kosher! Sally was wearing a Sue Wong. I had on my tux. We were at the LaunchHouse Gala last Saturday evening at the Cleveland Skating Club. The people at our table were interesting. The dance band, terrific. Even the silent auction items were worth a bid or two.

How did we get here? All it required was a suspension of disbelief.

Two young guys, Dar Caldwell and Todd Goldstein, refused to accept what everyone knew to be true – that starting a business, any business, required a ton of money, that young people don’t want to stay in Cleveland, and that tech businesses can only be created on the coasts. Creating their incubator / business accelerator, Goldstein Caldwell and Associates, required a suspension of disbelief.

Todd and Dar were not alone. Last year they joined forces with the City of Shaker Heights. Through the leadership of Mayor Earl Leiken, and City Council members such as Nancy Moore, Lynn Ruffner, and Rob Zimmerman, Shaker’s Development Corporation created a special space for business in what had been an abandoned auto dealership. The City took a chance. The leaders chose to create instead of manage. They converted the building into a haven for people who refuse to accept conventional wisdom.

Dar, Todd, the City and others who were prepared to zig while everyone else zagged created LauchHouse. And Saturday night we were celebrating LaunchHouse’s success, dreaming of its future, and raising some of the money it will take to get us there.

We weren’t celebrating sizzle. We were celebrating steak or in my case, veal.

The time has come to aggressively pursue moderation.  It is time for us, the majority of Americans, to assert our right for representation in the statehouse, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and even in the White House.  It is time for us, the members of the 3 1 5, to elect one of our own. 

What/Where is the 3 1 5?  It is right here.  It is the middle.  On one extreme are those with faith in faithlessness and an almost slavish devotion to science.  This extreme can be represented by Pi or 3.14.  The other extreme sees the invisible hand of their G-d in everything, right down to the yardage gained by their football stars.  They can be represented by the New Testament verse 3:16 from the Book of John.   

3 1 4 on one extreme.  3 1 6 on the other.  Me?  I’m living in the 3 1 5. 

I watched the Republican debates this past week.  Four men vying for the most powerful position in the world were fighting over which was least likely to hunt down elderly illegal Mexican women who are busily making cookies and tacos for their grandchildren.

Of course, the grandmother debate was a welcome break from the usual discussions of abortion, Obamacare, and the bombing of Iran.  Thursday was the 19^th debate.  Even my Republican friends have stopped watching.

So Friday night I caught Real Time with Bill Maher.  Mr. Maher has made a fetish of attacking people of faith.  On last night’s show he assailed Mitt Romney for donating heavily to the Mormon Church and taking the appropriate tax deduction.  Mr. Maher would like to reduce faith in a higher power and all religion to believing in a talking snake.

We, the 3 1 5, are under siege.  It may be easy to laugh at Rick Santorum, a former US Senator who is running for President, Vice-President, or the part of Milhouse when The Simpsons finally come to Broadway, but there are people voting for him.  He may have won the Iowa Caucus.  And as much as he would like to limit the government’s regulatory involvement in business, he and his fellow Republican hopefuls wish to insert their religious beliefs into our personal lives.

The Democrats are far less concerned with our bedrooms.  In fact, the bedroom, or our interpersonal relationships, may be the only area they don’t wish to regulate.  My other blog, Health Insurance Issues With Dave, has discussed the government’s overreach into the payment and delivery of healthcare.  Another issue is the recently passed Dodd Frank legislation that was meant to prevent another 2008 style meltdown.  Yes, we needed more government oversight.  Unfortunately, we shot past more and went all of the way to excessive.

In an effort to correct one party’s excesses we elect the other side and get blindsided by their excesses.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  We in the 3 1 5 suffer from whiplash as one extreme or the other gets their moment of power.

Do we, the 3 1 5, have a presidential candidate?  None come to mind.  Perhaps you could name a prospect or two?  It is time for us to give this some thought.  Stuck in the middle of a large lake, we are in a row boat with one oar.  We aren’t moving forward.  We won’t, we can’t, until we acquire a second oar and learn to use them in tandem.

Iowa, that wonderful combination of patriotism and payola, is finally behind us.  New Hampshire and South Carolina are next.  What do these first competitions tell us?  Sometimes, not much.  Much like a preseason football game, the participants risk a season ending injury while the winner gets little more than bragging rights.

The Iowa Caucuses are over, but the Cunix Caucus has just begun.  My last blog gave my readers the opportunity to predict the eventual Republican nominee and the winners of the 2012 Presidential and U.S. Senate races.  Fifteen of you chose to participate.  The results will be published this time next year.

Making predictions is tricky.  Some of my prognosticators voted with their heads.  Some used their hearts.  At least two reflected the real mood of the country.  And that mood is nervous.

My friend Dave, a guy who absolutely despises President Obama, predicted his reelection.  My friend Sandra, an unabashed Liberal, had Mitt Romney as the winner this November.  They have lost faith in the voting public and are positive that their candidate is going to lose.

This pessimism is reflected in the Right Direction / Wrong Track polling.  The January 4, 2012 polling revealed that 71% of the American public believes that we are on the wrong track.  71%!  Some feel that the President is taking us towards European style Socialism.  Others are sure that the Republicans are obstructing the President and preventing the Democrats from reviving the economy.

As always, there is plenty of blame for everyone involved.

As of today, January 9, 2012, all fifteen participants in the Cunix Caucus are batting 1000.  We will eventually have a winner.  It could even be me.  I just hope that the guy who gets elected, and now that Mrs. Bachmann is gone it will be a guy, will be the choice of the majority of the American people, not just someone who manages to score a plurality of the small minority of US citizens who bother to vote.

And now for something entirely different. 

Fragile

The strongest porcelain vase would shatter into a thousand pieces if it was pushed off of a shelf.  This beautiful vase had only been tipped a time or two.  Still, I could see the results.  A tiny crack here.  A chip or two reattached with Super Glue there.  It was no longer perfect, thus even more valuable than it had ever been before.