

# Cogent Comments  
Thoughts on Education, Politics, and Culture

The Selected Essays of Bob Howitt

Published by Bob Howitt at Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 Robert Howitt

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

## Foreword

I met Bob at 17, during my first semester at Morris County College of Morris, through a mutual friend. I don't recall exactly how it happened back then, but he quickly became a very influential person in my life. For the first time, I had a positive male role model who took a genuine (and reliable) interest in my education, my emotional well-being and my future.

I'm optimistic that prior to meeting Bob, my life was going in a positive direction, inching my way out of being a statistic. Today, I know that my crossing his path put me in a trajectory allowing me to bypass any and all obstacles that would come in the way of my success.

Bob's interest in education (and all things related) was and continuous to be unconditional. This, I have always found to be very motivational and inspiring. He is a thinker, a philosopher, a theorist of social issues and their impact on education as a system, a tool, and an outlet.

Through his work, Bob has interacted with a voluminous number of people all from different edges of the world. Those relationships, however long or short, have provided him with an uncommon wisdom, which he masterfully employs in his writings. His essays are artful descriptions, eloquent arguments, sincere opinions and skillful humor intertwined into a compilation of his essence. Together, they are nothing short of genius.

Aracely Santos, Manager, Solutions and Partnerships, American Express Global Business Travel

Words. Thoughts. Arguments. Expository essays. Personal confessions. There is, in the confusing world of trying to find one's place and purpose, one clear path to success in our meritocracy: the ability to write, to communicate with others, to understand yourself through language. When BH wasn't challenging himself with intricate (and interconnected) patterns of arguments, he was encouraging his "students" (or, as he would put it, his extended family) to think through writing and how to use writing as a vehicle for achieving social and economic independence. The subject matter covered by the fiction and non-fiction pieces in FORUM is not what I remember, nor even what interested me over the years. What fascinated me was the willingness of young people to express themselves in unique and revealing ways, to put their ideas and souls out there to an audience they didn't know and perhaps didn't care about. They wrote for themselves and for their peers, and, I would guess, for the man who gave them the opportunity to achieve their potential. As we say on the Lower East Side, "Mr. Howitt, not bad!"

Michael Zisser, CEO, University Settlement Society, The Door

In this book, Bob writes his honest, unscripted, not politically correct opinions about different issues of our time with his characteristic sarcasm and brilliant humor. Each essay is an independently written piece of its own promise to immerse the reader in a lecture that will leave him eager for more. Bob's perspective and writing style is the result of his decades of experience in the private sector in both for profit and non-for-profit organizations, which he successfully led, creating programs that yielded extraordinary results and consolidated him as a role model to many. This book is part of Bob's legacy, his gift to those who have been fortunate enough to know him and the chance to do those who don't, and who will for sure appreciate the honesty and objectivity shared by someone who has dedicated most of his life to leaving us a better world.

Carolina McCurdy, Sr. Communications Specialist at DIRECTV Latinamerica

I'm Bob's fan big time. He's helped dozens if not hundreds of young people to attain college education. He's devoted countless amounts of time, economic resources and tough love to the cause in a uniquely effective way. In my opinion, he is the kind of foundation executive-director you only see and read about in CNN heroes or like lists in the news and magazines.

Fortunate recipients of his help, including myself, are still in disbelief to have been given the blessing of meeting Bob. His contributions to better young peoples' lives through education will certainly generate a positive ripple effect for years to come.

He's a gifted individual with a sharp mind and big heart. His innate wit and charm make any time with him always a great time. Likewise his short writings and essays are proven to provide a great read and brain food that incites debate. His views and diverse topic stories will give you a taste of Bob's brilliant mind in a satirical and clever style.

Ismael Iraola, International Finance Manager – Vantage Chemicals

I have had the pleasure of knowing Bob since 1988. That was the day I started working for him and our great bond of friendship began. Since I have known Bob he has been an avid writer of many articles and books. He is very passionate about the subjects he writes about and some of these subjects are quite unique. Through all of the various articles he has written about, one thing is always certain, Bob's honesty and comedic satire always comes through. In an article written for the Forum entitled "Who and What is A Star?" there is one sentence that sums up what Bob is all about. "What a person does when nobody is watching is the real test of values." Bob undoubtedly lives his life this way. The investment he has made into the lives of his students and the people that he cares about is beyond measure. He is a rare commodity in this crazy world we live in. I am so blessed to call him my friend. The world truly is a better place because of Bob.

Gina Coppola, Office Administrator, Northeast Planning Corp.

After moving to Florida in 2006, knowing that FORUM would be in the mail periodically was a reason for excitement. There was anticipation on whether it would include one of Bob's writings that would play to my own sense of humor, or perhaps to one of my frustrations with government, education, religion, or even whether it'd just cover one of my pet peeves ranging from the obvious to the ridiculous.

One thing is clear: I've never been disappointed. I haven't always agreed with Bob's position on issues presented through his essays or other works, but even then, I've been left with a better understanding of his reasoning thanks to his skillful formulation of the counter-view to my own beliefs. I've been seen to quietly laugh, and most of the time, quietly contemplate life during and after reading one of Bob's pieces.

Thank you, Bob, for the many pieces that have evoked feelings (positive and sometimes negative) about important issues in our daily lives. I am looking forward to many, many more to come.

Javier Marin, former Mayor of Dover, New Jersey; now FSBDC at the College of Business at the University of South Florida.

To know Bob Howitt and to experience his wit, his humility, his genius and his generosity is a blessing. He invites others, particularly the young, to shine their lights of unrecognized wisdom and talents. His invitations come packaged in controversial, thought-provoking benevolence for the disenfranchised of the world. His in-your-face honesty is always accompanied by compassion, for honesty without compassion would be cruelty- and cruelty is so foreign to his way of being. His fearless vulnerability coupled with his unquenchable thirst for knowledge, on a soul level, is admirable. He holds up a mirror of conscience to each reader who dares to truly look, and provides a space for the reader to chronicle his/her reasons for looking away.

Michaele P. White-Risbrook, MPH, FNP, RNC, Certified Professional Life Coach.

## Introduction

Part of The Belated Collection of Bob Howitt Essays, brought together because of overwhelming demand from myself and hereby distributed through technological devices not even conceivable at my birth.

Astute readers will conclude the following, assuming that excessive consumption of distilled spirits has not destroyed their literary brain cells:

1. The guy has little talent for positive, upbeat prose, which is intriguing because his lifetime actions have been skewed to productive decisions in the field of educational assistance.

2. Given item (1), it better follow that his attacks against a wide variety of targets are written somewhat more effectively (see Matt Taibbi if you want real skill in this area).

3. Uncomfortable truths are not infrequently wrapped in what some may accurately discern as a language of respect, admiration, and even love—and those emotions are legitimate.

Whatever!

In this world, if you cannot laugh or cry, you must be addicted to something:

Drugs... money... football... the belief that America is God's gift to the universe... alcohol... political correctness... sex... writing in place of direct human interaction... smart phones... _futbol_ (especially if Hispanic... dressing like a convict (urban African-American teenagers)... studying 24 hours a day (Asian)... Justin Bieber... Law & Order... Oprah Winfrey... guns ... the idea that futurists really know how the next generation America will work: single-parent "families" as the norm, unaddressed income/wealth inequality, a completely overhauled education system (hopefully), and, most important, a nation of multiple minorities... McDonald's French fries... Buddhism... dancing... shopping... cappuccino... astrology... yard sales... rap music... beauty... religion... the lottery... television... the Pope... laptops... coffee... global warming... eating large quantities of food.

So what follows somewhere is nothing in a logical order, but, as you can tell from a quick computer check, the entries are in—alphabetical order, or is it actually by date of writing, I forget!

Enjoy—and I apologize in advance if by taking time to read one of these essays, you have been forced to reduce the amount of time spent on one of your addictions.

Guess what, the actual essays are spread out all over the place. Whoops—my bad!

## Chapter 1:  
A Clash of Values: Should National Parks Be Sacrosanct in the Battle Versus Illegal Drugs?

It will come as no surprise that criminals whose intelligence, cunning, and ruthlessness allow them to run international drug businesses from secluded fortresses in the jungles of Colombia are not above relocating certain of their operations to the less-traveled sections of national parks when forced to do so in order to avoid capture by the authorities. Moreover, they are well aware there is a ban on spraying in Colombian national parks and they really do not fear that earnest citizens, military, and police officials will descend upon their enclaves brandishing only the approved leaf-removal method of machetes. At the same time, it is unsurprising that determined foes of the illegal traffic would like to spray/bomb the fields and laboratories inherent to drug manufacturing and would not lose much sleep if a national park were adversely affected in the process.

However, those people less directly involved in this hugely expensive, complicated and deadly cat-and-mouse game are asking whether unique park properties should be sacrificed when there may be only a marginal impact on the drug business. Since the underlying cocoa leaf is particularly hardy, most moves made to put suppliers out of existence must be repeated, which is a tiring and seemingly fruitless process.

However, despite the widespread emotional feeling that there has been little progress in the war against drugs, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency has reported that acreage devoted to illegal crops in Colombia has declined during the administration of President Uribe, who apparently will remain in office for an extended period. American funding of his anti-drug efforts has been critical to their relative success, yet domestically there is little generalized opinion that U.S. tax dollars have been well-invested in this venture.

Drug addiction itself is more controversial than many might think. To a certain extent, if you are poor, being involved with drugs is a crime, whereas if you are affluent, being involved with drugs is often characterized as an illness. When you combine some of the ambivalence toward drugs with the strong lobbying efforts of many pro-environmental groups, you can understand why there is pressure on the United States to leave Colombian national parks off of their hit list even when they know that drug lords have set up shop in these protected areas. The reasoning is that the parks contain irreplaceable natural assets, while there is often nothing sustainable about a crackdown on illegal drug activity, so why make the ill-advised investment.

Meanwhile, the appetite of the affluent people of the world for ever-bigger houses (totally unrelated to the number of occupants therein), for closets full of clothes, and for recreation rooms stuffed with the latest toys is believed by many to be the primary cause of the need in developing countries for protectionist legislation to ensure that all the forests do not disappear in the din of chainsaws wielded by natives whose economic fortunes are positively affected by the very activity which strips their land of its unique qualities.

Strong environmental action will hurt workers engaged in logging jobs, while strong anti-drug activity hurts leaf-growing farmers, with both groups having equally dismal economic outlooks in terms of alternative occupations. The affluent, who are more concerned with environmental matters and who economically can afford the dilemma of drugs, may move on the former issue and not on the latter, but in either case they will be hurting those with few attractive options for earning comparable livelihoods.

The clash of values thus continues, whether it be in the national parks of Colombia or many other areas of both developing and developed nations.

## Chapter 2:  
A Different Look at the Undocumented Student Issue

People who want to prevent undocumented young people from obtaining a higher education seek to portray themselves as occupying some type of higher moral ground by repeating the adjective "illegal" as if this complex issue could be considered comparable to going 50 mph in a 45 mph zone. They might want to remember the adage that "for every complicated question, there is a simple answer—and it is always wrong!"

I would ask these opponents to take a long look in the mirror of the average American. Here is what he or she would see:

• We buy clothing made in far-off factories with working conditions and wages we would find abhorrent if they involved our kids or friends

• We purchase all manner of electronic devices containing key minerals brought up out of distant mines which would be closed if they were in the United States

• We place the moral imprimatur on the countries producing illegal drugs with ten times the fervor that we allot to the domestic buyers of those drugs

• We buy SUVs which contradict every dollar we contribute to environmental causes

• We purchase gasoline which literally we have killed to get

• We eat in restaurants where the existence of "illegals" on staff is a statistical given and we say nothing

• We hire landscapers, construction workers, and people to watch our babies, while never checking on the legality of those who are serving our interests

So please, instead of being mired in the thoroughly hypocritical swamp of attempting to use the word "illegal" as if it were a moral concept unique to the higher education situation facing undocumented students, let us check some facts and the thoughts they bring to mind:

• The American education system is basically broken. Whether you voted for them or not, you should recognize that President Obama and Governor Christie, among countless others on both sides of the political aisle, agree with this simple statement about American education and are attempting in different, but complementary, ways to create positive change. To toss away the prospective benefits to society of having undocumented students receive a higher education and becoming taxpayers at progressively higher rates is misguided hubris—we need them!

• Very few kids under the age of 16 (the CCM cut-off point for its new policy) were engaged in any family discussion in their far-off homes about the pros and cons of coming to the United States. Their parents obviously drove that decision. To use the terminology of the critics, the students are not the initiators of the "illegal" label. To hold them responsible is both heartless and contrary to how most parents would feel about decisions made by their adolescents.

• The economics of higher education are not especially transparent, except for two things: (1) the typical four-year college is obscenely expensive, which is why there is so much attention being paid to increasing the enrollment in community colleges (hopefully while lifting the academic standards therein) and (2) the marginal cost to the college of adding a student, or a few, to a class, is truly minimal. The use of average cost data, while politically useful of course, would become relevant if and when the incremental student count becomes meaningful to staffing and other cost considerations. Note that from a societal standpoint, that situation would be positive—it would mean more kids being educated.

• Americans are tense and stressed. Middle-aged managers and numerous others who never dreamed they could be let go by their employer of 25 years are now unemployed, wondering how it happened and how their somewhat nebulous skills fit in the brave new world of LinkedIn and Monster.com. They look at the country's terrible financial picture and are either stunned into an abject silent surrender or provoked into a verbalized outrage they never thought possible of themselves. Without deliberation, they gravitate to scapegoats; the hidden premise is that "if only this [fill in the name of a problem] were fixed, the country and my life would be okay again."

A significant portion of the venom aimed at undocumented students—as representatives of illegal immigrants in general—comes from this psychological source. Sad to say, but many of those lost jobs are never coming back, whether Juan and Maria go to college or not. So even if the newly-unemployed understandably cannot relax, they should aim their arguments at issues of large-scale relevance and substance, not at a bunch of kids who simply want we all want, a better educated society which, by the way, could afford the retraining that the unemployed need to re-enter the workforce.

• We already have a growing underground economy, with literally millions of people living and working in the shadows because the rest of us want the benefits of this semi-hidden underclass without according them the equal standing which has been the foundation of our great country, belated recognition of all sectors notwithstanding. Do we seriously want to annually add to this off-the-books world a large number of undereducated kids who have grown up in the United States and consider it their home country? How is it in our self-interest for them to be deprived of higher education and in effect be incentivized to think ill of the very nation where they want to raise their families?

In sum, it is time to move forward and realize that facilitating higher education for undocumented students is consistent with our enlightened self-interest.

## Chapter 3:  
A Predictive Profile of College Placement Success

Can somebody put numbers on these factors—figure out a nice, neat formula thank you.

### Student Factors:

• Has demonstrated the ability to function independently of adult guidance

• Will not require remedial Reading or writing

• Has taken Advanced Placement courses in high school

• Has been committed to completing homework on schedule

• Has peers who are on similar aspirational paths

• Has demonstrated resiliency

### Family Factors:

• Is the student the first in his family to attend college?

• What is the education level of his parents?

• Do his parents understand the challenge of a four-year college?

• Are his parents the "helicopter" variety?

• Is there pressure for the student to attend a nearby college?

### College Factors:

• Is the average SAT within 100-200 points of what the student recorded?

• Is it large enough to change majors without changing colleges?

• Are there substantial on-campus support services?

• Is there diversity in the classroom?

• Are there students he knows who have gone there; what are their thoughts?

### Financial Factors:

• What is the Cost of Attendance?

• How much can be changed—by commuting, renting books, etc.?

• Is the Expected Family Contribution reasonable?

• What is the estimated college scholarship; what are the requirements?

• What is the estimate of outside scholarships; what are the requirements?

• What is the estimated Net Cost, after all scholarships and government loans?

• Will the student be working no more than 15 hours/week, with the money going to the student, not the home?

• What is the estimated debt at graduation with a Bachelor's degree

## Chapter 4:  
Adjusting to American Corporate Life

### Panel 1: Latinas

First question: differences between men and women in the corporate world:

• Typically, management is male-dominated (at the Chief Executive Officer level, only 4% are female, which is still triple the level of ten years ago), while those doing the work are mostly female.

• Men earn more than women in the same position; $5,000 for a Bachelor's, $10,000 for a Master's, and $20,000 for a PhD, according to one panelist.

• Machismo is not only evident in Hispanic countries; here it is the "old boys club."

• Women are reaching higher levels, but the glass ceiling still exists.

• Women have to prove themselves many times more than a male.

• "Aggressive" is positive for a male, but gets a woman labeled as a "bitch."

• When going to a review at the job, be professional, present oneself well, and control your emotions.

• Sometimes women have to prove themselves more to other women in the office than to men.

• It is not uncommon to hear remarks about who is sleeping with whom, or who is related to whom, when it comes to the promotion of women.

• It can be a good idea to take a negative comment as an incentive to prove yourself; make it a positive force.

• A woman's criticism can feel twice as bad as that from a man.

• It is painful to be criticized by Hispanics who have been in the United States for many years, and who may seem to resent success by newcomers.

• One approach is not to think about discrimination, but instead set goals and pursue them—believe in your individual objectives while still watching your back.

The second question dealt with the career-family dilemma:

• Balancing the two is tougher than you think; the reality is harder than the theoretical expectation.

• There are cultural challenges, including prospective grandmothers pushing for grandchildren to be born.

• Unsupportive husbands are a big problem; they do not understand educational aspiration and want wives focused on cleaning, cooking, and having babies.

• The timing of having a child relative to educational plans is a key factor.

• Women need support to make the career-family situation successful.

• There is always some guilt when the woman/mother is away from her children; balance is key.

• While having a child as a single mother is now commonplace, the career woman often still needs somebody to share her achievements with.

• Men do not think of their responsibilities at home.

• There can be regrets later for not having had children younger; new couples sometimes delay having families because they are concentrated on their own lives at that time.

The third question regarded the treatment of Latinas seeking jobs:

• In interviewing there are many relevant factors: attire, culture, language, knowledge, energy, curiosity.

• While there may be accent issues, knowing English well is more critical.

• Talking Spanish at home and on the job hinders the learning of English.

• Besides cultural diversity issues, one must learn the "politics" of any office to you can interact with different people in different positions.

• Using the words of the questioner in framing your answer helps create a better bond, because it shows good listening, flattering to the interviewer.

• If you are changing jobs, have a good answer for why you are leaving the prior job.

• Remember that a company hires a person for what the latter can bring to the former in the way of skills which will help the profits of the employer.

• The constant need to prove oneself is a given: accept it and move on.

### Panel 2: Latinos

These are the various Corporate Descriptors provided by the attendees:

• Commitment, hard work, teamwork, networking.

• Experience gained on the job, challenge, never give up, coordination.

• Prioritize, traveling, stressful, proactive, vision, goal-setting.

• Time management, coaching, technology, responsibility, dedication.

• Empowerment, value to all levels of the job, accountability, results.

### Discussion Notes:

• Agenda-setting on daily basis; customers accept no excuses.

• Are competing with native-born.

• Multitasking required.

• The ability to properly set priorities is valued.

• Pressure is proportionate to compensation; when you get a salary increase, stress rises, must think more about job.

• Cultural aspect: not right or wrong, but different.

• Immigrants pay a price to be in corporate life: they receive unequal treatment, often based on language.

**Debate Point** : When one panelist leaves his job, he does not think about it, he does not discuss it with family. Others share thoughts with their spouse or friend, which can help reduce stress and sometimes lead to a better approach to a dilemma. The extremes—no discussion of job, talking excessively about the job—are not healthy, but only the individuals involved can determine, through good communication in their relationships, what is an appropriate level of talk about the workplace. In a way, this is like any topic: a certain amount of conversation can be quite interesting, while too much loses the audience.

**Debate Point** : Is going the extra mile rewarded appropriately? Surveys have shown that Americans have a higher belief in the idea that working hard and well, doing extra, taking initiative, etc. ultimately will be rewarded not simply with praise and public recognition, but in the paycheck. Young, restless people, particularly those in their first career-oriented job, probably have a lesser belief in this idea. What is the alternative however; is it thinking that the pattern of life flows entirely from a power structure over which the individual has no control? (Of such thoughts, great political/philosophical discussions are born, particularly in the presence of good food and limitless drink.)

**Debate Point** : Individualism compared with a "collective" attitude, and the impact on teamwork and promotion. Yes, the American cultural emphasis is more individualistic, ignoring the apparent contradiction that corporations are perpetually promoting group interaction. I expressed the belief that in any committee or group effort, one individual must "own the idea" if it is to become reality. This does not contradict the teamwork objective; it simply means that in my experience, if somebody is not working on the idea when everybody else is "sleeping," it does not become a reality.

**Debate Point:** American companies want specialization. To a point this is true, but after a certain skill level is demonstrated, employers seek candidates with management capability. This is the real scarce asset, the characteristic which drives long-term growth. Companies want eager learners, not those who announce what they will not do.

## Chapter 5:  
Alcohol: A Most Dangerous Drug

Maybe there were a dozen people in the room, quietly watching a professionally made video on the interaction of families and friends with those afflicted by alcohol addiction.

**In Stage 1, Active Addiction** : the family maintains the addictive behavior of the alcohol abuser. Everyone in the family lives with it, contorting their own lives to accommodate the situation.

**In Stage 2, Transition** : the abuser is moving from active to abstinence, and family support is needed. It is a painful period, revelations of hurt coming from everybody as there is an identification of issues within others, especially young people. There is a shift in focus to self, not others.

**In Stage 3, Early Recovery** : there is a phase which can last for a matter of months to several years; there is a lessening of impulse, less need for a quick remedy, more of a feeling of safety. Family reconnection takes place, with new ways of thinking. There is a relapse risk. The alcohol abuser must develop trust. and know that recovery is a process, not an event. This is a time when the resolve of everybody is sorely tested, when weakness by a single family member can cause the newly positive structure to grumble.

**In Stage 4, On-going Recovery** : the process takes years—maybe it could even be considered perpetual—the abuser may be forced to make painful choices, like leaving a dysfunctional family or shunning old friends. It can be a lonely time, and temptation is great. A single drink can bring a complete relapse.

When one does the research, it becomes known that a large percentage of hospital admissions, particularly on Saturday night in the emergency room, have alcohol consumption somewhere in the health picture. Its injury and fatality rate is a large multiple of that from illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine.

In any case, as we moved from viewing the video presentation to meeting with our friend, who was in the rehabilitation facility, we thought about how we, not only he, would have to adapt. Routinely, on joining him at a restaurant for interesting conversation, wine would be ordered. I confess, I like the liquid! Now, forgetting about him, will I miss the relaxing effect of alcohol. Am I the one who should be watchful; my friend already knows he has no option, he must be diligent, otherwise the demon of drink will consume him, and negative behavior will ensue. By helping him stay dry, will I actually be helping myself?

## Chapter 6:  
America Off-Line

### Back Story and Introduction:

More than a few years ago, when AOL was top dog in the unfolding world of e-mail and the Internet, I had the basic idea for America Off-Line (AOFL). Whereupon it took its rightful place among a bunch of half-baked, semi-used, and incredibly good essay ideas gathering dust in a desk drawer.

Periodically I do open said drawer and rifle through the contents, fantasizing that inspiration will combine with whatever is already on paper to produce—something! Having written previously about the false God of Consumption and being somewhat jaundiced about all the benefits of Techno-World, it thus was natural to re-think the issue of going off-line.

Rather than tackling both Consumption and Techno-World in a single, extended and unduly complicated essay, instead I have put together a starting list of rules aimed at the issue of being off-line. Think of them as Step One in a Ten Step program to becoming a healthier person—AOFL Anonymous as it were. Readers are invited to make suggestions as to additional rules.

In today's digital world, as people text their time away, scroll down their electronic devices searching for the appropriate application for that moment in their lives, click open their Facebook page, or sit in their computer cubicles at office or home, everything seems straightforward and easy: a steady stream of data bits somehow arrives in your magical "computer" and is displayed on the screen. Presto, you think you are with it, informed, ready to interact, e-mailing or chatting or making decisions or doing whatever.

You are "on-line" with whomever or whatever you choose.

For some people, however, being on-line in this technological/psychological universe is regarded as an endorsement of the lifestyle expectations apparently shared by the vast majority of Americans—even those who voice concerns about excessive debt levels, the deleterious nature of the consumption ethic, and the damage being done to the environment by our adherence to the philosophy of "more is better."

For example, to anticipate perpetual economic growth in the United States, as most do—even in the face of the Great Recession which began in 2008—one must believe in the continual obsolescence of not only cars and clothes but ideas as well, and—that flood of data bits which is on your computer screen.

To be on-line in this world is to be a subscriber to a paradigm of constant change and incessant consumerism. It is a perpetual game of gin rummy which one cannot win. To be a subscriber is eventually to be ill at ease, for one can never stay current with someone else's definition of what one must know, possess and do with one's time, energy, and money.

"... the promise is of infinite knowledge, but what's delivered is infinite information, and the two are hardly the same."... ( _New York Times_ Sunday magazine of 10-25-09; Peggy Orenstein).

It is time to log off of this view of life. It is time for AMERICA OFF-LINE!!!

Creating rules for logging off is difficult—the Smartphone, iPod, iPad, Google, Facebook, Kindle world has brought together a whole series of communication/information devices that collectively convey a "how-can-we-live-without-them" mentality (and this as written pre-Twitter et al). Were I to espouse dropping any of these incredible products, then for sure the accusation of "Luddite" would be hurled at this writer. My fragile psyche would be smashed, so I will leave such thoughts to true radicals!

AMERICA OFF-LINE!!! seeks to resurrect a different and more fundamental idea: that what you are is more important than how fast you can access what somebody else deems important to you, because that knowledge is predominantly being used for the accumulation of possessions, money, and power. In other words, nothing about historical norms has really changed!

The list below delineates some practical guidelines, in no order of importance. They represent cloth to be cut to your shape. Do not worry while you eat your Saturday breakfast; no salesman will call beseeching you to order your very own bound copy of the rules of AMERICA OFF-LINE!!!

• Do not have more than one television in your house. Television is an unending advertisement for a singular way of life: consumption—of things and people.

• Establish house rules with respect to time spent on computers and other "devices." Any set of rules will undoubtedly be superior to an absence of guidelines; according to the Kaiser Family Foundation _(New York Times_ , January 23, 2010), kids ages 8-18 spend 7.5 hours per day involved with these media. Would you believe studies have shown that computer penetration of low-income households is negatively correlated with educational growth.

• If you have a choice between an interstate highway and a secondary road, choose the latter at least half the time. Johnny's Hot Dog Stand needs your patronage; McDonald's has enough customers.

• Do not own more than three credit cards. Reduce consumption, increase spirituality, cut interest costs.

• Have one purchase-free day per week. Try it, you will like it.

• When eating dinner at home or at a restaurant with your family, every digital device must be turned off. Twenty years from now, do you want to say, "I wish I had talked with my kids more."

• Per family, own only one car less than five years old. Send a statement you are receding from consumption predicated on envy, guilt, and other negative influences.

• For each hour spent by your child viewing television without you, you must spend an hour with your child without television. "Quality time" is not enough; quantity counts, both positively and negatively. Gather up your family and play charades.

Did I mention creating rules about cell phone usage as well as iPods and ... The American educational system is broken; it is time to establish priorities on how people use their time.

• For every minute you use an electronic device to record your child's activities, you must spend two minutes without said device. The memory of the heart has to be more important than that of the succession of digits.

• Lie on your back looking at the clouds once a week. Your spirits will soar at the wondrous sight and you will become better able to keep things in perspective.

• Do not purchase more than one piece of Disney merchandise per year. This stimulates creative and independent thinking by parents, and helps to raise children who will be off-line.

• You cannot text somebody you could easily be speaking to at that moment. Quick and easy is not at all synonymous with successful interaction or the meaning of true friendship.

• Limit your trips to the shopping mall to once a month. Uh, let's see: more time to look at the clouds, anti-consumption ethic made operational, etc. etc.

• If a program, whether on television or some other delivery device, is showing an activity you could be doing at that time, you must turn it off and do it. This is healthier for the mind and body.

• Do not use FedEx; instead mail the material the regular way because you have processed it in a timely fashion. Do the important stuff first; see Stephen Covey. ("Seven Habits of Successful People")

• Stay off the airplane telephone. Relax, read a book, even if on Kindle.

• Be direct (not profane, unless selective and made mandatory by the caller's attitude) with salespeople who call you at home, especially during dinner. The telephone is your line, not theirs; besides, you can somewhat control this intrusion, unlike the automatic marketing pitches which accompany every click on the Internet.

• Dispense with your home alarm and shun living in a gated community. Now that you have dropped the consumption ethic, your fears about security do not need to be actuated.

• Do not use a garage door opener. Along with sensible eating, absence of smoking, and adequate exercise elsewhere, opening the door yourself reduces doctor bills.

• Nix on the car phone. The accident rates are like those of drunks.

• Do not buy externally-branded merchandise. Criminy! There is enough advertising already.

• Eat slower. Studies have shown that countries which eat faster have higher economic growth, but we no longer want that, do we!—do we?

• Boycott ATMs. It will make you think harder about consumption patterns, which relate to priorities and usage of time.

• Make an annual examination of your digital inventory and play the age-old game of "need" versus "want" prior to reducing what you own—or what owns you. Recycling is never going to solve the environmental problem; reduction of consumptive purchases is required.

• Almost forgot, READ. Use of printed materials by young people averages 38 minutes a day.

• Books in the house are, duh, correlated with better educational outcomes. Half of heavy electronic media users among young people have a C average or less, twice the rate of light users (Kaiser).

• Periodically substitute a handwritten letter for e-mail or texting. Aw gosh, I'm a softie, such a communication grabs the heart and gets incremental attention and response. Everything good.

In compiling these rules, I did exclude one suggestion: turn off the internet!

Only kidding; I wanted to get your attention, at least those who can read small print.

I mean, what a totally ridiculous idea. Before the Internet, reading scores for American students were the same as today, pornography was a smaller industry, and excess consumer spending was more difficult to accomplish. Healthcare costs were lower and the federal deficit was a fraction of today's level. The incidence of wars and human atrocities was similar. Why would anyone want the pre-Internet world!

Please: no letters, comments, diatribes about the difference between cause and effect, correlation compared with causation, and other intellectual concepts. Relax, take a chill pill!

Understand the real meaning of AMERICA OFF-LINE!!!

It is to get you to stop tweeting and start reflecting on your life!

(2010)

## Chapter 7:  
_American Islam_ : A Book Review

American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion, by Paul M. Barrett, is a quite useful introduction to the complex world of the Muslim religion. The author relates his interviews, all done after 9/11/01, with "The Imam, The Activist, The Webmaster, The Scholar, The Publisher, The Feminist, and The Mystics" as his way of providing insight without attempting to weave the narrative into a single, cohesive story.

The Publisher (of a bilingual English-Arabic newspaper) in Dearborn, Michigan is Osama Siblani. He is a Lebanese immigrant, fully assimilated into American culture and pro-Bush until the invasion of Iraq, which he and his colleagues passionately opposed. Dearborn is considered the largest Arab community in the country, with Paterson, New Jersey second.

The Scholar, based in Los Angeles, California, is Khaled Abou El Fadl, a reform-minded Muslim. His interpretation of scriptures justifies equality of sexes, tolerance of other religions, and opposition to religiously-inspired bloodshed.

The Imam, from Brooklyn, New York, is Siraj Wahhaj, an African-American with a mosque in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He strongly espouses personal responsibility, while refusing to condemn Osama bin Laden. He is a prominent advocate of the necessity for a "marriage" between indigenous (predominantly African-American) and immigrant Muslims.

The Feminist, from the unlikely place of Morgantown, West Virginia, is Asra Nomani. Her push for equal rights met with much opposition, with her credibility further under attack because she was an unwed mother.

The Mystics, from Burton, Michigan, are Muhammad Hisham Kabbani and wife. Their appeal is based on Muslim's structured approach to life, rather akin to the draw of fundamentalism within long-time Americans.

The Webmaster, from Moscow, Idaho, is Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who was a popular graduate student in computer science at the University of Idaho. He had led area Muslims in mourning after 9-11, but was subsequently arrested by the FBI because of materials found on his website, for which he disclaimed personal responsibility.

The Activist, based in Knoxville, Tennessee, is Mustafa Saied. As a relatively young man, he exhibited many of the traits common to similar individuals around the world, with his philosophical leanings going to the ideological fringe and then back to more sensible.

As a reader of _American Islam_ , I began with a weak, confused, and somewhat fearful base knowledge of the Islamic religion, mostly out of unawareness, one would hope, rather than the toxic combination of ignorance and stupidity. This mindset reflected a perhaps amateurish association of Islam with impossible-to-resolve historical cultural dilemmas and unadulterated terror, from anti-Semitic attacks to suicide bombers. On finishing the book, my confusion had not been eliminated and I remained fearful—this importantly includes apprehension about the American role in Muslim issues, _i.e.,_ the fear is not a one-way concept—but at least there was some knowledge which had crept into my brain.

When the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Thomas Friedman, did a _New York Times_ column wherein the reader had to guess which Mideast country was identified as "A" and which was labeled country "B," I correctly identified Iran and Saudi Arabia, even though the answers were somewhat counterintuitive. Prior to reading _American Islam_ , my chances of success would have been slim. The point of the identification is that it is our "friend," Saudi Arabia, which is seemingly responsible for exporting the worst Muslim ideas, a puritanical version called "Wahhabism," a philosophy that appears to espouse outright hatred of all other faiths, or even variations of Islam doctrine. Terrorists appear to be particularly drawn to this extremism. Saudi Arabia has financed mosques in the United States and elsewhere to propagate this faith, it has trained teachers, and it is a major publisher. Saudi Arabia does not come off well in this book, although undoubtedly a more comprehensive view of that country would include more positives than indicated by the author. Further reading is a must.

In _American Islam_ , there is certainly much evidence of internal debate among Muslims as to the proper scriptural interpretation of the Qur'an (Koran), while there is simultaneously a clearly pronounced desire by immigrant Muslims in the United States to assimilate (contrary to African-American Muslims, who are basically opting out of mainstream American culture) without in any way altering their five core beliefs: prayer, charity, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting during Ramadan, and faith.

As a generalization, immigrant Muslims have come to the United States for economic reasons, for educational opportunities, and for the freedoms of speech and religion. Some 85% are Sunnis and 15%, Shiites, which is comparable to the breakdown globally, ever since the dispute began with the struggle for Muslim leadership after Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. Shiites believe that only blood relatives are eligible to succeed the Prophet. When their leader was assassinated, a retaliation murder took place, and the lines were hardened.

Estimates of the number of Muslims in the U.S. range upwards of six million; worldwide, there are approximately 1.3 billion Muslims. Here, some 59% of adults have college degrees, twice the U.S. rate. Median family income is $60,000, 20% above that of the population overall. These numbers suggest some, but only some, of the reasons why collaboration with African-American Muslims has been a challenging task.

Clearly, there is no way to read about the Islamic religion and not see the disquieting theme of anti-Semitism, and an equally (and semi-related) troublesome theme of tolerance for terrorism, even when shunned directly by the people in question. Overall, _American Islam_ does not provide answers—none can, but it is nonetheless a useful primer, if only to better understand the influences which are behind the daily death toll of our disastrous expedition into Iraq.

## Chapter 8:  
Analysis of Change

Life is characterized by the inevitability of CHANGE. Below is a list of topics which may be relevant to CHANGE in your life. The objective is to combine a listing of changes with an analysis thereof. By doing this exercise, the individual can discern which situations are located in the right "box:" positive and controllable.

## Chapter 9:  
Bibi Garvin: Dover Town Administrator Extraordinaire

Fueled by a nutritionally outrageous diet of high-test coffee, Snickers, potato chips, and diet Pepsi, she flies through a multifaceted workday at Town Hall on North Sussex Street in Dover with intelligence, passion, energy, and commitment, and apparently without gaining weight. It is only fitting that airborne imagery be used: she has had a student's pilot license since the tender age of 17! A Master's graduate (with highest honors) in Public Administration of Rutgers University, this unusual combination of attributes is named Bibi Stewart Garvin, the Town Administrator.

Ms. Garvin was born in Guyana, an English-speaking, Idaho-sized nation of about 770,000 people (average income: $4,500) located on the Atlantic Ocean north of Brazil and east of Venezuela. Her mother is of East Indian descent (as are half of Guyanians) and her father is of African descent (about one-third of the population). Bibi's biological parents divorced two years after her birth, but her mother remarried, to a man who knew both Guyana and New Jersey. The family subsequently moved to the Garden State, specifically to the city of East Orange, which is near Newark and today has approximately 80,000 people.

Mom had a high school education and worked two or three jobs at a time, a schedule necessitated by the job-related disability of her husband. She is a fervent believer in the necessity of women to have an education, if for no other reason than to have the ability to create an independent life. Bibi took her Mom's idea of freedom a step further and enrolled for flying lessons when she was only 13, gaining her license while still a New Jersey teenager. East Orange is in a rather congested area, but it does have a flight school, Eagle Flight, which is also where Bibi met her future husband, Derrick Garvin.

As a child, Bibi had the advantage of her stepfather being home with her, even if the reason was a negative one—he had suffered a debilitating arm injury at his job as a mechanic. They would go to the park and do spelling drills, play football, and develop tricks for determining which was left and which was right (snapping of the fingers). Even when he divorced Bibi's mom, he stayed in Bibi's life as he lived nearby.

In time, Bibi graduated from Clifford Scott High School in East Orange, which perhaps is only truly noteworthy because the graduation rate in this troubled community is not high; 78% of the public school students are on Title I, which means their low family income situation entitles them to a free or reduced lunch at school. Family support, internal fortitude and resiliency probably played more of a role in Bibi's academic success than any school wide value placed on academic prowess. Already, a classroom striver was being labeled a "nerd."

Bibi then attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical in Florida for two years prior to getting married on Valentine's Day of 1995. Reflecting a military move of her husband, she subsequently transferred to the University of Hawaii, returning to Pensacola, Florida (another military location) to graduate from the University of West Florida with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science/concentration in Public Administration. Following this, they moved back to East Orange to be near family.

Bibi's husband, eight years her senior, flies commercial aircraft (the so-called "airbuses") for Northwest Airlines. Prior to this, he was in the Navy and flew the P-3 Orion and then the C-130. For those interested in flying, getting to this level ("type rating" it is called) is a long, long process. It is faster to become a doctor. Of course, you can be flying other craft, earning a living, and enjoying yourself while putting in the years and hours needed to qualify for being a pilot on the big commercial planes.

The Garvins' one and only daughter, Amani Mildred, was born a week before Bibi's final test for her Bachelor's degree. Amana is now a precocious eight year-old, already in the fourth grade (with straight As and talented musically), and hence on track to graduate from high school as a 16 year-old. She has learned the role of an informed citizen, namely speaking up when feeling that she has been wronged. In her case, she has written to the Board of Education about the school's new nutritional policy; delivery of the message was made easier by the fact that her mother Bibi is President of the Board of Education of East Orange! Moreover, having known the mayor since she was born, Amani has been known to upbraid him for not fixing all the potholes in town. Clearly there is a bright future for the offspring of Bibi and Derrick Garvin! Whether she stays in the neighborhood school system is another matter, not yet decided, perhaps because there is a slight conflict with Bibi's commitment to the traditional public school system. According to those she works with at the Board, Bibi is a "good speaker, powerful, strong, intelligent, on-time, direct, all business, always moving forward; she cares deeply about the students and has made a positive impact on education in East Orange."

At the time of her college graduation, Bibi was sought after by East Orange to take a job in the grant budget administration area, the go-between being a Rutgers professor of hers. Moreover, as a long-time resident of East Orange, her well-chronicled capabilities had become known at the very top of the local government, so this early job acceptance was perhaps slightly less eye-popping than might otherwise have been the case. At the same time, there must have been some surprised looks when a city in substantial debt brought in a "kid" to help straighten out the books. Sometimes the combination of youth, intelligence, and ambition is hard to accept by long-timers, particularly when it is packaged attractively.

After helping to put East Orange on the path to fiscal health, Bibi was open to a call she received in early 2003. A college classmate of Bibi's had risen to be mayor of River Vale, an affluent town in Bergen County, and wanted Bibi to come help him. In short order, she became town administrator (and, a year later, Police Director as well). While the challenges were completely different (example: average family income was $107,000) and diversity totally lacking, the attraction was simple: it was a promotion, with all that implies. However, her passion simply could not be maintained in that environment, which made Bibi a curious reader when she came across the want ad Dover had posted for a replacement for its long-time town administrator, who was retiring.

Knowing nothing initially about Dover, but being a quick study (and having some access to expert consultants she has known since East Orange), it took little time for Bibi to become enamored with the idea of working in a demographic environment with more variety and more difficult issues, where cultural sensitivity would have to be at least a junior partner to the senior partner of creating a smooth-running town administration. The Board of Aldermen (eight elected individuals) and the Mayor, who combined to make the hire and who represent the two-headed boss of Bibi (see footnote) were equally impressed with her capabilities, and she came to Dover in 2006. Meanwhile, some high-up people in Morristown heard of Bibi and wanted to sweep her off her feet into their bigger and even more challenging arena; Dover responded by sweetening the pot in terms of both direct compensation and benefits, both tied into a six-year contract which pays her a substantial salary, with attractive fringe benefits as well.

As an outsider, from numerous standpoints, Bibi undoubtedly has had to confront the issues attendant to such a position—"you don't understand the town's history;" or "ohmygod, so-and-so is going to be really upset by that decision," and the universally popular, "we've always done it that way." This is the standard litany which is trotted out everywhere when existing people, both jobholders and politicians, do not want anybody questioning their practices of many years.

From a style standpoint, Bibi is a hawk on documentation and data-driven decision-making, which in some sectors is regarded as normal (successful corporations, high-performing schools, sustainable non-profit organizations) but in other areas is greeted with trepidation, particularly where the people involved have grown accustomed over the years to less formal practices, where idiosyncratic memory is relied upon. Professional evaluations are used to create a baseline for subsequent performance reviews, again something which is mandatory in "best practices" situations, as is mutual agreement on "deliverables."

Perhaps naively (see footnote), maybe pragmatically, Bibi does not regard her job as being political. In fact, for those young people, and older as well, who shun all politics because they are so turned off by the incompetence/hypocrisy/unethical behavior they see displayed in their elected officials, Bibi makes a useful distinction between politics per se and public administration. Every governing body must have effectiveness in the latter area, regardless of the political make-up; as a consequence, she regards being town administrator as being involved in a "helping profession," whereas others, more cynical, would think of it as a tool for the politicians in power to pursue their own agendas, disguised as being in the public interest. Readers of Forum, including members of the I WILL WALK! program, are invited to attend a Dover Town Meeting and develop their own opinions about the interplay between politics and administration. Forum would be pleased to publish your comments on this interesting issue. To paraphrase what Thomas Jefferson once said, "if the good guys do nothing, the bad guys win automatically."

Naturally, in a town like Dover, Bibi has run headlong into the particularly sticky issue of immigration. Clearly there is a sense of some frustration on Bibi's part that high-level conversations between Hispanic leaders and the administration are lacking. As somebody who has been involved in Dover for 15 years, this writer could venture a few thoughts on why this may be true. First, as in any town, many business owners are not vested in the daily lives of the community because they do not live in the same zip code. Second, most of the local leaders have given time and energy to one community organization or another in the past, with minimal changes resulting; hence, there is a burn-out factor. Third, there is the pervasive level of fear which runs through the immigrant community when it comes to dealing with any government representative; even when the leader is fully-documented, many of his constituents may not be, which means they are reluctant to directly speak their minds.

In this area, Bibi uses the issue of overcrowding as an example of her thought process. Her approach is balanced—enforce the law while educating people as to the health and safety hazards of overcrowding, citing the recent tragic fire in Dover. Whether education by itself can really change behavior is seemingly an open question: the drive of immigrants to be in the United States often is simply to amass funds to remit to family in their home country, and their assessment of personal risk is quite different than those pursuing the stereotypical American dream of marriage, house with a white picket fence, two kids, and a dog. This is an issue which is clearly a "to-be-continued."

To make the job of Dover Town Administrator even more interesting, it should be noted that the town has some major economic changes underway. It has an overall Redevelopment Plan, the details of which are to be filled in; the span of offices on Bassett Highway ending with the bowling alley could become $300,000 condos, for example. Federal Express has opened a distribution center. Hilton will be putting up a hotel. Walgreen's is scheduled to occupy half of the renovated Kubert Cartooning School property on Route 46. Most difficult to gauge in terms of benefit-to-inconvenience ratio is the prospective reworking of bridges and roadways in town, with completely new configurations in the works, after how many years. Those who saw how long it took the government to put in the new Rockaway Road bridge shudder at the prospective delays in getting in and around this small town.

There is little question that Bibi Garvin has brought a sense of immediacy and energy to the job of Dover Business Administrator. Hopefully, her directness will be perceived as a means to an admirable end, delivery of effective, economical services by town agencies to its residents. The alternative is that, in a small town, the unshakable label of "outsider" dogs her sufficiently that, contract notwithstanding, she decides to move on. Down the road, probably way in the future, she admits to some interest in becoming a teacher, where she would be great if the students bought into her high standards approach. Without knowing her better, it is not possible to know her hidden aspirations, but, in this writer's opinion, the political arena, paradoxically, could be a logical place to see Bibi Garvin in a few years.

**Footnote** : As this article was prepared for the printer, the Dover Board of Aldermen and Mayor voted 6-3 to give themselves co-authority with the town administrator with respect to personnel hirings, promotions, and salary changes; the new ordinance also requires purchases over $1,000 to be approved by the mayor-appointed finance committee. Both represent dilution of the authority of Ms. Garvin, the town administrator they hired a year ago to bring more efficiency to operations. Did someone say "politics as usual!!!"

## Chapter 10:  
Bob Raskin: A Colorful and Complex Life

As youngsters, probably most of us have those mixed feelings about parental attendance at our sporting events. Do we want them there to see us make an error or miss the free throw or fail to make the tackle—not really, but if they are never at the game, how will they see our base hit, clutch jumper, or crucial play at the goal line. In maybe 300 games of high school baseball and basketball, Bob's father Max was there so few times that Bob can remember the details clearly almost a half-century later. (He can also recall that, among other things, his father tried to scare Bob by saying he would be bald by 17 and that he would never do well at algebra.)

"I struck out my first two times at the plate in one game, and my father left. Then I had two doubles. At a basketball game, I had two points at halftime, and Max left, which meant he missed a second half in which I scored 17 points."

The lost opportunities of his cold and distant father to create a close parental relationship in a way foretold a series of missed chances for the golden ring for Bob in his adult life. Nonetheless, as the bumper sticker says, and accurately for articulate, intelligent, energetic, personable people like Bob, when a window closes, somewhere a door opens.

Bob was born in Brooklyn in 1941. At the time, Max ran a stand which sold sausage and root beer (6 cents for the combination) at 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, a location which represented challenges to life, liberty, and the pursuit of profit. He soon switched to homebuilding, which became his single-minded interest to the exclusion of family and most things outside of his vocation. Ruth, Bob's Mom, was a homemaker. Years later, in a moment of weakness no doubt, Max consented to attend a New York Knicks-Los Angeles Lakers basketball game at the invitation of son Bob (note that this was a very hot ticket at Madison Square Garden, given to Bob as a result of his relationship with the legendary Knick coach, Red Holzman). Max was even introduced to Red and to Willis Reed. The next day Bob saw that Max was neglecting to mention the game or the introductions to his friends, who were stunned when they heard whom Max had met. Bob asked about this oversight, whereupon he was requested by Max to not invite him again to such a boring activity. Then, with almost classic obliviousness, his father inquired as to whether Bob would like to attend an exciting homebuilding dinner meeting where talk of 2x4s would fill the air. Not!

Bob's brother, Michael, was born in 1945 with a debilitating leg injury that helped steer him from any interest in sports to an interest in psychology, and he is the author of several books on the subject. Michael once told Bob they had learned two things in the household of Max and Ruth: "never ask for anything and never expect anything." Max lived to the ripe old age of 99 and Bob's mom just recently passed away, after a mercifully short bout with cancer at the age of 93. When Bob was six months old, the family moved to North Bergen, New Jersey. At seven, they moved to Chatham; by age 10, they were living in Morristown. Perhaps these multiple moves created a sense of instability; more likely, they conveyed the impression that change in life was the only constant.

Like many kids since before the first textbook was created, Bob was an indifferent student, often buried in a class of 30 pupils without any clear accountability for his actions. One Raskin story tells it all. "I had been asked by the teacher to read a section from the history book. I did so. Then the teacher asked if anybody in the class could explain the passage. Nobody volunteered, so the teacher asked me if I could explain the material. I said, 'no.' The teacher naturally asked, 'why not?' And I replied, "because I was not paying attention." Sports basically kept Bob in school, that and a brain which could be switched on to just the level needed to pass the tests. Thoughts of college did not intrude on his basketball/baseball activities; guidance counseling was such an after-thought that it literally did not take place until he graduated from high school. The idea of community college or prep school was put on the table, only to be met with a sneer from Max, who regarded such transitional education experiences as useless. Without a map to guide him, or an educational passion to frame his thinking, Bob was here and there in his path to higher education.

For example, he placed third out of 43 aspirants taking the English and Math entrance exam at Rider College and briefly contemplated the pursuit of an accounting major. However, after a few months of gaining weight and hating the whole scene, he left, taking a job at Greystone Hospital. Then a friend moved to Georgia, and Bob went along for the ride, getting a chance to play basketball and baseball and put in time toward an associates degree at a school in that state. After this fish-out-of-water episode for a garrulous metropolitan type, Bob returned to SUNY at New Paltz in New York State and, for the first time, got truly serious about education, in time receiving both a Bachelor's and Master's in Education and Sociology, which meant permanent teacher certification in New York.

Bob taught for a while in Paterson, New Jersey, at the elementary level under principal Frank Napier, who later was the superintendent when the high school was made famous by Principal Joe Clark. After this, Bob was a long-term substitute teacher at an equally challenging school on Bergen Avenue in Newark, where a tough-minded African-American teacher (later a well-known reading consultant) named George Cureton (no relation to Earl Cureton, who played in the NBA) watched Bob's back when the inevitable disputes bubbled to the surface. As a teacher, Bob preached what Bob the student had paid no attention to, do your homework and do it well, and then play your sports. The lessons must have sunk in because nearly 20 years later, when Bob was looking at cars at a Route 22 dealership, the salesman, a former student, recognized him and thanked Bob for his diligence as a teacher.

Unconvinced that the teaching profession was his life calling, in early 1968, Bob raised $600,000 in Miami in an attempt to get an ABA franchise for the prospective "Beachcombers." He fed his information to the ABA Commissioner, George Mikan, the bespectacled center who was voted the best basketball player of the first fifty years of the 20th century. Unfortunately, in one of those deals which were typical back in the frontier days of pro basketball, this information was used by Mikan to facilitate the move of the Minnesota Muskies ABA team to Miami, ending Bob's quest for an ABA presence there. The whole situation was a vivid indication of Bob's excellent promotional capability, but also the first instance of what became a pattern of falling a bit short in reaching for the home run connection which would have a meant a bigger and/or more continuous public spotlight on his life.

Bob's financial group shifted its interest to an ABA franchise in the Tri-Cities of North Carolina. Famed Tarheel Billy Cunningham, then a sixth man with the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA, reached out to Bob; Larry Brown and Doug Moe, then playing for the Oakland Oaks, were interested in being involved. Instead, James Garner, a local politician and part owner of the Hardee's restaurant chain, swooped in, paid the overdue bills of the Dallas ABA franchise and moved it to become the Carolina Cougars. In 1969, with basketball star and lawyer Walter Dukes as his associate, Bob approached the ABA's New York Nets, then owned by trucking executive Arthur Brown. Brown was totally impressed and named Bob the Nets Director of Player Personnel and Promotion, with the General Manager's job to follow in a year, which would make Raskin the youngest GM ever. The projected coach was to be Hall of Famer Bob Cousy. Separately, Roy Boe and various investment bankers were to buy 40% of the Nets, but Boe got more enthusiastic and they purchased the whole team—and unfortunately went in a totally different personnel direction.

Then, burdened by greater debt than anticipated, Boe reacted by getting rid of a young player named Julius Erving, who as Doctor J would only become one of the greatest players in history. It took decades for the Nets franchise, later moved to New Jersey, to recover from this disastrous deal; even when Bob's friend, the great Knick, Willis Reed, came into management (and Raskin became a Nets fan), there was no sustainable improvement. It took the acquisition of Jason Kidd, the drafting of Kenyon Martin and the draft day trade (a steal actually) by Rod Thorn which brought in Richard Jefferson and Jason Collins to bury the Nets status as the laughing stock of the NBA.

In 1970, Bob moved to the Eastern Basketball League's Allentown Jets, as its Director of Player Personnel and Promotion, and promptly spurred a 62% gain in attendance. With 20 games left in the season, and the team mired in 6th place in an 8-team league, Bob's constant carping about the decisions being made by the coach finally prompted the 18-person ownership group to fire that coach, to be replaced by Bob. Raskin won 17 of the remaining contests and stormed through the playoffs to win the championship; he was voted Coach of the Year, at 28 becoming the youngest ever to win that honor in the EBL. His reward was to be fired early in the next season, when he began with a 4-4 record, his team adversely affected by the loss of players to the ABA and NBA, and to injury.

At Allentown, Raskin also discovered the joy of having a well-written contract (done by Bob) as a management dispute forced him to win his compensation in court, the legal type that is, not where hoops are shot.

Clearly not hearing the message that professional basketball was not exactly a sustainable job environment, Bob moved on to Trenton (EBL), where he replaced an unsuccessful coach who previously had been scheduled to testify against Bob in the Allentown contract dispute. Coming on at the end of the year, Bob won 7 of 10 to make the playoffs, but then got swept by Allentown. A remarkable outcome of his Trenton episode was a thank you from Joe Heiser (an all Ivy-Leaguer from Princeton), whose scoring average had dropped from 20+ to about six per game, but who was nonetheless appreciative of finally playing winning basketball, totally different from the years he was an EBL All-Star but also on a losing team. Bob was rewarded for his leadership of Trenton by being fired; the owner objected to having eight blacks and only two whites on the team.

As a lifelong keen judge of basketball talent, Bob befriended a young John Williamson, later to be known as "Supe" for his scoring exploits at New Mexico State and the New Jersey Nets. He was introduced to Williamson by Supe's coach at Wilber Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut, who knew Bob could be trusted. Bob brought him to the right try-out, where Dr. J could see that Williamson had professional basketball talent. Williamson, like many inner-city black players at that time (and still) was not trusting of white people, but had developed a good relationship with Raskin, to the point of having dinner and staying overnight with Bob and his wife. But he was no more sophisticated in his understanding of contractual matters than most of his peers, and he also lacked any feeling of obligation, not having known any coming his way as a child or high schooler. Thus, when Erving's agent swooped in for the kill, attempting to ink Williamson to a contract which should have been with Bob, Williamson obliged without so much as a glance in Bob's direction. The same raw deal for Bob transpired with respect to Hawthorne Wingo, the New Yorker who was pushing garment center racks before being signed by the Knicks.

Did I mention that when the Buffalo Braves were created as an NBA expansion team, Bob sought the head scout job, and GM Eddie Donovan narrowed a large field of candidates to only Bob and Johnny McCarthy, who had been a teammate of the Buffalo coach Dolph Schayes with the Syracuse Nationals; McCarthy was chosen. Schayes was a great player, but like many "greats", a poor coach. Did I relate the situation with Lancaster, when Bob returned from a road trip to Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine, packed up his wife and child for a Christmas dinner with Max and Ruth—and got a phone call saying he was fired. Or how about Mozambique, where a country uprising prevented Bob from becoming the coach of the national team, or the aborted chance for coaching a team in Barcelona. And then there was the New Jersey Gems, a woman's professional team; Bob lost in the finals to the female candidate. Perhaps most dramatic in terms of long-term potential was the chance to become an assistant to an NBA coach if a certain individual had received the latter job; alas, said individual did not get the position, so it was not to be for Bob.

Returning to a coaching situation which garnered publicity for the EBL and Bob in different sports publications, in 1978, in what one of his players, Seton Hall's Glen Mosley (an early first round pick by the NBA 76ers), described as his most exciting series ever, Bob's Lancaster Red Roses team won the fifth and deciding semifinals game 115-113, versus the Northern Knights, in a series played in Anchorage, Alaska. In the final game of the emotionally anticlimactic championship round versus the Wilkes-Barre Barons, two key players arrived at halftime after driving in the wrong direction, and two more showed up as the national anthem was played. Can anyone say "lost opportunity?"

Bob has had numerous other basketball involvements, _e.g._ , benefit games and one-time coaching situations. Photos of Bob's colorful and complex life are everywhere in his home: with his championship Eastern Basketball League team, with Bob Cousy, with Willis Reed, with Meadowlark Lemon of Harlem Globetrotter fame. There is a telegram from the two-sport star Gene Conley to Red Auerbach in which Conley recommends Bob's talents as the "best player evaluator he knows" (as demonstrated by his recommendation of George Lehmann to Bill Sharman, the former Celtic great who was coaching of the Los Angeles Stars). There were years when Auerbach, arguably the greatest basketball coach in NBA history, and the incomparable player/later GM Jerry West received NBA draft inputs from Raskin.

In 1972, while Bob was living his nomadic life as a basketball junkie, he married Michele (usually called Shelley). His wife taught school in Bayonne, providing the steady income which could offset the roller coaster of cash flow from basketball. That she loved the game herself probably goes without saying, for she must have had innumerable meals alone at home and contact with Bob which was limited to the telephone. After seven years in Elizabeth, Bob and Shelley moved to Union, where daughter Robin was born in 1979. In time, Bob began to change his life, gradually evolving into a Mr. Mom, at least for a few years. In addition, plagued by a collapsed disc since age 24, Bob stopped his own sport activities for over twenty years, eventually returning to play softball in the over 50-league.

During this period, after a suitable hiatus, Bob became intrigued with another form of spectator entertainment, professional wrestling. A wrestling referee friend of his, knowing of Bob's innate restlessness and love of promotion, invited him to take a look, and Bob got the bug; before that, he would switch the channel if wrestling were on. For a period of about ten years, under the name "United States Wrestling Alliance," Bob packaged, produced, and promoted professional wrestling in 19 different states. His daughter Robin played with the kids of the star Sargeant Slaughter and he became a close friend of Bruno Sammartino, one of the best known wrestlers in the country. Most importantly perhaps in terms of being successful in a new field, he had a reputation for being honest—when he promised that Bruiser Brody or Dangerous Linda Dallas was going to be at your local arena, those stars were sure to show up. The result was a good promotion, with attendance figures rising and crowds of all ages enjoying the spectacle. Honest, gentleman, and promoter are words not usually found in the same sentence, but with Bob they were, and are.

Bob's first wife passed away on New Year's Eve of 1985. Later, after dating for eight years—Myrna naturally was introduced to Bob by a sports writer (even though she is not basketball savvy), he married for the second time, in 2002, and moved to a beautiful condo in Long Branch, New Jersey, directly across the street from the beach. His two stepdaughters, Shana and Becky, like daughter Robin, have Master's degrees and are about to find out that Bob and Myrna have purchased the condo below their own for the daughters use when visiting. Bob's wife is a Learning Disabilities Teaching Consultant and a member of the Child Study Team for the Marlboro, New Jersey elementary school system. She has been an LDTC for four years, following a long period as a classroom teacher.

Bless her heart, she did not object, at least not strenuously, when Bob—after a happenstance meeting at a basketball court in Union in 2002, where he heard of the Chatham Senior Center and its availability for basketball for guys of advanced age and undiluted passion—decided to venture northwest. It is a 90-minute drive from Bob's condo; after hoops and maybe a quick sandwich at a nearby deli, he heads to Union, where an owned-house serves as a business office as well (Bob has interests, as a passive investor, in a few office buildings, the highest grossing restaurant in Monmouth County, and a private investment which has quadrupled in value). A few hours later, he makes the return trip to Long Branch, his legs stiff and his eyes fighting the urge to close for a night's sleep.

Basketball, in case there is any misunderstanding, is a contact sport, as contrasted to football, which is a deliberate collision sport, or dance, which in many forms is a non-contact activity. This truism was reinforced for Bob when, two years ago, inadvertent, but excessive bodily contact at the Senior Center resulted in Bob incurring a severe ankle injury. As often happens, an injury in one part of the body became associated with other difficulties, in Bob's case, substantial weakness in his knees. The outcome has been a necessity to wear cumbersome knee supports and an associated inability to cut quickly or jump for a rebound. Concern over becoming further injured is not far from his mind, and in this, he has the same thought as a majority of the people at the Senior Center, but when you know that your passion leaves you with difficulty walking at the end of the day, the concern is more than casual.

Not lost to injury, however, has been Bob's ability to see the floor, make the right pass, set the pick which frees a teammate for an open look, and shoot a high-arching shot (no layups for him) with good accuracy (it seems like close to 50%), particularly in the clutch. At that shooting rate, with 40 years less age and good knees and a healthy disc, maybe the Chatham Senior Center player named Bob Raskin could be a multimillion dollar star in today's NBA!

## Chapter 11:  
College Checklist: Deciding Between "The Two"

College Finalist

The Many Voices in a Student's Ear:

A = Above Average Confidence in a Positive Situation

B = Average

C = Below Average

## Chapter 12:  
College Graduation: A Wonderful Culmination

" _Where are the tickets?"_

" _Mom has them."_

" _No, you were supposed to have them—WHERE are they!_

" _Hey, I'm the GRADUATE—the tickets are for you, you know, my family and support group._

" _Wait, let me text Dad, maybe he has them."_

" _Yeah, like he is going to check his text messages!"_

" _Okay, I'll call him on his cell."_

" _Yeah, much better, he checks his phone every hour or so."_

" _Where we will meet afterward?"_

" _HELLO, we have not even left yet and we have not located the tickets; can we leave the after-ceremony arrangements for later!_

" _But your aunt and uncle want to join us."_

" _Great, I don't see them for two years and now they want to share in MY special occasion."_

" _Be nice, they love you."_

" _Whatever."_

" _Who has the camera? Does it need batteries?"_

And so college graduation day begins: a unique combination of garbled communication, raw emotion, and stress—magically being transformed and culminating in that moment of total exhilaration when you remember what the day is about—a celebration! The "kid" has grown up, maybe not completely but he or she is certainly much closer to being an independent adult. They will have a college diploma, that "ticket" to enter into a job conversation, to embark on a career path, to create a sustainable life path. Hopefully!!!

At graduation itself, the student awaiting his or her name to be called—which unfortunately does not happen at all college-wide graduations—is conflicted: eager anticipation of a new life coupled with the thought expressed by many of his peers that the "best years of their lives" are now behind them.

Admittedly, excluding the graduates themselves, the only reason anybody else attends a graduation is to see somebody you know walk to the stage and hear that student's name called. This specific activity only seconds, but you are there at least two hours. When the anticipated name is called, if you had your druthers, you would grab your ex-kid, take the obligatory pictures (which truly are special), leave the proceedings and head to the nearest Chinese restaurant to celebrate. However, the graduate wants to stay through the whole celebration, hugging and high-fiving classmates, snapping pictures on his fancy phone and knocking the beach ball around one more time.

Hence, you are supposed to sit relatively still while maybe 2,000 other names are read, followed by the Alumni Association speaker who protests too much that he/she only wants the new graduate's time and energy, not their dues. In truth, during this part of the graduation ceremony, the combination of disinterest, wait time, and boredom is reflected in constant chattering in the audience, in multiple languages for sure. The person who might on a rare occasion admonish somebody else for talking is the same one who answers her cell phone.

Meanwhile, college officials are asking for some type of decorum among the audience. Sorry, it is impossible for "first-college-graduate-in-family" supporters, or "long distance" travelers, or those "who-have-overcome-incredible-hurdles to graduate" to not shout out or avoid standing on chairs or blocking aisles to take pictures.

"Hey, college administrators, I just gave you $100,000 and I will scream and take my once-in-a- lifetime photographs, thank you."

Taking a step back to give added flavor to the graduation ritual, these are thoughts from specific college graduations of three years ago, when the world thought the financial debacle of 2007/08 was in the rearview mirror and this country believed it was poised for a typical v-shaped economic rebound.

• **The School of Visual Arts:** The octogenarian speaker talked about the brain, only connecting it to the college's graduates in the last of a series of power point slides. Go figure.

• **New Jersey Institute of Technology** : In case you wondered about the connection of college to business, the speaker was a Panasonic executive. His company had recently announced that it was moving a substantial number of jobs to Newark, home of NJIT. Separately, for those like me who are infuriated by the absence of the Dream Act, to see Yuan Yuan and Ahmed Ahmed (real names) receive their diplomas and in all probability return to their home countries to compete with the United States, while we turn our backs on undocumented American students who want to be engineers, the contrast is beyond irritating. It is societally stupid!

• **St. Elizabeth's College** : When the speaker ran through a number of stories, the biggest applause was for a soldier returning from Afghanistan. One hopes it bespeaks of gratitude for what the soldier has sacrificed rather than an automatic endorsement of the military action itself.

• **Columbia University** : The threat of rain kept some speeches short (hurray!). Each department of the school had its own clever symbol, _e.g._ the engineers had plastic hammers.

• **CCM** : President Yaw adhered to his formula of many years, telling the life stories of a half-dozen specific graduates, delivered in a monotone which challenged a listener's ability to stay awake.

• **Rutgers Newark** : Graduate Diego Ortiz, whom I know well, delivered the student speech, and it was the best of any speaker in May. He admonished Rutgers for its payment to Snooki, referenced the heavy debt level incurred by most graduates, and challenged students to determine their own legacies. Did I mention that he was undocumented at the time.

To compare these graduations in a manner designed to hand out stars ala a movie or restaurant critic is to miss their essential logic and appeal, and hence I will not do so. They are all wonderful for what they signify, and I would not miss them—"God willing and the creek don't rise!"

And now it is 2014. I am tempted to quote the philosophical bumper sticker: "the more things change, the more they stay the same." But mostly it ain't true!

Yes, the graduation still rings out with "we love you" and loud cheering. Yes, there is the student who dances across the stage or does a cartwheel or bumps fist with a professor.

But in three years, there are differences, some trivial (like the fad of selfies), most not so minor when one steps back from the hoopla per se and looks at the total picture.

Perhaps most importantly, in terms of its direct impact on college graduates, there are two fundamental differences: (1) large numbers of recent diploma-earners are employed at jobs which are below what they believe they have prepared themselves for academically and (2) employers have significantly pushed forward on their demands for more/higher credentials, clear evidence that they do not trust the very diploma the graduate proudly holds aloft.

Reacting to the broad picture—the country's educational deficiencies—reform is on "everybody's" lips, including those who want to push back against the attempt to lift academic rigor at all levels of the education spectrum, including college. The adults are fighting, like children in a sandbox, except with a vocabulary that presumably is not taught in the classroom. Meanwhile, the SAT is being revised to be more aligned with Common Core, the projected new standards in a country which has no education policy per se. Colleges are being scrutinized more closely about their graduation rates and their (excessive) cost. They are being pressured by women's groups and the federal government to be more responsive to the many assaults on campuses.

More favorably, at least in theory, students now have more information available to them in selecting their college: the COA: Cost of Attendance and the NPC: Net Price Calculator, to name two improvements. The key variable in the whole financial matrix ( _i.e.,_ ignoring the non-financial aspect of higher education) nonetheless boils down to a single number: debt, those student loans. Economists now believe that these debt loads on college graduates are visible constraints to economic growth; young people are not able to be active consumers because of their immediate financial obligations.

If the cost of higher education was not itself leading to wider characterization of colleges as businesses, there is no absence of unfortunate legalese. West Chester University's president announced at graduation that the school was not handing out real diplomas, but "replicas thereof." You could hear the crowd groan. Then, Nyack College felt compelled to put in its graduation material the following disclaimer: "The appearance of a name or the designation of an honor in this program is presumptive evidence of graduation or honor, but it must not be regarded as conclusive. The transcript is the official testimony of a degree or entitlement to an academic honor. " (P.S. all bills must be paid too!)

On-line education, in 2011 mostly the province of for-profit colleges—which are under perpetual political heat for their marketing practices, is now available through top-name universities or businesses created by former professors thereof. Meanwhile, at a different place on the education spectrum, there is increased attention being paid to the marketable skills category—industrial America cannot find enough machine operators, as only one example.

As indicated, each of these factors is significantly different from what existed in the environment of only a few years back. If you believe that the recognition of difficulties is the first step to positive change, then one should be happy about the above listing of challenges.

To close the loop, and reiterate that college graduations remain occasions of joy, even if diluted when the high of the moment eventually gives way to cold analysis, these are observations on graduations I attended in 2014:

• **Nyack College** , a Christian College, had the best music of any graduation around. Moreover, it succeeded in locating two highly successful Hollywood people who are unafraid to discuss their faith in public – and gave them honorary degrees.

• **Iona College** : Honoree Cardinal Timothy Dolan made a joke about lending his unique garb to Lady Gaga and later uttered some strange comments about what students "cannot do." Perhaps he was indirectly being reflective about an unfortunate number of priests.

• **Lafayette College** : the female Prime Minister of Jamaica talked about the twin necessities of increasing the number of STEM graduates and integrating diverse skills into the new world of multiple ethnicities. It was a laidback ceremony, with the graduates and audience occupying movable chairs on a large lawn entitled "The Quad."

• **Rutgers Newark University** : don't ask! A slow procession was matched by a methodical reading of 2,380 names. Uh, almost five hours! and this without any lengthy speeches.

• **University of Scranton** : It appeared that a mini-contest existed with respect to inscriptions on mortarboards. One had a glass, some grapes, and a cut of cheese. Another said, "I do not know what I am doing."

• **Wesleyan College** : another beautiful outdoor setting, with the graduates marching down a hill to take their seats on a large lawn, aka "quad" when it comes to big open grass at colleges.

• **Air Force/ROTC** : This was a Commissioning ceremony for ten individuals who became Air Force Second Lieutenants in the process, with postings ranging from Italy to Arizona.

These are some general takeaways:

• Every guest speaker informs the students that they have the capability to "change the world."

• No surprise—the changing demographic composition of the student body is far ahead of any shifts at the faculty and leadership level.

• It seems that a growing percentage of students receive academic honors.

• If Disney did the procession, it would take half the time.

• The rituals of college graduation and those of the military are similar in their complex multi-color displays of accomplishments and privilege.

## Chapter 13:  
Colleges, Nursing Homes, and Colombian Kidnappers Beware: Accountants at Work

Maybe it is the residue of over 15 years of interaction with so-called "higher education institutions," or perhaps it is the seemingly inevitable cynicism of advancing age, or—there just might be a long list of particulars that could be listed in a blanket indictment. In any case, when I was recently listening to somebody describing a bureaucratic interaction with college officials, my distorted mind immediately thought of both nursing homes and Colombian kidnappers.

Each endeavor is vitally concerned in fulfilling their mission with knowing the income of every family member, regardless of background, unusual circumstances, etc. Each is keenly interested in all assets, from the dollar bills folded up in the sugar bowl to the heirloom jewelry to the 401(k). In all cases, obtuse formulae are artfully employed by the accountants to determine the fair amount to be extracted from each individual and family thereof, whether it be a student, an aged man or woman, or a vulnerable kidnappee. Well-paid accountants, backstopped by either lawyers or clever criminals (please forgive those who confuse the two career paths), are crucial to each of the three enterprises.

Contrary to the philosophical basis of capitalism, none of the transactions involving this unholy trio involve a contract which has been freely entered into by both sides. In today's world, students are in clear need of the degrees that college businesses sell for exorbitant prices; without that piece of paper, economic expectations are quashed. Nursing homes, by definition, cater to those people who are desperately in need of the warehousing services provided; their room-and-board options are few if any. Kidnappers need funds to pursue their various objectives; their "clients" do not come willingly of course.

It is recognized that colleges are structured as non-profit entities, but when you pull back the curtain, you see overpaid administrators and professors, buildings of no value to the typical undergraduate student, and a hubris which is suffocating. They are businesses of the worst kind, wanting never to be described as such. They have no concern for their costs, instead lauding their ability to provide debt to their customers, so that price becomes irrelevant in their eyes.

Nursing homes, on average, are avaricious, with their customers fundamentally incapable of negotiating. Sorry about the stereotyping, but they seem to be managed by people whose hearts and minds are in the tightest calculation of government funding streams, not in the daily lives of their occupants.

Capitalizing on their roots of several decades ago, Colombian guerilla kidnappers often still attempt to masquerade as political philosophers, but they have no more of a justification for their actions than their paramilitary counterparts. The function of kidnapping, like the function of drug trafficking, has been transformed into a business, subject to all the normal accounting considerations: how much can the client/customer/victim afford, what other financial sources will come to the aid of the victim, what should be the payment schedule, and what is the risk of collateral damage, whether it be a political outcry (usually ineffectual) or incremental paramilitary reaction (considerably more painful).

Why am I irritated at this particular moment? Because I have the foundation checkbook out and I am trying to determine how to write scholarship checks for totally deserving students without getting screwed by the very universities who are receiving said funds!

## Chapter 14:  
Commitment

This was originally written in July of 2003; the updated version is totally applicable today.

I have been to a few therapists in my life—no surprise, I am sure—and the one thing these semi-useful people agreed on was that an individual needs his or her own way to get negativity out of their system. For me, it's a combination of exercise and writing. So, when irritated, I go for a good jog, thinking about the various aspects of my bad mood and trying to collect them in an essay which hopefully would be taken as constructive. The word which often bubbles to the top is Commitment.

Once, as I walked to the parking lot, a computer program graduate asked me about getting into the XP class. I knew he was not on the waiting list, but that he was a good conscientious individual who would be there if he Committed. How tempting it was to just say "Yes", when students who had signed up did not come for the first night. But I did not; my Commitment was to the principle of the waiting list, and the fair process for getting on that list. If I was unfair to the people on that list, I am endorsing them being unfair to me. That is counterproductive.

There was an empty seat in a basic skills computer class. An IWW member said her sister could take it; again I had to say no, the Commitment is to a defined process treating all equally. I met a walk-in whose whole personal history was one of Commitment. I had to tell her about the long odds of becoming a member, given the length of the waiting list. And yet, we have members who do not show Commitment, so yes, I was tempted to just say, "hey, you're in" and jump her over all the other possible candidates.

IWW is built on two tangibles: education and volunteering. The rest is a collection of intangibles: friendship, support, mutual interests, opportunity to pursue ideas (and convert them into tangible projects). It is totally up to the individual how much value they put on these aspects, how often they come to the office, etc. But a Commitment to the two tangibles is mandatory. We cannot and do not fix lives. What we do is to facilitate empowerment through education for those who are Committed.

I have been involved in educational endeavors for over ten years. You can be sure I have heard every story (most of them true) about status difficulties, terrible housing situations, problems in the family, health challenges, the need to send money back to the home country, car breakdowns, high cost insurance, loss of jobs, change in job hours, relationship issues, etc. etc. I am not so naïve to think that even a Committed person can always overcome these challenges. However, the Committed person fights against detours, by thinking ahead and by being extra determined, and still has his or her goal in mind when a detour is absolutely necessary.

Every morning on the streets of Dover, there are about 50 guys who are looking for jobs. How many of them would like to learn English—not all, but a lot. How many people are we helping to learn English—a lot. What does it take to learn English—study, practice, Commitment.

When you bring me an idea, please put some data in it. Don't simply say, "this is to help the community". Do the Who, What, When, Where, Why, How. Nobody is looking for perfection, but make some estimates—is the idea designed to help five people or 50, etc. Who will do the work; what is the schedule? Not doing the required work to make an idea understandable makes me question whether you are Committed to devoting the energy necessary to make the idea real.

Thank you for reading this. I hope you know that my frustrations come from a place of love, and that I am Committed to helping all those who themselves are Committed.

Peace.

(2003)

## Chapter 15:  
Credibility

Author Stephen Covey has become a multi-multimillionaire as the result of continuing huge book sales of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There have been updated versions, spin-offs, and all manner of related materials in this mini-publishing empire. Maybe I missed something, or maybe it is economic jealousy, but when I read the above book the one and only time, it seemed to boil down to one thing: "do the important things first." It would be tempting to simply say, "duh!" but in truth, large numbers of people have difficulty actually identifying which are the more important items on their to-do list. Or they live an entirely reactive life, letting each day roll in, and then deciding that day's activities based on what that day demands, irrespective of how those individual days stitch together to create a life.

Even when people can enumerate what is more important, those tasks are quite often the more challenging, either for specific reasons or for emotional reasons which are hard to shake in order to move forward. As is always the case, "excuses" can be weak or relatively strong. However, when a person is constantly ducking the mandate of doing the important things first, "credibility" quite often becomes a casualty.

People say they will do something, because they know they should do it, but then inevitably, as in a card game, that resolve goes to the bottom of their list and is discarded; instead, more fun endeavors get done. Of course, the whole scenario becomes much more complicated when a person is unfortunately not in control of very much in their lives. Occupying a low-paying job is almost simultaneous with having no real control; when the boss says jump, the employee has to ask, "how high?" He or she cannot respond by saying that they have more important things to do. The "trick" is that people frequently fool themselves as to what is important. As a result, they make statements of intention on all manner of subjects, seemingly oblivious to the damage to their credibility when they cannot follow through on some, or all, of their verbalized objectives.

Credibility obviously encompasses far greater issues than "mere" punctuality. However, this latter trait can be like the drop of coloring agent in the container of otherwise clear liquid—it can change the whole picture. A commitment to be at a certain place to meet with a certain person at a certain time means that those people cannot make any other commitment for that time and place. To individually make a contradicting commitment is to unilaterally change the understanding, and without communication to boot.

Since there is either a tacit or explicit agreement as to how much time a meeting will take, being late disrupts a busy person's entire schedule. More importantly, if a person becomes known as being late and/or making last minute changes, it means that their future "commitments" become suspect. The credibility of their words is weakened, which means the credibility of the person is inevitably tarnished. It is rare that a person has complete credibility elsewhere and a lack of credibility when it comes to punctuality or following through on meeting commitments. You play the game as you practice.

When the legendary American financier J.P. Morgan was asked a century ago for his lending criteria, he replied, "a man's character." In today's ultra-complicated global society, the source of words has been turned over to third parties: Google, Wikipedia et al. The veneer of credibility which these information and opinion sources convey very easily becomes part of the everyday dialogue. Question, "how do you know this?" Answer, "I Googled it."

Such a response carries great weight, in contrast to one saying, "David Jones wrote it," and yet underneath, it is the David Jones writing which is the Google source, not anything created by Google itself. The point here is that the educated person must be able to assess the credibility of the underlying sources of his/her thoughts for they become part of his/her statements, opinions, and actions, the sum of which speaks to a person's credibility.

"Do as I say, not as I do" is age-old contradictory advice, usually from parents to kids, but also apparent in adults who are leaders in one capacity or another only to have their overall lives reveal shortcomings of major importance. The opposite approach is one of transparency, an admirable trait which is difficult to truly accomplish, as full disclosure is not something most people would be comfortable with. Nonetheless, if you could look at a person's checkbook, garbage can, Netflix orders, and website searches, you probably could come up with an accurate profile of the life of any individual.

As a final comment, honesty and credibility are related, but not synonymous. You can be honest contextually, _i.e.,_ the words are correct, without revealing all you know about a particular subject, which means that true credibility is lacking. If you think of starting a business with partners, or securing a lifelong romantic relationship, or moving ahead in all the different situations of a life, the realization of how important credibility is rises to the fore.

## Chapter 16:  
Crinkly: Memories of My Months in the Basement

I lie on my cot, strategically placed along the passageway to the bathroom, sized to accommodate the large church above. Sleep is confined to one eye as the stream of women going to the bathroom to use its ample sinks to wash their clothes is endless, mostly from midnight to three in the morning. Technically, the 25 single females (all over 35 years of age) are not supposed to be washing their clothes in the church basement, but I am not about to redirect homeless women to the all-night laundromat several blocks away.

After they have methodically squeezed moisture out and air dried their clothes, the women return to their lockers for the final step: separating these clothes functionally for packing in their mobile chest of drawers, aka shopping carts. To do this, they employ multiple plastic bags.

When liberated from their confines and opened to receive contents and reshaped to use space most efficiently, the plastic bags—crinkle.

That unique noise, repeated dozens of times in the otherwise quiet early am hours, will always be with me. A contemporary crinkle will take me back to that basement homeless shelter of a quarter century ago—and the experiences which collectively were the epiphany of my life.

(2014)

## Chapter 17:  
Do You Really Want to Move the Needle

This ancient piece remains on-point; it prods students to think more deeply. The essay was written with love, yes of the tough-minded variety, after more than a decade of being immersed in the Hispanic community and interacting with several hundred people of different ages and backgrounds.

When you are looking at the gas gauge in your car, the arrow, which is referred to as the "needle," indicates the relative amount of fuel you have in the tank. In other gauges or graphs of different socioeconomic variables, the needle moves, for example, from low income to high income, or from low education to high education. Thus, "moving the needle" is associated with going from a less desirable to a more desirable situation.

Through my third-floor office window, I see people of all ages walking East or West on Blackwell Street, the main boulevard of Dover, a town which in its rhythms is more like a little city, a town which has a unique ethnic mixture—roughly two-thirds Hispanic and one-third Anglo—with most of the latter wanting to turn back the clock about 25 years. Some of those on the street are not walking at all, instead are standing and talking with their friends, or waiting for who knows what or whom. In the morning, they may simply be hoping that the passing truck will offer them a job for a day. Some are striding briskly, the intentionality of their lives evident from the pace they request of their feet.

The stories of remarkable success are frequent and well-known in the Hispanic community. The young woman from Ecuador who came here as a child and who next year, still in her low twenties, will receive her Master's from a prestigious New York City university, while holding down an important job at a leading international company. The articulate professor in his home country of Colombia who has come here and learned the language and the culture and is interested in graduate school work, all in just a few years. The somewhat older woman, also from Colombia, who had not set foot in a classroom for twenty years, now the proud possessor of a bachelor's degree. To be associated with such people, to have helped a little along the way, is one of the greatest rewards of my life.

And yet, how many of these Blackwell pedestrians, I wonder, will live exactly the same way tomorrow as they did yesterday. Sure, the polls show that everybody wants "a better life". But how many truly understand what it takes to commit to becoming educated, to finishing, not just starting, to truly want to "move the needle"—to sacrifice beyond the point of fatigue, past the fear that their status will be revealed by the driver of the next passing police car—in order to raise the economic standing of their children, either current or projected, so that the struggles of the next generation will be lessened?

(Warning: parts of the following verbiage may lead readers to conclude I am engaged in a harangue, "blaming the victim" as it were. In truth, I am instead trying to say that the "victim" cannot wrap himself in a "no-fault" cloak. I am asking for self-analysis, which is necessary for any depth of understanding. I am asking that the collective mentality be proportionately reduced, with the new space being occupied by individual responsibility, more "I" statements, instead of exclusive reference to the "theys" of a person's life. It is not a "they" who reads a book or takes a test; it is an "I." At the same time, I vigorously applaud the efforts of the "theys" who have provided the various kinds of support structures needed for those individuals who have risen above obstacles of all kinds and accomplished their educational objectives.)

Primarily you come to the United States for economic reasons, with the second reason being safety. You do not come for the weather (certainly not in this area!), the food, the music, the culture, or our dysfunctional Kindergarten-twelfth grade public school system, which sees its students do less well in terms of international comparisons the longer they stay in school! You quickly realize, if you did not know it when you left your home country, that speaking and writing English has major positive economic consequences. Then why do you not practice it more and why do you not push your loved ones, especially your children, in that direction? Yes, there are a myriad of things "wrong" with any ESL program, just as it is "wrong" to arrive late for class, to not complete homework, and to be happy, not upset, when your teacher cannot be at class or says it is okay to come late.

Do you simply want to cede the better jobs to Anglos, at a time when the correlation of education to income is higher than ever, and the income differences between moving the needle and not are widening? Do you want to devalue whatever degree you have by staying behind in English? Do you want to applaud the creation of a local Spanish newspaper without also thinking about the seductive danger it represents, if you want to move the needle that is?

Do you really believe your grade or your job or the expectations of you as a person should be based on your "life story" or on "effort" rather than "objective accomplishment," to use the three categories described by a well-known Hispanic educational leader? When you go up in the plane, do you want a pilot who had a tough childhood or one who is great at flying the aircraft? When you have an electrician in to fix the outlet in your child's room, do you want one who tries real hard or one who will fix the problem so your family is not at risk of physical harm? Do you want a teacher who knows his or her subject?

It is admirable and natural to want to "preserve your culture", whatever that actually means—do you really want to preserve every aspect of your "culture", _e.g._ , widespread and persistent political instability and corruption? You have the opportunity, because of both physical proximity and, more importantly, inexpensive communications spawned by the Internet/cell phone era, to stay connected in a way that immigrants of a hundred years ago could not. In that context, are you nervous that your children will forget their heritage, which surrounds them at home and many other places, if their skill in Spanish is matched by expertise in the English language necessary for their advancement in the society to which you have brought them? Do you help them by not speaking English at home?

Do you look at being in this country as primarily a place to obtain some incremental education and then go back to your home country at the earliest possible opportunity, if it is safe and the unemployment rate among college graduates is not too high? If you do not even profess a desire for roots, do you realize that you weaken your argument with the virulent anti-immigrants who simply want to brand all undocumented aliens and illegals as criminals, putting them on the next plane or in the next border patrol car?

Would your leaders consider endorsing the English-only amendments to state constitutions, which require use of the English language for interacting with the government but for nothing else? I am naïve politically, but I would wager that such a move would win you so much political goodwill that you could get certain positive legislation passed—for example, giving colleges the ability to treat undocumented high school graduates as residents solely for the purpose of providing access to higher education, including relevant financial aid.

If you want to move the needle, please do not moan and groan about your deficiencies in math or writing, encourage the creation of workshops for those purposes, and then not show up. The tutors do not need the work in math or writing. You do. That is what you said and that is what the record from your college indicates to be true. If you want to move the needle, please regard closure—completing a task you have said you want to get done—as your friend, not as part of a subversive culture, and think of words not as casual collections of letters, but as inevitably linked to your credibility, without which you become devoid of sustainable respect.

Try, as we all should, to think "outside of the box" of your life to this point. Similar to my own situation, growing up in a one-traffic light town of a thousand people, it is not possible that your upbringing prepared you for every complexity in your semi-new world.

If you want to move the needle, do not persuade me to bring you into an educational program and then proceed to tell me that you do not have time to pursue education with energy and passion. You and the person next to you on the plane coming to this country each has 168 hours per week to use. I know you have to work, and most typically at low-paying jobs, maybe even a full-time and a part-time, and I realize that you have no true control over your work schedule, and that a sudden cash need (often health-related) dictates changes unforeseen even the day before.

But do not tell me you have time to be at the computer downloading all manner of entertainment, to party at the drop of an invitation, to buy and care for a house and/or a car, to find and nurture a romantic relationship, to get yourself or yours pregnant and see your life/time allocation change overnight, to make long trips back to see family in the home country, and then tell me that "I can only take this many credits because I do not have time for more."

Before you go ballistic, please note that anyone, which includes me, can easily see that these are all personal decisions, none of which are my business. I am simply noting that time is, on the one hand, fixed—there is an absolute limit, and, on the other hand, malleable—people make time mean different things. Those who want to move the needle must prioritize time differently. When they tell family or friends they must study, and must physically separate themselves in order to do so, they hope the former will understand, but if they do not, the needle-movers study anyway.

They understand the difference between leading a purely consumptive life, where all time-energy-money is poured into today's pleasures, and a balanced life, where part of what you do on a daily basis is an investment which has no current payback but is geared to moving the needle long-term.

If you disagree with the challenges posed by the thrust of this essay, it seems to me you are saying that the current/historical approaches by Hispanic immigrants who want to move the needle are proving successful at a rate which does not argue for important changes. Looking at 25 years of data on the subject suggests the opposite is true, that there needs to be a paradigm shift which closes the gap between the rhetoric of wanting a better life, and what actually takes place on a daily basis.

There needs to be that increased self-examination which can create a better understanding of the different types of sacrifices necessary to attain a better life on a sustainable basis. And yes, there needs to be a societal response to the absurdly high cost of college and the difficulties in financing it; perhaps an affirmative action program based on income, not ethnicity, would be appropriate, as would the aforementioned legislation which would allow colleges to treat undocumented high school graduates in a fair and sensible manner.

What would I like, in the ideal situation when the impossible—perfect understanding of each person's circumstance—is available? To have a program which fully funded those individuals who through their rationally focused energy and passion demonstrate they want to move the needle, and to cheer on, but not fund, those who do not demonstrate such characteristics. I would like to avoid the loss of personal interest and withdrawal of energy which often affects those program leaders who transition to this state of mind and body from their initial unsophisticated and undifferentiated optimism.

I would like the "hope" that is behind every decision, whether personal or professional, to carry me through the frustrating days and deliver me whole to that beautiful graduation day when I see people "walking" who would otherwise probably not have had the opportunity. It is that graduation day which is the one time in the year when I allow myself to say out loud, "I am proud of the path I have taken." [F]

With the invitation having been extended by me, there were multiple letters to the editor, of which a representative two are reprinted below.

The first letter was from Angela Bermudez, a member of I WILL WALK!

"'Do you really want to move the needle?' in my opinion is a very strong, controversial subject. For some people, it could even be taken as an offense from an "outsider." To me, it is the reality we live day after day. A simple example is my Mom. A couple of years ago, before she started studying English, she would say, "I'm too old and it's too hard." But now, she is actually getting it. I know it's harder for her and sometimes she feels like giving up, but she's got us to remind her that it's not only important for her job, daily life, or even for becoming a resident/citizen, but it is for herself, to make her feel better as a person, to be proud about achieving something she thought would be impossible.

Like you wrote, most of us are afraid of our status, and feel that because of that we have to work with what was given to us. Most of us are afraid of rejection, afraid of being told we are not good enough. Some others are just so used to doing what they do, and feel that change is not necessary for them to succeed, and there are others who are just lazy. We should all understand that sacrifices must be made in order to get what we want. Nothing is for free, and we shouldn't expect anything to be given to us just for waiting around; you can only expect great rewards after trying and succeeding.

About 'preserving our culture, whatever that actually means,' for our parents it's very important. When we say that we don't want our culture to change, it merely means that we are more family-oriented and our household is a priority in every aspect and for that to change would be like changing our way of living, the way we look at things and our decision-making. We should all understand that sacrifices must be made in order to get what we want.

I couldn't tell you how much I love this country, and how much I miss mine. They both have a home-feeling to me. If it weren't for the opportunities given to me here, I wouldn't be where I am, I would have stayed waiting on tables (I am not saying it's bad or anything, but it's not what I want for me in the future), and not really worrying about my future. For that, I have to thank my parents and sisters. They always pushed me to be better and they still do ... and I am glad they do. There are so many opportunities out there waiting to be taken, but our fears blind us and make us insecure about what we can do.

I feel that I am lucky to be in a family which wants to move the needle; we want to make changes, we want to become a better version of what we already are, and hopefully to be an example to other families and individuals who do not have hope."

The second letter was from Jose Gonzalez, also a member of I WILL WALK!

"Excellent article... after I finished reading, it seemed that I have been immersed in some of the situations and thoughts you speak about."

• Moving the needle is about money

• Moving the needle is about family

• Moving the needle is about time

• Moving the needle is about self-sufficiency

• Moving the needle is about ambition

• Moving the needle is about interaction

• Moving the needle is about health

• Moving the needle is also "why not" about luck

Each is different, so each one reacts in a different way when facing particular scenarios. That is why moving the needle is complex. It is a mix of situations and thoughts that need to be figured out and sorted in order to make ourselves better off. A not so easy task that requires hard work and a lot will."

## Chapter 18:  
Donald Sterling

The Adam Silver decision was substantively and procedurally perfect. The NBA is a partnership of predominantly white owners with mostly black performers serving a largely white audience. Without these uniquely talented performers, revenue is hurt. Hence, the unanimous vote among the other owners i.e., Sterling's erstwhile business partners of longstanding, that he, as a violator of "universally accepted mores," must be removed.

Imagine that the Rev. Wright of presidential campaign fame was a partner in a group of black church leaders. When he goes off about white people, nothing happens, not even a reaction from the prospective President of the United States. The partners in this case are the performers and the audience is black as well. Revenue is presumably enhanced by these diatribes, which means the action meets the same business test as that of Mr. Sterling.

Imagine that Jesse Jackson was chatting with one of his friends and said, unsurprisingly, that he really disliked white people. And assume somebody irritated about what he considered to be Jackson's pernicious lifetime habit of using political issues to blackmail millions from corporate America leaked a recording of that conversation to the media. How many lawyers, at high hourly billing rates, would be immediately lined up with legal actions aimed at protecting Jackson's privacy?

Case closed: because of our country's horrible history of mistreatment of blacks, we have now completely accepted a double standard, where actions and words are treated differently depending on the skin color of those involved. We can now deprive a man of his assets—when he has violated "universally accepted mores"—without the need for any judicial court to be involved, based solely on a single prosecutorial exhibit, a collection of words.

It is ironic that the judgment and subsequent action in this case is completely fair, not because of anything that might be construed as pertaining to constitutional rights, but because the perpetrator's transgression broke the rules of the business partnership of which he was a member, namely that "thou shalt not do anything to the detriment of our collective financial interests."

(2014)

## Chapter 19:  
Dreamin' of Debt... And Being a Regular American

My name is Jose Martinez. I am an undocumented student.

A half-dozen years ago, my parents and I walked into this country from our native Honduras, having survived a long and treacherous trip which cost many people their lives along the way. I recommend reading "Enrique's Journey" or seeing the movie, " _Sin Nombre_ ," for all the graphic details about such a journey.

In middle school in Dover, New Jersey, I quickly tested out of ESL into the regular curriculum. Since then, I have achieved high academic honors, participated in multiple school activities, maintained an unblemished behavioral record, and devoted numerous hours to community service. At my high school graduation in June of 2010, I received several awards.

I have never talked much at all about being undocumented, most kids do not, regardless of their age or circumstance. I knew that my "status" was not the same as that of other students, but its specific meaning as I approached college was not evident until my senior year in high school. When I began my college application process, I was at a loss: "how can I put a number in the Social Security box when I have none? Which of these boxes should I check: citizen, alien, international student? Should I insert an easily recognizable TIN #? Should I pluck a number out of the air? Should I leave it blank?

When I talked with my high school guidance counselor about my situation, she was speechless at first, having subscribed to the "don't ask, don't tell" way of doing things. Then she recovered to exclaim, "that means you are undocumented!" I thought she was about to cry.

Now I know what undocumented means: no access to FAFSA, therefore no Pell Grants and Stafford Loans and no access to a long list of financial aid opportunities, even though my parents have been paying income taxes since they arrived in this country and began working. As you might expect from my exemplary overall record, I received several scholarship offers. Based on the rules of the donors, these scholarships will all disappear when I disclose the fact that I am undocumented.

I am an informal, friendly guy; it takes a lot to get me depressed, but I have never been so down as when I saw the doors to my future shutting in front of my eyes for the singular reason that I am undocumented.

Does anybody seriously believe that I made an independent decision to cross the border! I did what any respectful, dutiful young person would do, I stayed with my family.

The night after my guidance counselor conversation, I had this dream—no, not a rehash of the overall characteristics of the American Dream—but my own particular fantasy. I was dreaming of DEBT!

I was thinking that what I most desire at this moment is to show my affinity for the American way of life—I want to take on DEBT! I know, you would think that I place the greatest priority on retaining my cultural roots. Not true—okay maybe a few rituals, but overall my goal when I awake each morning is to get into college and take on DEBT. If I can get my hands on the right authorization, _i.e._ , DOCUMENTATION, then I will be eligible for those Stafford Loans, and both colleges and banks will facilitate my acquisition of all the DEBT necessary to become educated.

Most everyone I know indulges in the practice of piling on DEBT, as certainly does the country in aggregate! My credit rating is actually above that of companies which only a few years ago were considered blue chip, like General Motors. I have no home, therefore no underwater home mortgage.

Following my acquisition of all the DEBT needed to get a college degree, I fully intend to engage in excess consumption, further proving my desire to be Americanized. I will get as many credit cards as possible and max them out with trips to Home Depot, WalMart, Staples, Costco and all the other big box stores which offer such incredible values.

The taxes on my projected job should make the rate of return on my DEBT quite high, far above the cost of capital since I presume that Washington simply prints the money behind Stafford Loans, you know like they do for bankers and others whom they favor.

When I awoke, I had no such DEBT. My wallet remained devoid of DOCUMENTATION. I have done nothing wrong, and I am still deprived of the opportunity to repay this country which has supported my entire education since I arrived.

I want to become a Regular American. I want to get married, have a good job, pay taxes, attend church, enjoy sports, love my family and home, occasionally have an extra beer, infrequently be late with a mortgage payment. Yes, with my parents, I mostly speak Spanish, but except for a few friends, my language elsewhere is English. I want to pay back my parents for their sacrifices and I want my own children to do even better than me. At Christmas, I want to buy a lot of toys—maybe too many—for my kids.

I want to be eligible—give me the rules, I can follow them to the letter—for FAFSA, for Stafford Loans, for all kinds of scholarships and borrowed money, the whole deal needed to graduate from a four-year college.

I want to become Jose Martinez, a Regular American. Bring on that DEBT!

## Chapter 20:  
East or West

Omar Partik is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Snow and other books based on circumstances in his native country of Turkey. Partik regards Istanbul, once the center of the entire civilized world, as now being conflicted by a tug of war between Asian and European cultures. This city is geographically part of each continent with nine million living on the Asian side and six million on the European side.

Eastern/Asian culture is succinctly labeled as traditionalist, slow to change, with heavy parental prerogatives and strong, centralized government control. Western/European culture is marked by more diversity and, to some, an "anything goes" attitude with respect to the marketplace for ideas and values.

Having recently returned from a week in Istanbul, which included among other highlights, a great meal at a restaurant below the Galata Bridge that spans the Bosphorus Straits between the two continents, I thought it might be interesting to enumerate a list of Istanbul characteristics and invite the reader to decide whether they belong to the East or the West. These "observations" represent some of what I saw, with no controversial personal opinions attached. They are in no order whatsoever.

• Male domination

• High levels of smoking

• Aggressive salespeople

• Entrepreneurial activity omnipresent

• Stunning artwork

• Freshly squeezed orange juice

• Conversion of palaces into museums and restaurants

• Marble everywhere

• Attractive underground passageways

• Men washing their feet prior to entering the mosque

• A loudspeaker call to prayer multiple times daily

• _Futbol_ (soccer) mania

• Marvelous handmade pottery

• The footprint of Muhammed

• Multiple newspapers

• Delicious sweets

• Modern trams, easily understood by a tourist

• Stronger, more powerful beer

• Young people less traditional than their elders

• A digital hotel key card with absolutely no writing, not even the name of a nearby kebab place

• No diet or nutrition signs

• A 400 year-old mosque which is called "new"

• Amazing construction done centuries ago with no assistance from computers or e-mail (yes, when lives were cheap)

• Overpriced food and gifts at museum shops

• ATMs

• Starbucks

• A 4.5-ton chandelier made of English glass in a palace designed by a French decorator

• Speed bumps at the airport

• A cistern from 532 AD

• Digitally controlled toilets

• Day workers near the train station

• Vans with loudspeakers encouraging people to vote in the upcoming election

• Stray cats

• Kids eager to try out their English with a cheery "hello"

• Whirling dervishes.

## Chapter 21:  
Ed's Effin' Fiftieth, Reunion That Is!

Ed: Hey Ma, that envelope you tossed on my desk was an invitation to my 50th High School Reunion. Can you believe it, they expect me to travel 300 miles to make small talk with people I have not cared about since I left the area right after graduation.

**Emma** : Yeah, why would you want to mingle with people you spent, what, up to a dozen years with. Who would care about such strangers. Ah high school, our last chance to laugh without thinking, or am I confusing those years with college booze parties, or is my memory suspect anyway as I start drawing social security checks. Today, why would somebody deliberately get drunk: unemployment, healthcare, immigration, wars, the budget, corruption, environmental destruction, debt—nothing special going on to warrant depressed feelings.

**Ed** : We had a fifth or was it a tenth reunion—in any case, it was way too soon, felt like an extension of high school and productive separation had not yet taken place. Our 25th was fairly interesting—I said a few words. They promised me a lead-in of Henny Youngman and instead I got Mother Theresa. But I did a fairly comical roast of a bunch of students. Afterward, Bob Hutchins lost his briefcase, the one with all the money in it, you know, to pay the hotel for the use of its facility.

Bill Rouse was not in our class, but he got us more publicity than anything except our soccer championship because he was pitching all these no-hitters. Never read his name again. Do you know that of 400,000+ high school basketball players, only 30 make it to the NBA. It's a semi-non sequitur, but indirectly/analogously explains why Bill athletically was never heard from again.

Yes, I have slippers on my feet, but I am running with high energy to age 75, and then I will slow down. Why mix it up with bunch of retired people whom I have not cared about for 50 years.

**Emma** : It's 9 pm, time for Scrabble, you high energy thing you.

**Ed** : Okay, think I'll go to the next reunion, you know the 60th.

**Emma** : Good thinking, nothing that could prevent you from going, I'm sure. Probably you will still be driving, probably still have your eyesight, probably not have prostate cancer. Your aunt was how old, was it 64, when Alzheimer's hit her. Yeah, good idea, wait for the right moment.

**Ed** : I do not want to be normal, never have liked that label. No milk and cookies life for me. Do you think everybody would recognize everybody—adjusted for weight and ubiquitous glasses. We probably would stay in a Comfort Suites; it has handicapped rooms everywhere.

**Emma** : The way you get around with your new hip, why worry about taking a fall and breaking your ass getting out of a slippery bathtub.

**Ed** : Breakfast is scheduled at Cracker Barrel—great, average age of 84, feast on cholesterol specials, buy a stupid trinket made in China for the grandkids.

**Emma** : You could go to McDonald's, get an Egg McMuffin and complain about the teenagers there who cannot read, write, or do math.

**Ed** : A guy named Ace Greenberg was a terrific Wall Street trader, amateur magician, and top bridge player. He was asked how he found time to be expert in each. This is what he said: "There are three ways to waste a lot of time in this world: play golf, watch television, and chase women. I do not do two of the three." I do none of the first or last, and little of the middle save sports and "Law and Order." Will I have anything to talk about with these people I have not communicated with (except Bill and Barbara) in a half-century.

**Emma** : You could press that virtual button on your wrist and talk for a half-hour on education, that should be a winner with people who stopped having kids in school decades ago. You could discourse about immigration and watch blood pressures rise around the table. You could simply shut the hell up and listen for a change.

**Ed** : I am sure Bob Lucey, bald or with a toupee, would be dragging the women out to jitterbug, reminding me of the dance capability which never was seen in my Baptist home.

**Emma** : Ed, you're 65 freaking years old, get over it. You have other talents.

**Ed** : I wonder how many in the class have had problems with drugs or alcohol or busted marriages or wayward kids. Wait, I just realized I have a conflict with the date. It's on a Saturday, and that is when I mow the lawn.

**Emma** : I will make lemonade and sell it with brownies so we can hire a guy to cut the grass so that we can be at the Reunion.

**Ed** : I guess you really want to go.

**Emma** : Such insight, fifty years in the making.

**Ed** : I am a little scared; probably, some had their pensions crunched and will blame me as a representative of Wall Street.

**Emma** : Yes, and there also could be a flash flood and an outbreak of pestilence. Better stock up on water and your meds. Maybe the class could get a group discount on Lipitor.

**Ed** : OK, we will go, but you must promise me one thing; if I take a swing at Jan DeGroote, the porno king, please do not get upset. He and I have issues.

**Emma** : No problem, just give me a heads-up. I'm sure YouTube would love a video of two geezers with mush for brains ending their lives with a series of lefts to the face and rights to the solar plexus.

By the way, is your will updated and notarized!

(2011)

## Chapter 22:  
Education and Philosophy in Brooklyn: Junius Street Vignettes

### Background: The School

It is late April of 2010, and the air is unseasonably crisp, like my favorite Macintosh apple or the feel of Fall, which I would welcome twelve months of the year. Not only is the atmosphere fresh, but the world itself is seemingly is full of possibilities: the young children on the fourth floor of the massive school building I left minutes ago can become educated and find a job which is not drudgery. They can create an economically sustainable path: shelter, food, and clothing, accompanied by a loving relationship.

Predominantly white teachers, all of good heart for sure, talk of college—to an almost exclusively minority student population—as being within reach if they shun the negative aspects of the culture outside these walls, line up quietly, and absorb reading, writing, and math in quantities greater than Doritos and Coca Cola. It is somewhat painful to hear white adults (again) telling black children how to behave; only the mantra of the greater educational good saves the situation from being impossible. Equally painful is to hear history so often viewed through a lens dominated by the black-white dichotomy.

In the students' short walk from the public housing complexes in which they live, there are at least three other bidders for their souls: liquor stores, churches, and rootless guys standing on the corner. The odds are less than one in ten that the children from this neighborhood will fight off these negative influences and graduate from college, a data point which is completely disregarded at the school attended by these particular students.

The entire school staff is driven not by the ugly averages but by their goal, 10 in 10 to college, thank you.

And everything they do stems from the belief that all children can learn equally well. I would add the statement that what each child needs is an adult irrationally committed to them and their future, and the teachers and leadership certainly qualify for this description.

If you simply listened to the noise level in the school's ground floor cafeteria, you would know which young people are those of the charter school described above and which are not. A quick glance at the uniforms confirms the distinction. Behind everything is the philosophy of structured intentionality, staying on-point to whatever is the task of the moment—another cultural transformation piece. It is easy to disagree with any of the micros but the sum of the micros is potentially stunning academically. At the same time, does there exist a clear college/high school proof point for this approach? Not really, not yet.

• School B is 600 miles away, effectively in a different world, one defined by affluence and comfort. School for these fourth graders does not begin until 9:15, and the SUVs are lined up before 3 pm to take their children home. The visitor photo badge is self-printed by a sophisticated computer/camera set-up; you must scan the barcode when you leave to sign out. The young people in the spacious Media Center, without a policy thought or self-defined intention, are the odds-on favorites to win any academic race you care to name. The difference from the school above is hard to swallow, as obvious and pervasive as it is.

• The new teacher at the charter school seemingly steps out of the Ivy League Community Service cloning machine: white, blond, blemish-free, older relatives who have graduated from her prestigious university. How will she engage with these housing project kids, I wonder, neither for the first nor the last time. Of course, she possesses that most valuable of passports: at any time, she can leave this foreign country and return to her comfortable upbringing. Her family will compliment her on her wonderful heart and life will proceed as before, without a hiccup or alien thoughts. She will land on her professional feet in School B.

• When you use the host public school's bathroom on the ground floor (the charter is only on the fourth), it is best to check the appurtenances—is there a toilet seat, toilet paper, soap, water—you know, all those things which are taken for granted in different environments but not in a traditional school building in this area. And of course the clocks do not work; they never do in New York City public schools—an insurmountable engineering challenge apparently.

• Ohmygod, I do not believe it. You can now buy #2 wooden pencils which have already been sharpened! Must we do everything for these little scholars. Rebuttal: learning time is increased by being able to avoid the disruption of pencil sharpening.

### My Role

• I interact at this charter school within a traditional school with a 12 year-old boy, one hour weekly. I refrain from using the term "tutor" or mentor" as I am simply helping him with his writing and reading, including vocabulary. When I sit down with him at noon, are my hunger pangs a function of the five hours since breakfast or do they represent a deep-seated, non-articulated desire for something better in the exchange with this student, some awareness of a broader world than the few blocks surrounding his apartment, some understanding that the televised view of life that dominates his waking hours at home is not unvarnished truth.

A mid-morning yogurt preceded our next meeting; the more important hunger remained. In any case, can one hour once a week have any impact whatsoever. Maybe at some point, we can have an extended conversation about his answer to the homework essay question, "why does the school have uniforms?" "Because they want us to be white."

• Is college an unconflicted escape from adverse surroundings—can the flexibility afforded by a degree be coupled with a return to the neighborhood that is not accompanied by tension. If the old friends are still hanging out on the corner, does the collegian have a reasonable conversation—or is there a language and newfound culture clash which defeats the best of intentions.

• The educational drill was to plug into the given sentence the correct "helping verb" from a box of alternative words provided the student. He got 9 of 15 correct. In 2009, that score in New York State would have him labeled as "proficient." Simultaneously, this score would have caused him to be booted out of any respectable college. Uh, something is wrong with this educational picture, folks. In 2010, New York State reacted and 60% is no longer proficient.

• Yes, I have been stood up by the young student, his apartment's phone disconnected or voice mail not accepting messages and nobody answering the knock on the door (yes, the school is maniacal about this educational stuff known as "time on task.") Does it bother me—of course; do I act out, No. My "wasted" time is dominated by wading through a "To Be Read" folder. For a half-hour each day back home, I tear out articles while scanning three daily newspapers (the real ones) and peddling my stationery bike.

### The Transportation Transition

I drive to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and park. From there, it is a subway. As you walk underground from the terminal to the #3 train, you see the future of America coming toward you: a complete polyglot, with the only ethnicity missing in any proportion being Caucasian. One surmises that at 10 am, many of the latter, disproportionately represented on Wall Street employment rosters, have already been hard at work for three hours, with blackberries buzzing and money being made!

The America of the future—well before the projected 2050 date when there will be no ethnic majority—will be complicated and confusing—which Holidays will be celebrated, for example. The country will keep its leadership role in terms of job opportunities, but its worldwide share will decline as globalization flattens out the world.

• The flow of humanity on another day is constant and again multihued; the commonalities are serious demeanors, an absence of coats and ties, and little in the way of conversation. It is 7:45 am and intentionality rules the day at this point.

• The 75-pound Chinese woman sits on her low stool in her usual place, back to the wall, her expressionless face staring at nothing, her paper cup filled with but a few coins. She is a poster image come to life: the lined-face elderly woman brought in from the rice fields or fleeing a war that robbed her of family and friends, leaving her in this Port Authority Bus Terminal passageway, alone and voiceless.

Across from her is a table full of religious literature. Periodically, it is manned by a salesperson who wants not your money but your beliefs, a difficult commitment in any case but made even more difficult because you are passing by simply to get somewhere else. Only their tagline resonates as you scurry by, "the world will end on May 21, 2011. Are you ready!!" Not really, I think, a whole bunch of things on my to-do list—so no time to chat, thank you, about necessary preparations for next year's Big Day.

### The Subway

• There is a recorded announcement on this and other modes of public transportation advising people that "you must be alert." Okay, what does that mean—if my aging father were to see the occupants of the subway car, he would think they were all suspicious: different headgear, different clothing, different body language, different skin color.

• There are 21 people on the #3 subway at 11 am on Thursday, April 29; the self-entertainment inventory is as follows: one book, one bible, one newspaper, one Kindle, zero conversations, and a myriad of earplugs.

It is 45-60 minutes from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Junius Street subway stop; the train is underground until going elevated for the final four stops.

• I was engrossed in reading "The Big Sort" when I looked up and saw a bunch of strangers had boarded the subway. Four young single women (three white, one Asian), each with a book in their hands while conversing and one young man (with blackberry). The person with "Young, Gifted and Black" had a pencil out and was making notes. Casually dressed, they were clearly a focused group at 8 am on the number three train. I concluded they must be teachers _en_ route to professional development activities at a charter school. When they departed, the evidence of my clear crystal ball was there, a bag with the insignia of Uncommon Schools, a leading charter school management organization, based in NYC.

• As I glanced at the subway tracks high above the projects, the dangers of the third rail came to mind. Like a truly incendiary issue—abortion is a good candidate—a politician espousing a position contrary to his electability is said to have touched the third rail, with his political demise the odds-on result. In the African American community, until Bill Cosby went off a few years ago, it was a third rail for prominent blacks to publicly criticize either each other or negative behaviors within their community. As I stand in the deli waiting for a delicious and cheap sandwich, there is a temptation to think nothing has changed as m... f... gets tossed around with the frequency of suburban girls using the word "like."

At the same time, a prominent spokesman like Geoff Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone, which includes charter schools, can say without apology, "I don't know what to do with an uneducated 17 year-old black kid with no skills," while emphasizing that without college graduates, the human capital will not be created to foster sustainable progress for the black community.

• The group of orthodox young Jewish men who boarded the subway are dressed completely in black and white, with beards, hats, and luggage. Do they think in black and white I wondered.

• The young white woman on the subway sits rigid, looking straight ahead, her two hands firmly clasping the pocketbook in her lap. If she wanted her fear to be more noticeable, she would have to scream it to the minorities who are seated all around her on this inbound train from East New York. Does she have history, an individual reason to be afraid, or is it a statistical fear, based on a reading of aggregate data, which however accurate tells you nothing about an individual, even a small subset.

• Apparently our educational system is much better than advertised. The two year-old girl beams as she points to the subway poster and exclaims, "McDonald's."

• He looks to be about 50 years-old, slim, with curly white hair and a small mustache. Music is plugged into his ears. Periodically he bursts into an oration about some issue of great importance to him—while he appears to be articulate and not profane, his Caribbean lilt makes it hard to understand many of the words of his mini-speeches. As he rises to depart at the Nevins Street stop, he adjusts his glasses and his backpack, and, a touch wobbly, exits. There will be other shows later for sure, and there is no extra charge for the theatre which is the New York City subway.

• Old, bent over, white, thick glasses, with a long unkempt beard, he beseeched the subway riders to accept his multipage handout on Isiah. In succinct prose, he verbalized where he was coming from, "SATAN is behind the government and the church. And the rich only want to get—richeeeerrr!" Dressed in attic grab bag fashion, the paunchy middle-aged woman burst into song, extolling the multiple virtues of Jesus. She blessed several of us as she passed by, seeking funds to maintain her ministry mission.

### The Neighborhood

• It is 50 steps from the elevated #3 train to the sidewalk, whether you are young and spry or a mother with a baby carriage or a senior citizen with a grocery bag. Nothing comes easy in these environs, but it is amazing to see the resolve, the determination – or is it, there is no choice—of the older, slightly built women pushing their shopping carts.

• The sign on the little grocery store inspection sticker carries the same name as the guy pumping my gas in New Jersey, identical to the fellow who sold me a dishwasher recently: Muhammed. Infiltration by the infidels is pervasive! Who do I report this to?! The store's truly ugly sign, "Smoking causes tooth decay," sits atop a full display of candy and a couple of feet away from the cigarettes.

On my third visit to the same deli, the woman behind the sandwich counter immediately asked, "same thing?" I smiled and said yes, then coyly inquired, "if there something unique about me?"(that you would remember what sandwich I ordered the prior two Thursdays). She did not take the bait, instead replied, "I am good with faces." A fat (but not fatty) turkey sandwich on a roll is $2.50 here; it would be priced at double or more anywhere in Manhattan. When I ventured into roast beef, the satisfaction level was equally high—it would have been triple the $2.50 charged.

On my next visit some ten days later, her voice—her physical presence being otherwise blocked by the high, bullet-proof partition between the lower customer and Ms. Sandwich Maker—boomed out before I had uttered a word, "I am out of roast beef today," whereupon I reverted to turkey.

• As if the normal junk food sold in every convenience store in America is not sufficient, there is a large van parked at the nearby curb; it has only one word emblazoned on its side, "Candies." Maybe it is a wholesaler or does the truck driver simply open the back door and say, "dive in, your diabetes will be handled by the new healthcare bill."

• The presumptively unemployed, not-in-school, un/disconnected black youth outside the deli exchange their, "nigger this, nigger that" banter, which if uttered by me, would bring down either the actual law or that of political correctness. The guys eye the attractive young women; this appreciation is not theirs exclusively, but their voices can be heard while others must in this context remain silent. The first heat wave—if only for a few days—brings out the flesh, of which there is ample. When combined with extensive jewelry, the image is perplexing: is there a party around the corner in the middle of the day!

• At 9:35 am on a weekday, why are these school-age kids not in school. Then I am reminded, a 5% absenteeism rate in New York City is 50,000+ kids, so the odds of seeing a "truant" are quite good.

• As I sat on the park bench outside the Carter Woodson and Van Dyke housing projects, discussing a $15 million school budget on an hour-long conference call, a slightly pudgy woman in her forties goes through a combination of personal exercises and some training of her dog—after he takes a piss on the otherwise clean concrete tiles. Dressed in a blue parka and sweatpants and wearing colorful sneakers, she does speed walking, leg lifts, and jumping jacks Periodically she puts a rope in the dog's mouth and pulls him around the park at a good rate of speed.

• The boy's pants are so low that some scientific law must be violated for them to not drop completely to the ground. Like spiked, colored hair or a screamingly offensive t-shirt or—back in the day, tattoos, the implicit message to me is consistent, "I want to be noticed." My unspoken reply is, "I see you—now what is on your mind?" Alas, in this fictional non-conversation, all that is discovered is that quite often the individual who craves attention is not terribly interesting. In some ways, it is analogous to all those who express their individuality by buying the same brand of blue jeans.

• My fantasy premise was that needing a haircut, I would walk into an African American barbershop filled with vibrant personalities discussing Obama, the oil spill, women, and Boston vs. Los Angeles for the NBA championship. Instead, it was a Hispanic facility with a television tuned to a _telenovela_ , and virtually no conversations taking place among the three barbers and their customers.

• It's $2.00 at Starbucks, but only this low if no fancy adjectives are attached. And of course you get a sleeve free (maybe with an environmental message), which is quickly discarded by many—presumably not the same ones who later will write a check to the Sierra Club. At my local La Sierra _panaderia_ , it is $1.25. Here at Powell Supermarkets, the sound of Hispanic music pulsating throughout, it is only 50 cents. (As with a billion other such containers, the blue and white design of the paper cup has a Greek background, with columns and the slogan, "It's our pleasure to serve you." Alas, the creator of this New York City product recently passed away.) Location and marketing dominate the price difference—stripped of those two variables, it is simply a damn cup of coffee!

• An abstinence program? You must be kidding! How? Fatherless families, wayward stepfathers, relentless and restless young males, 24/7 media onslaught of "just do it" imagery, a dim view of future prospects, the chance of unconditional love assumed to be connected to each and every baby—a girl must be incredibly strong, infused with a set of values contrary to much of her surroundings in order to arrive at age 16 without being touched.

• The multilevel parking lot is seemingly well-located, adjacent to a large apartment complex. Yet it sits eerily empty, doors closed to all but the most intrepid of trespassers, whose best work is undoubtedly at night. The area's graffiti artists should be ironworkers walking in the sky on narrow steel beams, such is the precarious location of their creative derring-do. Not wanting to split any hairs over the legality of property defacement—it is obviously wrong by the letter of any law—there are some factors worth contemplating: (1) minimal art classes in the schools, (2) narrower definitions of creative expression when such classes do exist, (3) no space in apartments for artwork to be explored, and (4) the surfaces being "defaced" are typically crummy brick or concrete structures begging for some color to be brought into their lives. Didn't Keith Haring start this way?

• The 8 am line-up begins at the Family Health Center, no different than at the Zufall Health Clinic in the town of my office 50 miles away. Next door at the mini-market, the Bud Ice advertisement has a scantily-clad woman reaching down, ready to remove her bottoms when the prospectively erect alcohol consumer is thinking with his Johnson and nothing else. The markets use every square inch of their floor space for inventory, as do their customers presumably—living in small apartments as they do. If two customers are in the same aisle, they cannot avoid bumping into each other.

• It is still hard to imagine 24-hour delis and laundromats in this area. Do people leave their apartments at 3 am to get food or wash their clothes. Are there enough unusual shift workers as customers. Can the businesses afford the security involved. Are the multiple cameras enough to make both proprietor and staff develop a feeling of safety.

• The dogs are either pit bull types or those little ones which a non-dog person could kick off the sidewalk with a single soccer style swipe. Their owners swap stores like suburban mall shoppers loading up their SUVs with kids and canines.

• A block away from the razor-wired grocery store warehouse, the modest sign reads, "Brooklyn Business Improvement District... Business Made Better." The identification is in front of a renovated church and a St. Jude's Treatment facility, separated by a For Sale sign stuck into a pile of cinder blocks. A few blocks away, lab specimen containers sit on a cracked sidewalk, maybe fifteen feet from the first of several auto repair shops.

• Why are the school crossing guards evident a week before school starts? Are they practicing? Are they following union rules and being paid for doing nothing, similar to a disquieting percentage of tenured teachers, eyes firmly fixed on their pensions instead of whether their students are learning anything.

• The area is surprisingly replete with community centers, playgrounds, basketball courts, park benches, and working fountains for kids to splash in. The cynic would say that absent large strides in education for the children of this neighborhood, the above facilities are amusements for the permanent underclass.

• In NBA terminology, the player is termed "athletic." What this means is that he is black, strong, runs well, and can jump over the backboard. He also cannot make a fifteen-foot shot, whether contested or alone at the free throw line. When you observe the action on any inner city playground court, the reasons are evident. First, net-less rims do not invite shooting from any distance. Whether this is mental—the absence of that lovely swish sound—or physical—nets somehow soften the basket and therefore more shots go in—is not known. More important is that inner city basketball is a macho game. To take the ball hard/strong to the hoop is to be a man, accepting the physical abuse (few fouls are called) in return for peer group glory.

We all suck up to big name athletes, directly if we happen to interact with them, indirectly through high-priced seats and overpriced beer. A big name from this neighborhood is regarded as a God—"you did it, you escaped." Women are his for the taking, many of whom are happy to have his child, not that they are gold-diggers, of course not. The star quickly is surrounded by his posse. He has the opportunity to lend his name to a failed business, before being introduced to a financial expert who can dissipate his assets in a more sophisticated manner.

The whole scene flows as smoothly as malt liquor.

• A few blocks away, one subway stop to be precise, I find a rarity: a restaurant which is not entirely take-out. At the Brownsville Coffee Shop, eggs and coffee costs $3.00, and the toilet safely flushes the Scott towels used in place of the missing toilet paper. The customer on this particular day was taller, heavier, more bejeweled, with a Panama hat and tinted glasses. Sitting authoritatively but friendly, he held court as he ate breakfast, discussing the repair status on his BMW, which as you know stands for "Big Man's Wheels," as hanger-ons drifted in and out. They sought a free cup of coffee or buttered roll or maybe a job, and certainly a round of small talk. When the conversational kingpin left, the energy level dropped several notches.  
"You with the school?" the lead hanger-on asked. "Yes, Brownsville Charter School," I replied. I could not remember its public school number and this was his whole frame of reference, so the exchange ended as quickly as it started. Back in the day, as the sole white on a black playground, it was assumed I was either a basketball scout, social worker, or undercover cop.

### Closure

At times, as I walk on Mother Gaston Avenue and consider the proportion of single parent children, a feeling of depression comes over me, and I think I understand drug addiction and alcoholism. Over the years, the other imagery which has consistently brought out this feeling in me has been that of working on an assembly line for eight hours a day, five numbing days a week, fifty weeks a year, thirty years or more.

How do I confront these thoughts without resorting to a ready-to-be-delivered tirade about education in general? How can I get past the prism of race which seems to permeate so many of the above thoughts?

Peace.

(2010)

## Chapter 23:  
Education Reform

• In New York State, 74% of high school students graduate, but only 35% are prepared for college (which is why a discussion of education reform is in GUIDE).

• By law in New York, before 2009, student results could not be discussed when evaluating teacher performance at the K-12 level.

• In Newark, K-12 spending of more than $20,000 per student produces a prospective college graduation rate of less than 10%.

• Of Americans 25-34, 43% have college degrees, compared with 64% in South Korea.

• The college graduation rate for students in high income households, compared with a generation ago, has risen—that of lower income students is virtually flat.

Education reform anyone?

The good news is that the breadth and depth of reform efforts nationally, most notably at the K-12 level, is gratifying to those, like this writer, who have been there almost from day one. I hope that the necessary political will to implement changes in the education system does not flag under the on-going pressure from those quarters that prefer the status quo and its dismal education outcomes.

Is the American student really involved in a dysfunctional education system?

### Background: International Comparisons

The United States has a graduation rate for students at four-year colleges which lags that of Poland, Denmark, Portugal, and Japan, among others. As an additional data set—among the many which are available—which supports the contention that American students are not doing well, look at the following table on Science, Reading, and Math test results. Data are from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD.org); 15 year-old students (a key age point in terms of preparation for higher education) were tested in 65 countries. I excerpted data to include all countries which were #1-5 in any category and to include all three Chinese administrative regions.

The overall winners in this contest are China and other Far Eastern countries. The Chinese education system, not atypical within this group, reportedly entails more respect for teachers, while simultaneously providing easier mechanisms for removing ineffective teachers after appropriate attempts at professional development. On the downside, critics maintain that the rigidity associated with Chinese education hurts creativity and the development of an independent personality, categories in which the United States retains global leadership.

(Apple is running advertisements saying that its products were "created in California;" they do not mention the manufacturing locale, which unsurprisingly is China."

WHAT THIS TABLE MEANS: the United States is nowhere near the top

Defenders of our education system believe they can take apart the international data and show that white and Asian students in the United States are on par with their foreign counterparts. At the same time, in the lowest economic decile in the USA, less than 10% graduate from college. The combination of these inputs circles the observer back to the statistical area already identified: the overlap of reduced opportunities and lower educational attainment with minority and low-income students.

Meanwhile, those who want to become seriously depressed should read a report by The Center for American Progress which compares Chinese and American preparation for the "next generation workforce." (Comedian Jimmy Fallon had his own appraisal: "I read that 25% of toddlers in America know how to use an iPad, while 100% of toddlers in China know how to make one.")

These are some low points pertinent to the United States:

• Half of U.S. children get no early childhood education.

• More than a quarter have a health condition impeding their capacity to learn.

• More than 22% lived in poverty in 2010, up from 17% in 2007.

• More than half of U.S. postsecondary students drop out.

Chinese goals for 2020 are these:

• Enroll 40 million children in pre-school, a 50% increase from today.

• Provide 70% of children in China with three years of preschool.

• Graduate 95% of Chinese youth through nine years of compulsory education (165 million students, more than the U.S. labor force).

• Ensure that no child drops out of school for financial reasons.

• More than double enrollment in higher education.

"Between 2000 and 2008, China graduated 1.14 million people in the STEM subjects. The United States graduated 496,000."

If America's education system does not better prepare students—of all ethnicities—for the unfolding workplace dynamics of the 21st century, the takeaway is that other countries will fill the demands of employers.

In response to the unproductive nature of the current American K-12 education system, some 46 states have signed on to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC) and its Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org), which are to be "aligned with college and work expectations." Initial implementation of Common Core will bring terrible test results, which will make it mandatory that politicians stay the course if they want sustainable improvement in American education. Because the standards are the outcome of an initiative led by the National Governors Association for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers (achievethecore.org), one should be optimistic. However, when I look at the scar tissue on education reformers from years of education politics or observe that states can unilaterally pull out of PARCC, I get nervous about whether the resolve will be there.

Moving on from the international comparisons and Common Core, the initial and on-going philosophical debate when it comes to improving education outcomes, particularly in urban America, most often centers on whether poverty and derivative social conditions must be more effectively addressed before high quality education for all students can be accomplished.

Imbedded in the premise of poverty as the most important variable in the educational achievement gap are numerous difficult sociological challenges, over and above the issues of language and documentation which can be such critical factors in many Latino households. They cover a wide range. For example, a child in a welfare home reportedly hears about 13 million words in his first four years, half that of a working class child and less than one-third that of the offspring in a professional level family.

GUIDE has not attempted to drill down on these broader socioeconomic issues, although it has obviously touched on them in the context of the Latino student. Suffice it to say, the typical Latino seeking higher education success by definition has to have above-average determination and a thicker-than-average skin. Many of these students are already experiencing the environments being studied by the researchers.

Any discussion of the education system validates the view that there are demonstrable "big picture" factors which play significant roles in the historical level of Latino educational attainment. Recognizing their legitimacy, however, is not synonymous with accepting them as impossible obstructions to aspiration. If I did not think that committed, informed students from every place on the economic spectrum could achieve academic success, I would not have written GUIDE.

Mixed in with the challenges referenced above is the specific component of racial interaction. Education reformers are predominantly white while the students in their schools are overwhelmingly minority. Historical racial tension within the relevant school community cannot be completely buried even though the goal of these white leaders is improvement in the lives of minority students. For example, some African Americans remain suspicious of charter schools, although the schools are completely public and transparent (unless the government authorizers are sloppy), seeing the potential for either profiteering or social engineering or both by "affluent white outsiders."

While recognizing the inequities bred of difficult socioeconomic conditions, education reform practitioners believe it is unfair to urban/minority/low income students to effectively tell them to wait on the opportunity for a good education until all socioeconomic problems have been resolved, which undoubtedly will be never. Instead, reformers, most prominent being those in the growing charter school sector, are maniacal about creating good education environments today—and pushing students to succeed.

Some, like Geoff Canada's Harlem Success Zone, attempt the seemingly impossible: improving every characteristic of a neighborhood while creating charter schools in hopes of lifting academic standards throughout the Zone and, ultimately, boosting college graduation rates as well. Even Geoff would admit though that he cannot save everyone; "there is nothing I can do for the 16 year-old with no academic or non-academic skills." And he espouses, with respect to higher education, doing "a lot for a few" over doing "a little for a lot," because only then will a leadership cadre be created which can return and continue to improve the community long-term.

More typical than the zone approach is the creation of non-profit charter school management organizations, which capture both the talent and vibrancy of the individual school leader and the effectiveness of shared expertise, particularly in the areas of teacher professional development and school finance/real estate. In my capacity as Executive-Director of the WKBJ Partnership Foundation, in 1995, I was the founding funder and initial Board Chairman of North Star Academy Charter School of Newark, which was brought to life by Norman Atkins and Jamey Verrilli. North Star began with 72 students and now has over 2,500. It is one of the multiple charter school networks that constitute the non-profit Uncommon Schools, which as of this writing has 38 schools and more than 10,000 students in New Jersey, New York State, and Massachusetts.

### Teachers, Tenure, and Their Union

The political bulls-eye of education reform has revolved around the battle between charter schools, which typically have non-union staffs, and various teachers unions.

Before continuing, I want the record to be clear:

I love teachers. It is the highest profession, relative compensation notwithstanding. My older daughter for years was an assistant director of a church-based school and is now a volunteer and tutor in the traditional public school system. My younger daughter is a K-1 teacher at a charter school. Both are in North Carolina. They are great; I love them totally.

The dilemma with respect to thinking about teachers is, in one sense, relatively simple: great teachers are the sine qua non of value-added education at any level and yet parents everywhere have had no real tool for understanding whether the teachers of their children were doing a good job or not. This is an especially difficult scenario for Latino families without experience in the American education system. Their attitude has been that they "turned their children over to the professionals," whose job it was to return them as educated students. Often it is only if and when their child is in college taking remedial classes that parents realize the error in their assumption about high school education.

The predominant structural approach to the employment of teachers in my geographical area, and many others, is one which heretofore provided a protected job, through the tenure process, to virtually all teachers regardless of their classroom accomplishments. The teachers union has defended teachers vigorously against any attempts by school leadership to move poor teachers out. Graduates of American teachers colleges have typically been safe in their jobs after three years, with excellent pension plans and health benefits in many of the bigger, unionized states—without any explicit analysis as to whether their students were learning.

Exacerbating the tenure problem, the lowest-performing public schools, quite frequently those with urban/low income/minority populations—are often the job sites for the lowest-performing teachers. What really hurts, according to a study by the Los Angeles Times, is that "having a teacher from the top quartile of teachers for four consecutive years is enough to eliminate the black-white achievement gap," the educational challenge wherein an 8th-grade white student is taking classes which are comparable academically to those of a 12-grade minority student.

In addition to the overlapping factors delineated above—which teachers are located where and under what governance structure, there is no correlation of regulatory requirements, _e.g._ , certification, with teacher effectiveness. In an attempt to rectify this shortcoming, there is growing interest in delaying giving a teacher a license until he or she has demonstrated the ability to plan a lesson and handle classroom management. An assessment tool to this end is being developed and actively tested by Stanford University and Pearson, a leading publisher.

The good news is that the debate over formal evaluations of teachers has moved from "whether" to "when and how." How much of the improved environment for substantive change is a result of (1) strong language from political leaders on both sides of the aisle (and President Obama's pledges of $5 billion to states for overhauling their approach to teacher education and $1 billion for a Master Teachers Corps for STEM subjects, (2) fear of China usurping this country's world leadership role, (3) the availability of state and/or private money if the union does the right thing with respect to a teacher evaluation system, and/or (4) an accurate Reading of the mood of a dissatisfied public, is anybody's guess.

Leaving aside an analysis of all the elements of education reform, the bottom line is clear. Is better training and more thoughtful placement of teachers necessary? Yes. Should the status accorded teachers and their compensation be higher? Absolutely! Should teacher evaluation be connected to whether the students are learning? Of course. Are standardized test results the only barometer of teacher quality? No.

I leave the details up to the negotiators and cross my fingers politically.

High-quality teacher preparation prior to first stepping into a classroom is a fundamental requirement. As one reaction to the need for improvement in this area, colleges which train students to be teachers now are being rated by U.S. News and World Report, which for many years has published controversial rankings of colleges. No shock—the education schools are crying about the scrutiny ("our reputations will be tarnished"), while pointing out micro flaws in a macro good idea aimed at bringing more transparency to this key part of education reform.

Complementary to the need for improved teacher training is the requirement for creating school leadership dedicated to the implementation of best practices. Management talent is a scarce asset. As in the teacher training area, non-profit and for-profit entities alike are attempting to serve the market need by offering extensive leadership training programs. Strong school leaders in any system of governance think in terms of a "thin" contract governing teachers, which is code for having the managerial flexibility to move people around to accomplish the true objective of a school, imparting knowledge to students. In contrast, the Boston Public School union contract reportedly is 260 pages, supplemented by a 60-page Appendix, and neither is in 12-point Garamond Bold.

Right now, great urban schools within the traditional zoned school construct are led by individuals who have figured out how to finesse the bureaucracy which typically clogs the system, who have high academic and conduct standards, who have mostly mission aligned teachers, and who have attracted supplemental funding for particular value-added education programs. In other words, the school's success is idiosyncratic, not the product of an effective overall system for teaching kids.

Reduced class size is frequently cited by anti-reformers as the key to erasing poor student outcomes. These individuals want to ignore the impact of automatic tenure and the role of leadership. However, average class sizes are down compared with years back, and there has been no change in academic performance. At the extremes, class size is relevant, but in the normal range, a good teacher trumps the size issue.

Money per se is always the leading candidate for the silver bullet designation, the quick and easy way to education reform. It seems obvious; after all, affluent families spend large amounts of untracked education expenditures outside the school building and look at the standardized test results achieved by their children. However, the measurement here is per pupil government spending, and greater outlays have not meant better student outcomes.

### New Jersey: An Important Player in Education Reform

My home state has been a highly publicized battleground for education reformers, particularly in Newark. New Jersey's 1.35 million students attend 2,485 schools, with over 100,000 teachers—virtually all unionized excepting those at charter schools. It was the first to pass a tenure law, in 1909. The state spends $16,841 per student, second in the country, without achieving the results one would associate with this funding. Charter school enrollment in the state is only 2% of the total, but in Newark, charters have 8,000 of the 45,000 public school students, and the city is the focal point for heavy doses of political and funding firepower.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Republican), aka the Devil Reincarnate if you listened to the past rhetoric of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), essentially has been on the same education reform page as outgoing Newark mayor Cory Booker (Democrat) and outgoing New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg (Independent), not to mention Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan and President Barack Obama.

To fight this line-up (conceptually) and specifically the governor's attempt at instituting a revised approach to tenure, the NJEA spent $11.3 million on lobbying activities in 2011, nine times the level of the next biggest spender. According to both the polls at that time and subsequent events, the union failed miserably; two-thirds of those surveyed opposed tenure based on length of time in the job, instead saying evaluations should be based in part on student's progress on standardized tests.

Subsequently, in 2012, an education reform bill sponsored by State Senator Teresa Ruiz (a Democrat from Essex County, which includes Newark) was passed by the New Jersey legislature and signed by the governor. Among other provisions, it requires teachers to have three consecutive years of good evaluations in order to earn tenure. Any teacher can be fired after two years of negative evaluations, regardless of seniority, which is otherwise protected as before, an unattractive feature to many reformers and the reason the Governor initially was hesitant about signing.

The evaluation/compensation tiers involved in this bill are being incorporated in a merit pay program for the Newark school district. The contract was approved 1,767 to 1,088 by the Newark Teachers Union, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, not the NJEA. NTU president Joseph Del Grosso said, "It's something I've championed for a long time." Which is complete nonsense of course.

The deal includes not only merit/bonus tiers (up to $12,500) but retroactive pay (the contract covers 2010-2015) and a 13.9% salary increase over three years for those rated "effective." A teacher representative will be included in the process of reviewing who is effective and who receives a bonus. Total contract cost is estimated at $100 million, half of which is coming from private donors, a factor that raises a host of unanswered questions. A top Newark teacher can earn over $100,000, significantly higher than is possible in New York City, Boston, or Philadelphia. Not bad for a school system in which half the high school kids do not graduate and, of those who go on to college, 90% need remedial work.

At the state level, New Jersey Commissioner Chris Cerf has led a series of education initiatives, the goal being a "logically sequenced series of year-end tests designed to ensure a high school diploma is a meaningful measure of college and career readiness." Reformers like Cerf point to the characteristics of education in those nations which have gone ahead of the United States on international tests.

• Common academic standards (the USA is going in this direction; Common Core Standards are being rolled out; students will have four more hours of high-stress tests per year, with the added twist of being on-line and providing fewer opportunities to guess among multiple choice options).

• Better student learning diagnostic instruments (progress is evident)

• Better training of school leaders (mostly happening outside the system)

• Higher status for teachers (must happen)

• Increased teacher compensation, particularly at the starting level (let's hope)

(To which I would add, without benefit of a sophisticated survey, a bigger commitment to education at the preschool age level, whether formal or informal.)

Success in education is a function of numerous variables (with the role of preschool often ignored in conventional analyses because it is a quite different set of characteristics and participants in the education delivery structure.) According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, these are the consistent characteristics of high-performing schools.

Frequent teacher feedback... Data driven instruction... High-dosage tutoring...

Increased instruction time... A relentless focus on academic achievement

Additional features of many such schools include: longer days and school years, more selective staffing, frequent quizzes, high dosage tutoring, and a structured culture. (Did I mention that poorly performing charter schools should lose their charters? I meant to—and it is happening in New Jersey and elsewhere. Traditional schools which do not educate children also should be closed, which is happening in Chicago and Philadelphia.)

(P.S. I am not aware that selling advertising space on school buildings or K-12 athletic uniforms or education programs is characteristic of high-performing nations. How can a demonstration of support for the cynical view that contemporary education is about creating better consumers, not better citizens, be part of education reform?)

### Closing Comments

Whatever a person's reaction to observations on the socioeconomic conditions behind educational attainment or to the modest verbiage on education reform, it is clear that on paper, the political line-up for substantive education reform has been positively glittering compared with the mostly antagonistic environment of 1995, when the first group of charter schools in New Jersey was authorized. All too often however, there remain self-defeating political and community battles, mostly among adults focused on adult issues (jobs, security, compensation, benefits, votes, history), with the education of children an ancillary topic in the heated discussions.

Without becoming crazed about the many challenges faced by the United States, it cannot be refuted that an improved education system has to be designed and implemented if the country is to be a leader in the 21st century.

At present, the biggest challenges are (1) the ability of high-performing schools, particularly charters, to gain access, with suitable economics, to existing, underutilized zoned public school space, (2) a rearguard action in some areas by teachers unions and their political allies that is about job preservation and nothing more, (3) finding and training teachers who will remain in the classroom as a career, (4) finding and training sufficient leaders for the newer schools of choice, including those within the traditional system, and (5) maintaining the high-level political resolve necessary when controversies erupt at the first publication of sharply lower results on tests which incorporate the new Common Core Standards (as has already been reported in New York State).

By no means are socioeconomic conditions irrelevant—as many charter schools who initially went overboard on their "no excuses" mantra have discovered, but rather it is that the education reformer message to students: "we will not ask you to wait!" is the correct theme to galvanize school leaders, teachers, parents, and students to act, with courageous politicians either leading or following.

(2013)

## Chapter 24:  
Frustration: The Occupy Wall Street Protestors

Now why would anybody in the United States, whether it be in New York City or elsewhere, be frustrated!

• Nearly one in five people is either unemployed or underemployed

• The upcoming Presidential race has stirred approximately zero positive emotion

• The federal budget dilemma vacillates between insanity and absurdity

• The obscene cost of college exacerbates income inequality

• The squeeze on the middle class has killed the growth engine of the American economy

• There is widespread awareness of the inequities in the income tax system

• People are disgusted when big banks are bailed out and ordinary businesses are left to die

• Many are disappointed that the Obama "change" agenda has not been attainable

• Young men and women are dying in various wars and non-wars for no evident gain

• There is dismay over the non-resolution of the multiple aspects of immigration

• There is confusion about how healthcare reform will unfold

• The consensus is growing that the entire educational system needs a complete do-over

• Large numbers of people are in homes that are "underwater" financially

• The approval rating of Congress is 15%, barely two points above its all-time low

Writing about a fast-moving situation like Occupy Wall Street (OWS) for a quarterly publication is a challenge. This piece was written October 10 after visits the morning of October 4 and the evening of October 8 (when I took these photos) and therefore does not include information or analysis relevant to all the events since that time. Fortunately, the tenor of what has evolved since that date has not changed the essential points made below. At the same time, according to one highly-informed source, internal discussions at OWS delve much deeper into philosophical issues than might be evident from the signs carried by protestors.

I have not Googled the question, but "frustration" is probably the single most widely-used word describing the attitude of the "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS) protestors who are currently encamped at Zuccotti Park at Broadway and Liberty Streets in New York City, a stone's throw from Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. OWS began on September 17 with a small group of young people carrying signs and orating about income inequalities in American society, with their venom focused on the millionaires and billionaires, "the 1%," who are purportedly exploiting the other "99%" of the population.

One week into the life of the protest, a New York City Deputy Inspector, Anthony Bologna, lost his patience with four angry females and pepper-sprayed them, an action which is being investigated by the Internal Affairs Bureau. The pepper-spraying was the best recruiting tool possible for OWS (followed chronologically by the Brooklyn Bridge trespassing arrests) and the numbers throwing down their sleeping bags in the park jumped sharply, as did media coverage. Since that time, OWS has grown by every measurement, including replications in many cities throughout the country.

The look of Zuccotti Park, which is privately owned, at first glance appears to be a cross between the Woodstock hippie gathering of a generation ago and an outdoor homeless shelter; it does not seem to be a haven for trust fund babies who have no idea what to do with their lives and excess money. OWS claims it is self-funded, in contrast to the Tea Party, which has benefited from large outside financial support.

There is an OWS library, broken down by subjects, the books being collected in cardboard boxes. There is a food line, and there are non-protesting entrepreneurs available at the fringe of the park to sell all manner of food and drink (non-alcoholic) and the inevitable t-shirts. Presumably none of the vendors are defined by the protestors as being capitalists; that appellation only belongs to places like the nearby McDonald's, which nonetheless has allowed its restrooms to be opened to the protestors.

Contrary to what a casual observer might conclude, there is an organizational approach at OWS, including a daily calendar of events. At the OWS morning meeting I observed, the speaker instructed people on hand signals to be used to react to suggestions from OWS leaders: hands up and wriggling meant positive, hands down and wriggling meant negative, hands in between and wriggling meant the reaction was uncertain.

OWS has numerous working groups, each of whom reports out at the daily 7 pm General Assembly. Outsiders desiring to speak can put their names in the "stack;" the only catch is that anybody who demonstrates they have been "disenfranchised" automatically goes ahead of anybody who has not been thusly challenged. This is referred to as the "progressive stack."

Every handmade sign at Zuccotti Park, including those with terminology not appropriate for this magazine, has its element of truth. The top 1% of taxpayers do earn a wholly disproportionate share of national income; whether this is synonymous with robbing the 99% is a more complex question. It sounds intuitively obvious, as does siding with professional athletes against team owners—until you delve into the origins of wealth and the actual numbers pertinent to all of the participants.

The physical Wall Street itself is not the point of OWS; the street is comprised of only a few blocks, and occupying it would accomplish nothing but hundreds of arrests. The term "Wall Street," however, includes all those involved in the financial industry, wherever they and their computers are located.

As is typical with mass demonstrations, there is little public attempt at nuance—and this is not even possible on signs anyway. Unless somebody who has been there multiple times has different information, it is not known whether protestors have demonstrated the time or intention to contemplate these issues:

• The confusion of using products like iPhones, iPads, PCs, etc. while calling for the heads of the "capitalist pig billionaires" who created these companies.

• The dilemma of interpreting the millions of dollars which the evil Goldman, Sachs contributes to non-profit entities in difficult, low income sections of New York City.

• The challenge of understanding how jobs are created and who pays which taxes.

• The necessity to understand that if the "rich" were taxed at a higher rate, _e.g._ , 50%, the budget numbers would be improved but otherwise the fundamental problems would remain.

• The proverb, "beware of good intentions." Part of the financial collapse of 2008 was triggered by a high-level decision (Secretary of Housing Henry Cisneros) to require minimal documentation for the granting of home mortgages, a disastrous policy.

• The desire by OWS to "End the Fed" may or may not recognize the historical problem, the pumping of super-cheap, low risk money into the economy, not by the current Chairman (who is subject to the same criticism for sure) but by the former Chairman, Alan Greenspan. This was a major factor behind the aforementioned financial collapse.

• The role of community-based charlatans—lawyers, real estate agents, mortgage brokers—in putting financially ill-equipped people into absurdly priced housing.

• The mixed impact of globalization, its benefits and its drawbacks.

• The fact that public service union members, when you consider the combination of compensation, pension, and health benefits, have been light-years away from the disenfranchised protestors in terms of their economic positions.

• The observation that President Obama's push for jobs puts the cart before the horse. There has to be incremental demand for products and services for companies to add to their employee rosters, but people, like companies, have been more focused on fixing their balance sheets, a combination long-term positive and intermediate-term negative to the economy.

• The dilemma of attempting to separate unethical behavior from criminal activity.

• Whether underneath all our troubles, there is a huge philosophical question, namely have we bought the God of Consumption and are "simply" paying the price.

When I walked by OWS a week prior to visiting for the first time, I immediately thought of the similarity to the Tea Party: individuals who are struggling in their lives, who are frustrated, and who want to believe there is a singular, external cause of their dilemma, whether it be the federal government or the "rich." However, after being at the park, including on a raucous Saturday night, and seeing how the emotion behind OWS has resonated throughout the country, it seems necessary to pause and put OWS in a different context, that of recent youth-led, modern technology-facilitated actions around the world.

Changes in governments in the Middle East (the "Arab Spring") certainly come to mind, sparked by young people communicating with all the modern devices which are hard to shut down. These particular overthrows have been long in coming, in the view of many, and typically do have a singular object of hatred. Whether sustainable political reforms can be generated by the same people who were successful in an "anti" position is a difficult question, and one which could be relevant to OWS as well.

In England, the relatively recent rioting by young people had a police action as its ostensible trigger. A big difference with OWS was the destruction of property by the rioters, something which has not (as least not yet) happened with the Zuccotti Park protestors. Still, in England there was a spirited debate as to whether to describe the upheaval as being about "social justice" or "hooliganism."

In Greece, rioting ensued when public sector workers and others, who had enjoyed their financial candy, albeit purchased with borrowed funds, threw a fit over being taken to the IMF dentist for a painful operation. Ireland, whose wretched financial position is akin to that of Greece, apparently has a different attitude about repaying bad debts; they intend to do so. Maybe the Irish are so accustomed to negativity, as one writer suggested, that self-imposed misery comes naturally to them and is regularly a stimulus to heavy-duty patronage at the local pubs.

In Chile, prospective teachers leaving college with high-interest debt twice their expected salaries have been in the forefront of protests (the "Chilean Winter") against the exceedingly high cost of higher education.

An "Occupy College Campuses" movement in the United States would resonate among the vast majority of students who have to borrow and/or work to meet the obscene cost of college.

Before anybody starts waving the American flag and begins screaming, "it (actions analogous to those listed above) cannot happen here," take yourself back to the year 2000 and think about what has happened since: the 9-11 attacks demonstrated our external vulnerability, Katrina showed vulnerability to Mother Nature in case anybody had forgotten, and 2008 showed our ability to shoot ourselves in both financial feet.

In other words, who knows what could happen, but looking ahead and envisioning a multi-year continuation of high unemployment and substantial underemployment, frustration is likely to remain equally evident. This suggests that OWS will have "legs," but to accomplish anything substantive it must heed the words of a college professor, "passion alone does not defeat inertia, it takes passion plus a plan."

Any semblance of an OWS plan has been notably absent, but—is it possible that OWS has a brilliant strategy: prove to be such an annoyance (without running afoul of the hundreds of policemen who are monitoring Zuccotti Park) that government/society/non-protestors will come to OWS on bended knee and OWS will be able at that time to articulate a set of suggestions/policies/demands, which, after negotiation, would find their way into the political fabric of America?

## Chapter 25:  
Globalization: A Few Thoughts

I was sitting in the meeting, which was reasonably interesting but not capable of engaging all my attention, when my eyes were drawn to the little paper informational wrapper around my bottle of apple juice. Incredibly, different parts of its concentrate came from the United States, Germany, Italy, Argentina, and China! Here is a product with a wholesale ingredient value that is probably in the pennies, yet the business of bringing it to this office building in New York City can economically combine inputs from around the world.

I wondered if Verifine even visited those far-flung orchards which were giving up their fruit to become apple juice concentrate. Could the whole affair have been orchestrated over the computer, in line with the examples cited in The World is Flat, the previously mentioned must-read book by Thomas Friedman (heretofore known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on the Middle East). Verifine may never have taken physical possession of any of the product inputs, never owned the processing plant, maybe not even the desks and phones of its office, and certainly not the trucks used to distribute the end product.

Author Friedman not only delineates the technological forces behind the flattening of the world, but also cogently describes the governmental policies which foster or inhibit the growth of international commerce. At the same time, he does not ignore the capability of terrorist forces, opposed to globalization because it threatens their dictatorial way of life, to use the Internet and related technologies to plan their agenda of semi-random murderous havoc.

He also points out a crucial misunderstanding in the United States concerning outsourcing. The headlines about lower wage employees obscure the high quality service levels of many providers, their disposition to work harder than their American brethren, and their desire to move up the education/income learning curve. They truly want to "move the needle", and countries such as China and India have so many people, combined representing about a third of the entire world, that it only takes a small percentage to make a competitive impact, which is what is happening. Ask the little storefront in Mexico, previously thought to be one of the lowest-cost countries, which is now selling imitation cultural artifacts made in China.

When you throw in the fact that American elementary-high school students do less well on standardized tests compared to their international peers the longer they are in school, there is an underlying education/aspiration problem in this country of major proportions.

The whole scenario brings to mind a story about Bill Bradley, perhaps the finest college basketball player of his time, which admittedly was a long while ago, well before he became a New York Knick and then a senator and briefly a Presidential candidate.

" _When I was a kid, I always figured that somebody else was practicing at the same time I was, and that if I left the court, he would still be there. So I kept practicing."_

Neither individuals nor companies in the United States should wonder whether their global competitors are practicing their skills, including the English language: they are!

## Chapter 26:  
Guarding a Katrina Ghost Town

Van driver and Interviewee: Sandra Jimerson.

To quote the eminent on-court philosopher, John McEnroe, "you cannot be serious!!!"

Readers will recall that a breach in a key levee was the proximate cause of water inundating the Ninth Ward when Katrina hit on August 29, 2005. However, in Sandra's view, it made no sense to leave a barge in the waterway, allegedly "protected" by a key levee, despite widespread reports of an imminent category five hurricane. In the mind of residents (who obviously have the opportunity to be Monday morning quarterbacks), it was inevitable that said barge would be spun around like a top and inevitably bust the levee, releasing water with estimated peak velocity of 100 mph.

If it was so obvious, or the levee itself reportedly not truly finished (although the project began 40 years ago), why not sue the Corps of Engineers; does not everybody in this society sue at even the hint of negligence! Cannot do—a federal court ruling of several decades ago gave the corps legal protection. To add insult to injury, at least one well-informed complainant in said that the levee actually was breached during a Category two phase of Katrina as the Category five aspect had gone past the city by then.

Note there is extensive background to understanding New Orleans and natural disasters. In 1965, during Hurricane Betsy, the levees had been dynamited to protect the business area, with the ninth ward being adversely affected. In 1927, a huge flood had led to the necessity for a tent city; it was considered the number one natural disaster in the United States prior to Katrina.

When additional levels were breached during Katrina without extenuating circumstances (which does not prevent a conspiratorial theory from evolving), the downtown business area was protected, as its elevation is somewhat higher than the below seas level average for New Orleans.

Nearly three years after the horror of Katrina, concrete slabs are the sole indications that once houses occupied these spots; they speak loudly about the unpalatable gumbo of incompetence, indifference, and obliviousness which has characterized the response of America in aggregate to the 1300+ direct victims, dead and still missing, of this unique disaster.

Streets of such slabs represent the area which was totally flooded, houses swept away, splintered, and totally lost to their owners. In many cases, if not most, the residents of this most devastated area were direct descendants of the original owners of these plots, a large percentage of which came into their families when black Americans finally the opportunity to own land in New Orleans. To wonder about the slowness in assisting such minority families is to scratch the poisonous itch that never goes away in this country, regardless of efforts to ameliorate the problem.

And now there is more pain in an occupied area of the city; in the first quarter of 2008, FEMA reversed its opinion on the dangers of formaldehyde fumes in temporary trailers (35,000 of them) and said their occupants had to move out.

A sudden thought: could a Wall Street-type be interested in this difficult situation? In Chicago, there is a legendary investor named Sam Zell (now the owner of the _Chicago Tribune_ , among other assets), who is popularly identified with so-called "vulture funds." Managers of such monies seek out thoroughly depressed situations as investments for long-term reward.

"What if somebody with cash and a multiyear viewpoint offered to buy these properties," I asked Sandra.

"They are not for sale; they are family."

"OK, assume the prospective buyer raises his price, doubles it in fact."

"Honey, there ain't no way that somebody is going to turn their backs on their history for a few dollars."

"In other words, these concrete slab sites are both worthless and priceless."

"Yes, that's right."

As Sandra turned the corner and drove away from this ghost town of crushed dreams, we saw the "surviving" houses. All had been gutted, by order of the mayor. Many had their outside walls marked by an X, which meant they were scheduled for demolition. There were inspection dates, also painted on the house, and at least one house had the notation, "two dead dogs, one dead cat."

There were signs of rebuilding, but they were few in number. In contrast, the bitterness toward the lack of a cohesive reconstruction plan was pervasive. Sandra's message was loud and clear, "do not believe the hype that New Orleans is coming back. How can anybody make such a claim when you look at this area! And half the population is still elsewhere, scattered to relatives and friends," with the largest concentration in Houston, a few hundred miles west of the city. Many have not received their full insurance proceeds or the rebuilding allotment being doled out by the government.

Minimal though its aggregate assets may be, this ghost town is consistently guarded by the police and military. Apparently the authorities fear that people with even lesser economic conditions will become squatters in gutted houses. But the irony is not lost on anybody, including Sandra, "they have the money and commitment to guard the ghost town but not enough resolve to see it rebuilt."

One can be flip and say the Ninth Ward of New Orleans reminds a traveler of the incredibly woeful Camden, New Jersey or a prototypical third world country, at which point there ensues the all too inevitable shrug of the shoulders which accompanies the attitude, "it's out of my hands."

As for me—I am disgusted and angry. America's priorities are so totally screwed up at present that it is hard to stay calm. It is equally difficult to remember when a politician simply espousing "change" would so easily command the rapt attention of huge numbers of voters. Hopefully, somewhere in this overall picture there will emerge a leader with passion, preparedness, and a plan, and both Katrina victims and those who would help will become beneficiaries.

## Chapter 27:  
Guess Who Goes to Atlantic City

There comes a moment during every semi-annual trip I make to Atlantic City when I wonder, "what the heck am I doing here—this gambling activity has to be the dumbest part of my life." (I am sure that some people would nominate other dumb behaviors of mine, but hopefully they are not repeated. Aw shucks, they are repeated—I remain judgmental for example). I am not certain, but I think the "dumbest" imagery is highly correlated with putting a $20 bill in a slot machine money-eater and two minutes (at most) later having nothing to show for it. And how many people continue to starve in some far-off land, or maybe right around the corner in this forlorn city!

**Digression** : Atlantic City is a waterfront city, once a major recreational attraction because of that water and various amusements, now configured as rows of casinos, a sprinkling of discount retail shops, the obligatory Starbucks, and the much more interesting Atlantic City Diner, an indigenous institution as it were. Supposedly a meaningful percentage of casino revenues was earmarked for urban revival here, with another slice tagged for higher education in New Jersey. The effects in either case are hard to discern; the city is still a basket case and higher education continues to raise its rates at twice the pace of overall inflation, while resisting any attempts to examine its cost structure or graduation rates.

**Digression Number Two** : the producer of the Supersize Me movie should drop by a casino buffet sometime; I could steer him to the $42 Sunday brunch (water view) I chowed down on for about two hours. He would find that 30 days of this type of repetitive eating would produce even more agita/hospital admission symptoms than he garnered at Mickey D's.

So back to "dumb and dumber." I play the brainless slots, cheaply but ineffectively (duh, the house has to win overall, idiot), all the way regretting that I did not buy the stock of the company that makes these wallet-fleecers. Bills fly from me to the owners of these impossibly glittering, seductive establishments. For better or worse in terms of my surprisingly fragile psyche, I know my cumulative monetary damage every minute I am there. Fortunately, the total minutes are not great, and I escape with my shirt, to return six months later and experience similar conflicts in what passes for my cerebellum.

**Digression Number Three** : here is a small case study in the psychology of expectations. I sit down at a slot machine, drop in three quarters, and suddenly bells go off. I have no immediate idea of the magnitude of what I am to receive, but I believe that bells are good, really good. Either that or they are a signal to the maintenance man that some fool has damaged the money machines. While waiting for somebody intelligent to arrive, hopefully with a wheelbarrow for the silver riches certain to flow from the skilled manner in which I deposited my seventy-five cents, I attempt to analyze the payoff information on the machine. Normally, I ignore that information—it provides zero insight into how to win. But now, all those vertical, horizontal, diagonal lines seem like they are crossed by a "payline." Damn, looks like 2400 (quarters that is). Cool, never hit one like this. Now the casino representative arrives. He traces the lines quickly and announces the verdict: 1600 quarters. I am supposed to be elated, of course, as minutes before I had three measly 25-cent pieces. Instead, I am mildly disappointed! because my mind had briefly been wrapped around the 2400 number. Amazing!

**Digression Number Four** : the first time I played roulette, I was in Puerto Rico, at a 25-cent chip table. It spoiled me. In Atlantic City, I cannot find a similar financially undemanding table; $10 minimums scare me off, even though I spread out bets with corners and a total of 18 numbers covered out of 36 numbers on the table (plus 0, 00, red, black, odd, even), putting my payoff odds at somewhat below 2:1. So I have avoided the opportunity to conservatively play roulette, and take longer to lose my money.

**Digression Number Five** : I know how to play blackjack, but the feeling of having somebody pressuring me ("do you want another card or not?") while others are waiting, is not what I am seeking. I have that back in the office ("do I get the grant or don't I!"). More importantly, I am not in Atlantic City to think.

**Digression Number Six** : craps I know nothing about, a true money-saving educational attribute.

They do have off-Broadway caliber shows in Atlantic City, for those people who want to interrupt their gaming losses by dropping some money on entertainment. I went to see "The Producers," which I had seen on the screen twice before over a multi-year timeframe. The on-stage talent was really good; it was funny, but later I remarked to myself how valueless it was at its core. That made me question whether

Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ ever would make it into production in today's environment; imagine, a movie where a man stands up for his own beliefs against those representing the "common good."

Okay, it was time to leave, before access to my five year-old car was denied me by any absurd gaming debt. As I approached the toll booth on the highway which facilitates your escape from Atlantic City, flush with the memory of my last $10 of slot money having been turned into $60 (do not ask about the cumulative deficit from the trip), I was thinking, "this should be the opportunity for one last wager. Instead of just dropping in the required coins and driving away, a certain percentage of toll money would be returned to the driver, similar to a slot payoff. The payoff would go to a college of the driver's choice, with the driver getting a tax deduction for his contribution. The driver would only be able to participate by having an E-Z Pass, which would benefit all (okay, almost all; the toll booth job might be eliminated)."

What do I conclude from my inane trips to this silly place, the one whose street names are commemorated in Monopoly: (a) people are more complex than they appear on the surface, (b) my values, and those of millions of others, are twisted, (c) let those without sin preach the first sermon, (d) nothing at all.

For the correct answer, look behind slot machine # 067, the Triple Diamond Deluxe, at Tropicana.

## Chapter 28:  
Happy Birthday Compilation

If we can survive atrocities like beheadings and banalities like bieber, maybe people have an inner fiber which defies ordinary logic.

Lamentable and laughable simply become descriptors of program feeds into a Twitter world.

Yipes, this is supposed to be a Birthday card, not a snappy synopsis of the world.

Besides, I have no idea what it all means: I wrote this while on Sabbatical in Barcelona. The positives there are as ubiquitous as café con _leche_ and as rich as xocolata croissants.

Which reminds me—take time today for a nice piece of cake and forget how many years you have crossed off the calendar of life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

(2015)

I know this is a crushing disappointment, but the year 2014 will be missing a paper version of my birthday wishes. Kicking and screaming, I have been pulled into the brave new world of technology and am now e-mailing my incredibly creative and deeply meaningful birthday messages.

Fewer trees fallen, no trips to the mismanaged post office, some dollars saved for use in student scholarships—all are collateral benefits of this _seis_ mic shift.

Wait—the birthday message itself!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

MAY ALL THE SERVERS AT YOUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT EMBARRASS YOU BY SERENADING YOU AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS. AND MAY YOU REALIZE THAT WITHOUT A SENSE OF HUMOR, THIS WORLD IS DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT AS BEING AT ALL RATIONAL.

Peace.

(2014)

Let's see: the economy is lousy, natural and man-made disasters seem to be more frequent, politics has become even more distasteful than ever—blah, blah, blah!

FORGETTABOUTIT!

HAVE A PARTY!

DID I SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

THAT IS WHAT I MEANT TO CONVEY IN THIS MESSAGE.

HAVE FUN. STAY HEALTHY. PEACE.

(2013)

America is a wonderful place—

unmatched diversity

and the opportunity

to vote for the politician of your choice,

or sit it out

and make the votes of others more important,

or write-in the brilliant suggestion of your own.

Forget it—time to party!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Eat lots of cake and wash it down with

something suitably strong.

(2012)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Wasn't it yesterday when we were worrying about

computers crashing as we moved into the 21st century?

And now, in 2011, we have an "app" for everything—

except happiness, prosperity, and acceptance of differences.

But the heck with thinking about all of the above,

it's your birthday—have a great time!

(2011)

## Chapter 29:  
Have We Bought the Wrong God

At age 12, I was baptized in a little church in the one stop-light town of West Henrietta, New York. It was full immersion, the Baptist way, in the sunken tub next to the minister's pulpit. At 17, I went off to the University of Pennsylvania, armed with the resolve to attend church every Sunday. A year later, I returned to the hometown church to preach about "nihilism," having been invited to do so on College Student day. It was shortly thereafter when I began missing church, which subsequently became a lifetime habit with only a few interruptions—mostly because of a push from my wife and two daughters, whom I loved very much.

The God I heard about on those infrequent Sundays was talking about change, about doing something different and better in the here and now, in return for a better life after our days on earth—or was the message that doing things the right way on earth creates a better current life and is its own reward? The creed of the particular place I visited occasionally as an adult with family was that of the United Methodist Church, which meant (according to its founder John Wesley) a combination of scripture, faith, reason, and prayer. It made sense, I think. I was often moved by the message, or maybe it was the inspiring hymns.

But when I left the church, what I saw daily in front of my eyes was a different God, that of Consumption. And there is zero evidence that aggregate churchgoer attendance from the decades between my youth and the present has slowed the growth rate in the number of followers of this modern-day, materialistic God.

Similarly, there is no data which shows that a particular demographic group, or those of a certain political persuasion, have shunned the God of Consumption because it is inconsistent with their concept of appropriate living. The Devil of the moment may be the American President, but it is the collective decisions of all those seduced by the God of Consumption that are behind most of the decision-making at the top. When was the last time a leader stood up in front of a national audience, or a group of townspeople, and said, "trying to boost gross national product every month is a fool's mission. We are gaining our SUVs, our plasma TVs, and our umpteenth shirt or blouse, but we can never win the battle to be blessed by the God of Consumption, and somewhere inside our souls (admittedly a non-consumptive concept), we know it. Just as we realize, without articulating it, that "if we abuse the candle, we lose the light."

Whether you were baptized, or confirmed, or observe Ramadan, or had a bar mitzvah, your essential decision, the ramifications of which are played out on an international stage (accompanied, as always, by the deaths of believers in various Gods), is whether the God of Consumption is to receive daily homage. If disposable cups, disposable ideas, and disposable people are to litter your path, you may have material substance, but scant understanding of your place on this planet, and minimal understanding of the depleted future you are delivering to your heirs.

It is true that if a person simply gives part of his wealth to an individual with little in the way of assets, not a huge change is immediately accomplished. Preparing the latter to truly live independently may require additional education, including the acquisition of critical thinking skills. And we know that history is littered with the corpses of those who have bought into a centralized political enforcer of "the right way to live." However, to pledge allegiance to the God of Consumption, and simultaneously do nothing about huge wealth disparities, seemingly is to deny the God of your beliefs.

## Chapter 30:  
Hello America

HELLO AMERICA!

From the well-located and thoroughly hospitable Cappuccino (there is a backwards K between P and U for those interested in design concepts and legal protection) Espresso Café in beautiful downtown Barcelona (I have memorized its password: "cafe1994bcn" in case you are in the area), where the _delicioso_ _zumo_ _naranha_ is twice the cost of wine at the nearby shop (a store would imply something bigger), I give you a student's view on one corner of the world of on-line education.

I am taking a course called "Human Behavior in Organizations"—I felt it was something I needed at this stage of my life, you know at _setenta_ _anos_ , I have to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

Anyway, the education provider, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), could not be smoother in its customer relations. At the same time, It appears that the business strategy is actually a form of outsourcing. They find an adjunct professor, who could be located anywhere (and in the case of my _profesora_ , has been at multiple stops in her career) and strike a deal. Maybe she gets paid a percentage of the gross, with an incentive for student persistency, or a flat fee with a collar based on the headcount. I do not know, but I would be surprised if she had any non-financial relationship with the university other being an approved vendor of class leadership/management.

The next step in the outsourcing is that SNHU secures an appropriate vendor of the education materials themselves. In this case it is Pearson, the huge publisher. Through something called "My Management Lab," they provide the rental of an e-book plus a series of menu items, _e.g._ Study Plans (where you can earn "Mastery Points), and where the _profesora_ posts homework assignments

So far (it is week two), I have heard nothing substantive from the _profesora_ but lots of procedural stuff about modules and where to find information, _i.e.,_ at which click. I am holding my breath on her grading as my Discussion Board postings and responses are as much, maybe even more a function of experience than they are a result of reading the book. And thank goodness I did buy a real book—the kind with easily turned pages and room for markings which withstand the impact of clicking—because there have been innumerable computer glitches, and not all of them have been caused by my ineptness.

Does Pearson have a Help Desk? Of course, and so does SNHU itself. They have nice little drop-down boxes where you can click to identify your problem; well guys, even I might have a chance to solve it if I actually could articulate what the real problem might be.

So I do the writing, make sure I read every post and response that collectively flow from the class like molasses that has been left out overnight, and I prepare ahead of time (what, you expected something different) for my first Milestone. For the latter, I will write a two-page outline of what I am going to say—eventually in my BIG PROJECT—about the BP Oil Spill, with the format being APA naturally.

Did I mention I love Barcelona, even if there was an overdose on something (unemployment is terribly high don't you know) on the street the other night. This morning I bought scotch tape (advice—scotch tape is the one thing you cannot buy cheap: a lesson I learned back home and then decided to ignore, hence I am still in the market for a roll that costs more than .75 euros; it is impossible to get the cheap tape started and then, after using it once, it is impossible all over again) as well as a basketball in a shop around the corner which could fit in the Hayden office.

I took the _balon_ to a nearby hoop, which fortunately was available because nobody was playing _futbol_ on the dirt field at ten o'clock in the morning. After I got adjusted to what I think was a 9-foot basket and hit a few, a young guy came over and wanted to play 21. After I went ahead _seis_ - _cero_ , he thought better of the idea and returned to talk with his buddies. Maybe I was not supposed to play defense, even a loose variety; he certainly was not interested in the concept.

When I returned to my apartment, I did a clothes wash and then hung them out to dry, on the five lines located outside my living room window, which means my precious fabrics were then dangling right over the heads of passerbys. So far, the clothespins seem to be holding up and nobody walking below has been hit in the head by a pair of my undies.

Did I mention that I would love it here even more if those damn tourists would go home. Yipes, they clutter up some of the smaller passageways. (I have not yet taken my camera out of the apartment—that would make me one of "them." Of course I will in time after my rhythm here is established.)

I have to run: Catalonia is making a big push for Independence—coincidentally on _Jueves_ , the _once_ _de_ _Septiembre_ , and I want to see if the political flunkies will be handing out free croissants. I need the sustenance to go with my _café con_ _leche_ and the European edition of the _Wall Street Journal_.

It does seem from reading the above publication that the world is rather f... d up, wouldn't you say—and how many of the American commemorators of 9-11-01 realize that the USA has an ally(!) in fighting ISIS, an entity named Al Qaeda.

Did I mention that Messi just scored again!

(I apologize to the grammar gods for words which are misspelled or missing a ~.)

(2014)

## Chapter 31:  
Hola America: Unidad Dos

It was only relatively recently in my extended life when I learned that the threads scholarly people kept referring to in their conversations and intellectual journals had nothing to do with the Singer found in my house growing up and en la habitacions de todos madres I visited when en Ecuador. Now that I realize this, I will attempt to weave three threads into "THE FABRIC OF A FEW DAYS."

1. I walk about a dozen blocks, maybe 15-20 minutes, to buy the European edition of _The Wall Street Journal_. Actually, I lied. I do not know how many blocks or how long it takes because there is no concept of distance or time when attempting to traverse the streets of Barcelona. There are three possible explanations for its interesting physical lay-out: (a) an ancestor of Picasso did the drawings, (b) some children were playing pick-up-sticks and a drunken city planner thought the accidental design on the floor looked interesting, or (c) the normal chaotic evolution of history, particularly for an area which goes way back. As a result, there are probably 25 combinations of routas to get to _el_ _periodoco_ , and they pass by approximately 147 places where you can buy a croissant or other delicious pastry. With the equally omnipresent _café con_ _leche_ , there is ample time to sit and discuss the upcoming unconstitutional local referendum on making Catalonia independent of Spain. [DID I MENTION THAT BARCELONA HAS A BONA FIDE 24-HOUR, BREAKFAST-AT-ANY-TIME DINER, COMPLETE WITH JOHNNY CASH AND THE KING FILLING THE AIRWAVES.]

2. In addition to those annoying tourists, especially those in large groups, who stop to take a picture of everything that moves or does not move, there is the moment when one of those steel blinds is lifted at another _tienda_ or cultural _puerta_ and I can only say, "OMG," still another beautiful something in a nondescript location. As I continue what is obviously a wandering route, inevitably there is a moment when the correct observation is no, not that "I am lost," no, no, no; it is simply that I do not know where I am. One can argue that my ability to be oblivious of the time lost in being not-lost is because I am not employed, but the cafes are full of locals who seem to have the same attitude toward the clock, talking and smoking, and gesturing as if the 18% unemployment in Barcelona applied to others, like the Haitians wheeling their shopping carts around to gather up scrap metal for sale. [DID I MENTION THAT NAYMAR JUST SCORED AGAIN, WITH ANOTHER ASSIST FROM MESSI.]

3. You might think that given the ease of access to ample quantities of delicious food and drink, many people would be described as _un poco gordo_ or more. On the contrary, overweight residents are rarely seen. Maybe it is the walking. Not only is it the best way to get around for shorter distances, but the stairs to the wonderful underground Metro system, for use on somewhat longer sojourns, can be a good work-out. The maximum that I have experienced is a total of 97 steps from the train to the surface (yes, there is an escalator if you must). Adding to the walking regimen is the necessity, given small apartments with small refrigerators, to make daily purchases (incentivized by the ease with which one can buy truly fresh _frutas_ and _verduras_ ) and carry the resultant bags back to the domicile.

The bottom line is that not only do Spaniards live longer (trick comment: my life expectancy here is 50% longer than in the United States), they are less likely to die of diabetes, or alcohol or drugs or, somewhat surprisingly, lung cancer—amazing because smoking is totally commonplace, at all socioeconomic levels.

Them threads kinda makes you think deep thoughts, you know, like what is the goal of a person or society. Leaving aside spiritual inputs, is it really simple: a long, happy life, with the details to be filled in by the individuals involved. Such an outcome metric might be described as "effective," which is distinct from "efficient." Note that while American companies can deliver the cheapest toilet paper in great volume, because Spain is healthier, it can have smaller toilets—and reduced size toilet paper!

[DID I MENTION THAT I REALLY LIKE THIS PLACE!]

Bob

P.S. My continued apologies to the Spanish language.

## Chapter 32:  
Hola Estados Unidos: Unidad Cuatro

A mi nueva idioma, te doy tiempo para unas vacaciones.

" _Muchas gracias, Senor_ Bob _."_

Besides, I needed to brush up on my English; in a couple of weeks, I will be returning to _Estados_ _Unidos_ for _seis_ _semanas_.

Some people see the dust on the piano legs; others hear the music. You get to choose.

You may have thought that your lowly writer had lost his analytical balance and turned dewy-eyed, choosing to ignore some defects as he focused on the music of Barcelona. To show that he has not neglected to notice the dust, here are some not-so-great aspects of life in this awesome city.

Omitted from the list will be the projected trauma of having one's undies slip from the grasp of a defective clothespin and plummet onto the head of an unsuspecting pedestrian who is attempting to convince his colleague to vote "yes" in the upcoming (November 9) non-vote, non-voluntary "consultation," non-referendum on the non-constitutional issue of independence for Catalonia. (Details available on request.)

• Among ex-pats, NOISE has to be the single biggest irritant. When buildings are tall and streets are narrow, noise carries really well. There is good list of contributors to the din:

• Residents, including two in my area who seem to have a regularly scheduled argument, which is transacted at increasing decibel levels with each debating point.

• Dogs, of which there are many, as evidenced by both their barking and their excrement; then again, many are pitbulls, so who is to argue.

• The clacking of luggage wheels as those finding their rented abodes find their addresses at various hours of the night. (Don't they make those things with rubber wheels?)

• The steel door/curtains of every business and apartment; they are heavy and heard for blocks when pulled up or down.

• Motorcycles, everywhere, all hours.

• Construction work: both a small "road" nearby being torn up and redone and, separately, the renovation of several spaces formerly occupied by failed businesses.

• People are talking, constantly, vigorously, which to some is a negative: you can tell from the banners hung from apartment balconies pleading the case of residents for some silence. For others, including myself, this source of noise is synonymous with a vibrant life.

• Garbage trucks contribute significant noise as well, but they get a pass. The city does a wonderful job of 24/7 cleaning: garbage in my area must be bagged and put on the street, outside the building entrance, by 8 pm in the evening, for pick-up sometime in the ensuing eight-to-twelve hours. City trucks pass through as well to both sweep and wash the streets. All good.

• Conventional bicycles get a pass as well. They are amazingly devoid of noise, which is startling the first time they go right by you a couple of centimeters away, when you did not even know they were behind you.

• Graffiti on the steel doors of shops is omnipresent. (However, Sometimes the artwork is so captivating that I wish our interstate highway noise walls would be so covered.)

• Green lights for pedestrians at many intersections are accompanied by yellow lights for turning cars, which can make it a bit of a macho game. Trust but verify is a good rule but is that not true elsewhere in life as well.

• The Senegalese sidewalk merchants are not a problem. They clearly have a worldwide franchise agreement with Coach to sell their purses on every tourist avenue in the world. No, what I do not need are the plethora of weekend (mostly), locally-created kiosks, and the obliteration of the plaza in front of the Cathedral with sales spots of all kinds. (What's next—malls!)

• While I have been asked to give directions (apparently a beard and a straw hat give me a European look), I still feel like I wear a virtual _Americano_ sign. So beggars, some of whom are handicapped, some of whom have dogs with them as an additional marketing tool, beseech me every day. What to do in response?

• In _Toxic Charity_ , a book written by a man of the cloth, the author asks three clergymen how they react to beggars. One always gave, one never gave, and one said, "it depends." So much for useful insights from experts (true on Wall Street as well.)

• There are locals who will not use the underground passageway entitled " _Passeig de Gracia_ , even though it is a major connection point for multiple Metro lines." It is a completely straight,long (maybe three blocks), rectangular box of a walkway with exposed concrete beams that would crease an NBA player's skull. It is hot and colorless. The tedium is only broken by a lone musician (Elvis makes an occasional appearance).

• Those omnipresent cigarettes, smoked even while parents are wheeling their little ones around in a stroller (an inexplicable juxtaposition of life and death), are discarded on the street, as if that form of litter was sacrosanct.

• Bank competency and realtor ethics are comparable to what exist in the United States; _i.e._ , no further comment is needed.

• The media coverage was extensive: high-ranking politicos and others similarly well-connected taking construction kickbacks and bribes on government projects. I thought I was back home in New Jersey, but no, it was Spain—reportedly the biggest corruption crackdown in memory.

• It had to happen eventually. After a Barcelona _futbol_ match that inexplicably did not start until 8:45 pm, the Metro was super-packed to the point of my letting two trains pass before being pushed on Japanese style. So by the time I exited, it was midnight. Big deal, the tourist area was still mobbed and I embarked on a typical circuitous route back to my apartment.

• Surprise, the bright lights were not so luminescent, the populace less evident, except for a new constituency.

• "Hey baby, wanna have some fun?!" was the standard greeting, which was true whether the beseecher was Eastern European (reminding me of a sex-trafficking episode on "Law & Order") or seemingly had only recently been liberated enough to lift her veil or whether they appeared to have been sent directly from the land of chocolate in West Africa.

• Moving right along to speak of truly important things,

DID I MENTION:

Top of the box, moving without excessive haste to his left, the ball already on his favorite foot ...

85,000 people rise from their seats in anticipation ...

He almost caresses the ball, so soft are his first, second, and even third touches as his short, balletic steps take him even further to the left ...

Defenders suddenly appear immobile, entranced, almost frozen by their fear of being embarrassed.

And then it happens, one powerful kick, smashed in the instant it takes to snap a photo or have your breath taken away!

## Chapter 33:  
Hola Estados Unidos: Unidad Tres

Cuando la long-legged senorita parks her moto, hops off and removes her helmet, tu can solo say, "holy smokes, the commercial was right, is she hermosa or que! Y no, el tattoos do not detract from her beauty, nunca! Ah si, the ojos-catching camiseta—otre pitch for independencia for Catalonia.

_Qual_ _es_ a decent lead-in, albeit a touch forced to— _revolucion_ _donde_ _es_? And is there a _bueno_ seat available at a café _donde_ I can sip _café con_ _leche_ _y miro? Que hora es Revolucion?_ Not sure of her answer to my mangled syntax, but _creo_ it was akin to the bumper sticker of _todos_ motivational speakers and _escribitores_ , "there is always time to do something which is important to you."

Meanwhile, I am trying to imagine the similarly affluent populace of a suburban enclave _en_ _Nuevo_ Jersey sipping on their triple something lattes, organic and fair traded (and therefore the €3+ which they have coughed up for the same Arabic coffee beans available elsewhere for less than half the price—well that _dinero_ will forever _cambio_ the _vida_ of a grower in South America) and talking _independencia_. They gather to march for secession, because they are annoyed big-time at sending their hard-earned dinero to Newark and seeing it wasted or stolen—exactly the claim being made by Catalonia. " _Ara es Hora_ ," the t-shirts shout, despite Madrid's refusal to even recognize an independence vote, instead labeling it unconstitutional and thus putting the paychecks of centrally paid Barcelona bureaucrats at risk.

On this particular _Sabado_ , the Revolution started late by some standards, perhaps because café and pastries were _necesito_ first. Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are evident throughout the _cuidad_ , as is a similar chain of Pans, but a true Catalonian only toma at a place run by the ancestors of the battle of 1714. Nonetheless, _cuando_ the Metro had disgorged its final participant, it was estimated that some 1.5 million people marched on this day—there have been _mucho_ demonstrations since.

[DID I MENTION THAT THE BARCELONA PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL TEAM, WITH AN UNSURPRISING CULTURAL COMMITMENT TO ALL ITS PLAYERS PARTICIPATING IN THE OFFENSE, IS MUCH MORE INTERESTING TO WATCH THAN THE INDIVIDUALISTIC NEW YORK KNICKS.]

(Warning: some preaching _from el abuelo y tio y padre_ is coming.) Help!!! A gaggle of empty-headed _Americano_ _senorita_ s are now residing— _por favor_ only temporarily—across from my _casa_. Standing on their balcony, which like mine directly hangs above the _calle_ , they have already proclaimed to everybody within earshot that they are _diecenuevo_ , drunk and ready to party, which for sure will be an invitation that will not go _sine_ takers. I did step out to my balcony and calmly asked whether they realized that people actually lived here, _i.e.,_ the area was not a _colegio_ campus, but then thought better of initiating an _intelegente_ discussion and retreated to put in my earplugs.

And then there is what _nosotros_ used to call the "F" word, occasionally part of the _senorita_ s vocabulary, fortunately not as ubiquitous as the " _hola_ " they hurl at everybody a _pie_ underneath their window. "F" is now used, and apparently accepted, in as wide an array of situations as any word but "it" in the English _lingua_. The evolution of "F" reminds me of Geoff Canada's book on the changed meaning of violence: _Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun._ Once upon a time, the predominant use of "F" (at least in my sheltered _vida_ ) seemingly was to express anger or frustration; today, somebody might rise from his _cama_ and nonchalantly ask, "what the 'F' is the weather today." Ah, linguistic progress.

Enough kvetching; _tiempo_ to return to _desportes_ , a _mas importante sujetivo_. Being a sports fan, it has been interesting to see the eclectic coverage, ranging from professional tennis to pairs ballet swimming (set to an opera score) to local professional basketball to indoor field hockey on roller skates to endless pelotons lagging behind a leading bicyclist somewhere in the hills of Europe.

There is an entire channel devoted to the world of Barcelona _Futbol_ , from _ninos_ _con_ the appropriate uniforms to senior citizens still kicking the _balon_ around. If it is showing THE ACTUAL BARCELONA _FUTBOL_ TEAM, particularly after a big win or the occasional (by definition, devastating) loss, the manager may be on _cuartro_ _diferencia_ channels at the same time. The team gets covered from the moment it a _pie_ down the steps from _al_ _avion_ or _al_ _autobus_. A press conference for the signing of a _nuevo_ _jugalor_ draws coverage from at least _vienticinco_ places. And replays are endless, as are the manager's answers to media questions. He says more, or at least uses _mucho mas_ words, in response to a single query than the manager of the New York Yankees, Joe Giradi, does in a half-hour with reporters.

By far the most interesting sporting event, _cual_ like _mucho_ of the above I only saw in highlight form, was _el_ _Paralimpicos_ _de_ Madrid. To see doubles table tennis being played by four _hombres_ in wheelchairs, each of whom could beat you, is to witness the adaptability of the human condition. Maybe even more of a display _de_ fortitude and intentionality was that of a blind _senorita_ triathlete who swam, ran, and pedaled a tandem bike accompanied by a guide. Puts one's _vida_ _en_ proper perspective.

[DID I MENTION THE BANNERS HANGING FROM MULTIPLE RESIDENCES: "PLEASE BE QUIET. WE WANT TO SLEEP" OR "TOURISM RUINS THE NEIGHBORHOOD."]

Concerning tourism, _es_ _verdad_ is that _todos_ _pais_ this side of the ocean has its share of museums, cathedrals, statues, art galleries, and _edificios_ of great beauty _y_ import. Excluding Barcelona's incomparable _La Sagrada Familia_ —which must be seen to be believed, it is not the structural antiquity which sets Barcelona apart. Rather it is the everyday characteristics and scenes, the ordinary little businesses and shops, the unremarked upon beauty seen on virtually _todos_ _via_ and _calle_ , the fresh _verduras y fruitas_ available at multiple corner _tiendas_ for prices _mucho_ lower than you would imagine, the easy access to an array of _diarios_ from around the _mundial_ , the plazas full of chattering residents, able to sit _con café_ at an outdoor _mesa_ for hours without being pushed by a server to leave.

Meanwhile, por the incredible number of people ( _creo_ it is at least _tres_ ) interested in my (ill-advised?) pursuit of an on-line MBA, note that I have now gone _seis_ consecutive _dias sine_ wanting to quit _porque_ of all the non-educational "navigational" stuff. My fit of euphoria is probably because I went against the "correct" point of an _ejamplo_ _y la_ _profesora_ loved it. The move was somewhat risky because this "Human Behavior" course is steeped in political correctness: all diversity is _bueno_ , all stereotypes are _malo_ , all managements are prone to fits of abject stupidity, and _todos_ people, including first-time employees, must feel _bueno_ about themselves at _todos_ _tiempos_.

Finally, there is the equally _importante_ saga of—the _blanco_ sock! Fresh from the washing machine, it clung strongly and ill-advisedly (like a politician to yesterday's statement rendered moot by developments in the real _mundial_ ) to the _camiseta_ I was hanging out to dry. In truth, I did not know it was there until a jogger below, stretching out, pointed out that said sock had dropped to the _calle sin_ my knowledge. Since I was about to leave the _casa por comida_ , I simply waited until I was outside and then collected the sock, which the jogger had thoughtfully hung on a protrusion to dry, and continued to the highly recommended _pero_ thankfully informal _Orio Restaurante_. The sock was to be my dinner _companero_. Did not say much actually, but then he was not continually on a smartphone either.

[DID I MENTION THAT RONALDO JUST SCORED AGAIN, WHICH MAKES FOUR TIMES IN ONE MATCH!]

Un saludos.

My apologies to the Spanish language.

## Chapter 34:  
If You Cannot Say "No" or "Not Now",  
You Won't Be Around to Say "Yes"

OK, so the title is a little wordy; my editor was at the beach without his wireless, but bear with me to see if there is any sense to the idea being discussed.

The phone call came into our office innocently enough. When you are in the "helping" professions—health, education, social work, etc., everybody is presumed to be "nice", defined here as only making requests which will allow everyone to "help" and therefore feel good. This, of course, is in complete contrast to for-profit endeavors, where all captains of industry are characterized without individual examination as rapacious scoundrels who are driven by the opportunity to take advantage of employees (who surprisingly still work for said companies) and customers (who without a gun to their heads buy the products and services of these evil men (are there insufficient female corporate leaders to tag them as inherently evil; will there ever be enough? Will they even be labeled "evil?" But I digress.)

Oh yes, what was the question referenced a paragraph ago. "Could one of your volunteers pick up a patient this afternoon and take him to a specialist doctor in Paterson?"

"Huh?" would have been my approximate reply had I taken the call, as the person on the other end of the phone making the request knew how our program functioned and what constituted a reasonable, doable expectation. Instead, a less experienced person had answered the phone, received the request, and, with her "I want to help everybody" eyes, was imploring me to say "yes".

"Yes," I should reply, "we can don our super-program cape and immediately do anything for anybody at any moment without dissipating a smidgen of the time, energy, money, and people capability devoted to our primary mission." Would that it were so!

Instead, if you examine the pattern of healthy organizations and people alike, you will find they realize focus, intentionality, and commitment are behind their successes and that they must say "no" or "not now" to stay on the track of their mission or task. Whether it is saying "no" to that diet-breaking piece of chocolate cake or putting the "not now" message next to a staffer's essentially good idea (alas, carrying a price tag which contradicts the "good" adjective), a person or an Executive-Director must make tough decisions without fear of being labeled "heartless." In truth, said person has an even bigger heart as he or she is thinking about sustaining a program which helps countless people, not making a flamboyant gesture which becomes like a comet in the sky, brilliant and gone.

Just as a health-conscious person creates his middle-aged and older body by what he does daily over all the prior years, so too the committed non-profit entity and the focused individual alike create their tomorrows with the decisions made today.

Saying "no" or "not now" liberates; it does not confine.

## Chapter 35:  
Immigration: Brothers, Fairness, and an Absence of Logic

My name is Enrique Torres. I am 21 years-old. This is the much-abbreviated journal of my young life; if I have mangled any grammar, give me a break. I have only been in the United States since age two!

The way I look at, despite my early arrival from Colombia, my recorded life began around age 10, when the extended Sunday dinner table conversation ranged beyond the usual subjects of _futbol_ , family, friends, and church. It was then that I learned I was born in and lived for those first two years in a place which everybody seemed to refer to as "our home country."

I was told that this place they made reference to was quite different from New Jersey in terms of food, clothing, climate, music, language, and lifestyle in general. I could remember very little of what they were describing. To be honest, if somebody had asked me and I understood the concept, I would have said I have been in my "home country" since I learned to use the toilet.

For sure, the above conversation made me a confused young person—I thought to myself, "When I go to school down the street, where most everything is different from how we live in this house, am I in my home country or in New Jersey?"

Maybe I should ask my friend Juan whether New Jersey or Colombia is my home country. Juan looks and acts like an American "tweener," eating pizza and hamburger at every opportunity, wearing his iPod everywhere, thinking he is a teenager when he is not, big into football, which is different from _futbol_.

My parents were saying to everybody at the table, "we want to maintain the culture of our home country—that is why things are different in the house." But I thought, without being disrespectful to my parents, "if I have spent two years in one place and eight years in another, with no intention of returning to the first place, do I not belong to the second place?"

I remember my father ending the conversation, "son, let's go play _futbol_." When I attempted to explain that the sport was called "soccer" in this country, he responded, "it's _futbol_."

And so my period of articulated confusion began.

Before, I had seen all the cultural differences among my school, home, and surroundings and paid them no heed. Like any normal boy of that age, I majored in playing—in school (until the teachers said no more), after-school activities, weekend fun, soccer, basketball, video games—whatever we could, indoors or outside, based on availability, not the weather.

A few years later, I think I was 14, somebody came to our high school and talked about something called "college." The guy was a vice-president at the local bank. He made his job sound pretty cool: money, power over people, influence in the community, no physical labor. Then a woman talked to our class—she described her path: earning first a Bachelor's degree and then a Master's, and becoming a licensed social worker. That actually sounded more appealing because you were not confined to an office and it seemed like you were helping people.

I became curious and talked to my favorite teacher, the only one I liked actually. He said I must spend more time on schoolwork even if it meant less time playing. Truth is, I was getting bored with same old/same old activities and I used the teacher's "demand" as an excuse to spend less time goofing off and more with the books. It paid off. I took my C average up to a B+ as a freshman. It felt good.

As I progressed through high school, I began making new friends, both boys and girls, all of whom said they intended to go to college. My new group got involved in volunteer efforts, helping little kids learn English. Some of us became officers in the student government. Most of us worked, a few hours at first, later about 20 hours a week; I delivered pizza.

We partied for sure, dancing the night away when we could, but we had a mutual pact against too much drinking and we shunned the drugs which were readily available.

Then it happened.

It was our Senior year in high school. A bunch of us were filling out college applications after school in the cafeteria. I saw this box which asked for a Social Security number. Everybody else was filling in the box and proceeding with their applications.

I said to them, "I don't have a Social Security number; what do I do?"

They said, "Enrique, what are you talking about? Everybody has a Social Security number."

"No," I responded; "I do not have one."

They shrugged and went on with their applications.

I decided to fill out my college application anyway, leaving the Social Security box blank, and resolved to ask my parents. The high school guidance counselor who was there to help us did not know how to react. She too thought everybody had a Social Security number.

When my mother and father returned from work that night, I could not wait to ask them about my lack of a Social Security card and what it meant. They began crying when I was halfway through my question, my mother sobbing and my father quietly weeping, something I had never seen.

"Enrique, you have no documents making you an American, and because you have no documents, you cannot get a Social Security card," they told me, slowly and painfully.

"What does that mean for college?" I asked.

My mother looked at my father, who seemed to be inspecting the ceiling for any new cracks and clearing his throat at the same time.

"It means—it means that many colleges simply will not accept you as a student.

It means that many of those colleges who do accept you will charge you their highest price, as if you were an international student.

It means you will not be eligible for any financial assistance from the federal government.

It means you will not be eligible for most scholarships."

And then my father stopped talking.

"But... but, why—how is this possible? How will I go to college? Why didn't you tell me this earlier? Why have I worked hard at school these past four years? Why!!!"

My words and thoughts were coming out in a jumbled mess.

My parents looked down at the floor and said nothing.

I ran from the house, slamming the front door on my way out. I began running in the direction of my girlfriend's house; "did Maria know?" I was thinking. "Is she in the same situation?

It is now three years later (my 21st birthday was just a few days ago) and I have done nothing educational with my life since high school. With limited college options, and the few good ones, impossibly expensive, I had no stomach to proceed. After a while, I became involved in immigration advocacy activities, but it was difficult to hold back my emotions when debating issues with opponents.

Okay, if you want to count waiting on tables as something, I am a roaring success. Yes, the American Dream—house, picket fence, two kids, and a dog—is right around the corner, easily attainable on the income of a waiter in a ten-table restaurant in a low income area!!!

I tell myself not to be bitter, but it is hard. Why cannot I get an education, a decent job, pay taxes, give back to this country, my country, for all it has given me.

I did find out, after that fateful day when I learned of my "lack of status" that a relative does have a case going with Immigration, but nobody knows when it will be resolved, and I am about to age-out of his application anyway.

Meanwhile, I think about Mario, my younger brother. Mario the American citizen. Mario the lucky one. Mario had better do well in college or I will kick his ass.

My name is Mario. I am Enrique's younger, by three years, brother, and I want to say a few things too. As context, I have no idea at what age to peg the first years of my memory. I have a sneaky suspicion that the photos of me eating Happy Meals or having a birthday party at McDonald's or surrounded by Disney stuff are consistent with the idea that not only was I born in the United States, but I have been thoroughly American forever, regardless of what cultural conversations have taken place in my house.

Enrique tried a bunch of years ago to "translate" for me his 10th-year dinner conversation about "our home country"—it really went over my head. Frankly I could have cared less about what seemed like a cross between confusion and meaninglessness. I played throughout my younger years like Enrique and everybody else did, with school matters taking second place to sports and video games.

Outside of the house, I ate cheeseburgers and French fries, while inside there was always rice and, sometimes, sancocho. Different from my friends, but to me, no big deal.

At age 14, as a freshman in high school, I had the same school visitors as my brother—of course, by that time, I had heard the educational message—"do your homework, stay out of trouble, go to college" before, from Enrique, barely months before he knew of his undocumented situation and what it mean.

I have always looked up to Enrique, knowing the long hours he has worked to make our family's overall "lifestyle" attainable. He writes really well and had a high GPA in high school; I can match him on the former, but not so on the latter, though I am trying. Who is a better soccer player? Well——let's simply say, we have different skills; Enrique is up front, a goal-scorer. I am a midfielder, with more varied abilities, but alas, not a goal scorer who gets all the girls.

Enrique has always been a leader, including one year of being the chairman of the school's student diversity committee. He is adept at speaking to a crowd of kids; I am jealous of that skill for sure. And he acts completely American in case anybody is still confused about what "our country" means to Enrique. Heck, he is American; 90% of his life has been spent here, and he cannot stand students being late for a committee meeting!

From him I learned the family story, which I will relate succinctly. Our mother came to America first, on a tourist visa. As they say, she liked it so much that she simply stayed. Our father came later; somebody must know how he did it, but Enrique and I do not.

In the area of Colombia from which they came, the drug-trafficking guerrillas remain active, despite the best efforts of both that country and the United States. Our cousin Juan was kidnapped right after Enrique was born. Everybody in the family pitched in to pay the ransom and Juan was released unharmed, thank God. My uncle told me the story, maybe to explain why my parents decided to come here.

It is ironic that where we live in New Jersey, illicit drug activity is often front-page news; it seems like drugs are both a Main Street and a Wall Street problem, with American consumer supplied by Colombian producers, with numerous middlemen of all ethnic backgrounds carrying out the marketing and distribution functions.

I think my parents would return to Colombia if conditions were different, and at retirement age, they probably will go back anyway. Enrique and I have no direct idea of what life is like in Colombia; we are Americans in (almost!) every way.

When I heard about Enrique's conversation with our parents and what it meant for his college aspirations, I immediately went to them and asked,

"What about me? Do I have a Social Security card? Am I going to college?"

"Mario, you are an American. You have your card. You are going to college."

"Enrique is an American too."

"No, he was not born here."

"You have to be born here to be an American?"

"No, but—it's, it's complicated."

I realized that I must find out more about the college and immigration situation. I already knew enough to make the statement that America needed more smart people like Enrique. This documentation dilemma cannot be right; I thought, it is illogical to waste such talent.

The next school day, I went to my History teacher, who confirmed everything my parents had told Enrique. We were studying Government Policy and we were required to write an essay on a topic of our choice. Here are some excerpts from what I wrote:.

"If the record of Enrique—education, accomplishments, absence of a criminal record, volunteering, sports—were put next to Joe and Sally and myself, nobody would be able to tell us apart on the metric of American-ness. But here is Enrique, through no fault of his own, deprived of what the three of us can readily pursue, a higher education, producing more income and more taxes, paying back society for its investment in us from Kindergarten through 12th grade, an outlay which can easily exceed $100,000.

Should not Enrique have the opportunity to produce a return on our investment. Is it fair to penalize him for a transgression committed by his parents, an action obviously taken without his consent. If so, would it not be more appropriate to make it a "misdemeanor," not a "felony." In other words, give him a list of what he must do to earn the status which I have from an accident of birth, but do not sentence him to a life of being underground, sneaking to gain income, to be part of the real world.

There is no tangible reward to society from Enrique being relegated to that position. I cannot believe that any humane/thinking person even feels better about establishing a second-class, non-citizen cohort of young people with exemplary records and no positive outlet for their skills and energy.

How can America, which is our country without question, shun the opportunity to enlist Enrique in the battle to improve our society, to pull it up from its economic malais, to contribute in every way imaginable! Instead, because I have those nine numbers on a little card, I am the one this country wants to rely on. It should be Enrique, not me."

I once heard a joke about fairness, that to think life is fair is to believe an oncoming bull will stop in his tracks when he sees you are wearing a t-shirt proclaiming, "I am a Vegetarian." But it is supremely difficult to see any humor, any fairness in the United States Congress' inability to pass a DREAM Act. I will do everything I can to help Enrique, for him and for everybody in his position."

My teacher said, after he read my essay, "Mario, you get an A. Congress gets an F."

I would trade those grades any day for Enrique to have the same chance as me.

(2011)

## Chapter 36:  
Learning to Hate

Two days after another beheading in the Middle East, a young Muslim man had his razor against my throat.

Leaving aside our previous two interactions, which had been pleasant and productive, I wondered—should I revert to the common default thought process—should I be hoping that he did not have a deep-seated grudge against Americans. Pushing that piece of psychological projection out of my mind, I switched to thinking about the general topic of how people learn to hate.

Some time ago, subsequent to having done quite a bit of traveling, to places as different as South Africa, England, Colombia, Turkey, and China, I expressed the opinion that kids were the same the world over but then, as adults, they took stupid pills. How else to account for the amount of hatred and senseless violence everywhere on the globe.

It has now struck me that I was wrong about such an abrupt transition in the mindset, that in fact there must be a primer somewhere on "Learning to Hate." These kids I thought were the same in truth had to have been already silently absorbing extensive instruction on the subject and were only universally similar in their eagerness to pose for a photo.

Thus began a journey of discovery, the quest to find that primer. It turned out there was very little in-depth sleuthing required, although patience—and a good travel budget—was needed as nobody was willing to simply hand over the entire script. I was able to find a page here and a page there, scattered throughout different countries and a variety of places: religious institutions, government offices, schools, homes, community organizations, coffee shops, and bars.

This is what I found as necessary but not sufficient components of "Learning to Hate:"

• An historical event which everybody agrees actually occurred; no reference to details needed

• Clarity that your side—country, region, ethnicity, religion, group, team, family—was in the right

• Many monuments and statues, inscribed with on-point information

• Shirts with good messages on either the event, who is right, or who is to be hated

• Holidays to mark the correct anniversaries: with government offices, schools and businesses closed, multiple parades ensure that nobody loses track of whom to hate

• Textbooks (historically) and Websites (now) to provide appropriate "Help Desks."

With all of the above inputs in hand, I still thought there was something missing—the answer to a question which I did not see covered in my research, not written out on a single page. That was the issue of when to start educating kids, when to get the right idea into their impressionable heads about hatred. My thought is that everybody must simply be working on the logical assumption of—the earlier, the better—the same as it would be for any new language. Certainly by middle school, young people should know the basics: the right words, the right attitudes, the right people to hate.

This process of establishing the correct character profile must be the glue which keeps all the above bullet points in their structure of internal logic, which prepares individuals to hate, which makes them ready to maim and kill the right people. How else to explain how rapidly the transition can take place from peaceful co-existence to bloodshed in the streets.

There had to have been a primer on "Learning to Hate."

Oh yes, the aforementioned Muslim. He used the razor skillfully, giving me a nice clean shave to go with an equally good haircut at his barber shop on Carrer _de_ Sant Pere Mitja in Barcelona, two blocks from my apartment.

(2014)

## Chapter 37:  
Lessons Learned About the Businesses Known as Colleges

• the title says it all in one sense

• websites are loaded with information, but often are not easy to navigate

• when college advisors make a mistake in terms of a student's class schedule, they can get off with a "sorry." The student pays the price for the error: time, energy, attitude, money.

• often very smart professors from other countries are not capable of being understood by many students

• professors whose first love is research are not great teachers

• while professors post office hours, they think nothing of not showing up

• financial aid people can be quite helpful; they can also make students feel as if they were dealing with a bank or some other financial institution, not a school

• calling college officials is a challenging exercise for somebody trying to interact with a human; the impression given is that the school believes all the answers are on its website.

• when institutions of higher education talk about their strategic plans, the emphasis is on more: buildings, research grants, professors. Until recently, the thought of boosting graduation rates was not part of the discussion.

• colleges are so accustomed to boosting tuition rates annually that when they brag about this metric, it is because the increase was lower than before. There is little self-analysis of a college cost structure.

• like airlines, colleges which are in demand sometimes oversell their seats, which the new student discovers when a class he thought was in a building is actually on-line.

• newer dormitory facilities are often being financed by public-private partnerships that are not dissimilar to Wall Street or politically-oriented transactions. Use of capital monies voted on by taxpayers is akin to the creation of an equity layer triggering public development money, with non-education enterprises being part of the total package. Underneath all of this is the tuition paid by the student, and typically an ensuing debt load. But the suites and the flat screen televisions and the fitness facilities are all first class.

• schools believe they are subject to only their own governance. There has been case after case of colleges being less than forthcoming about on-campus actions which in the broader society would bring instant attention by the judicial system. The Penn State sexual abuse horror story is only one of many such situations. Some women have formed a multi-college coalition in an attempt to get schools to be more responsive to their allegations of sexual attacks.

• College therapists are busier than ever.

• The list of hypocrisies associated with big-time collegiate sports is quite long.

• Obviously this is an incomplete roster of every issue pertinent to higher education. Among other shortcomings, it does not seek to address the logic behind pursuing a college degree:

• The benefits of that path are well-known, from education per se to networking to better health and a longer life. And, oh yes, greater income.

(2014)

## Chapter 38:  
Lessons Learned: WKBJ Foundation Education Programs

During this period, the WKBJ Foundation, of which I am Executive-Director and sole staffer, has had multiple internal education programs. The table and descriptions below give some of the metrics of interest in analyzing these programs. (Readers accustomed to the in-depth data presentations of Uncommon Schools/North Star Academy will be disappointed.) Missing analytical data includes how many students were the first-in-family to attend college, average family incomes, documentation situations, and differences in high school academic preparation.

MADE (Make a Difference Educationally) in Dover (MID) was a modification of the well- publicized "I Have a Dream" model. Students came into the program at the beginning of eighth grade. Through participation in activities, including the publication of an extensive newsletter, they earned points which translated into financial assistance for higher education. I WILL WALK! was aimed at older students, the majority of whom were relatively new to the country (and the multiple pressures under which they labored created more mobility in the membership count). Participants were required to volunteer at non-profit locations; in doing so, they earned financial aid for college.

Project 2050 was the most diverse effort as I reached out to different area high schools for different ethnicities: African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian. The name referred to the projected date (at that time) when there would be no ethnic majority in this country. Members were required to write for our quarterly Forum magazine.

Project 2015 encompasses nine students from the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, New York; the title refers to the date by which they are expected to have finished a four-year college education. The Other Program is my tongue-in-cheek descriptor for a series of individual situations with a common logic—young people with more education/life aspirations than money to accomplish their goals.

### THE LESSONS MADE in Dover (MID):

• the promise of a reward five years down the road does not greatly influence the behavior or attitudes of an eighth-grader.

• Acceptance of an outside education program by the existing school system leadership is not necessarily beneficial; their rpms are much lower than those of entrepreneurs and they are often committed to not reinventing the wheel, which actually must be done when the wheel is broken.

• More information is needed by the young person but without an adult counseling function, the existence of data does not by itself lead to a productive outcome.

### I WILL WALK!

• The rigor of classes in far-off countries can easily exceed that found in the United States.

• Documentation is really important, as is the need for any education advisor to understand the insanity of the immigration system.

• Fear of the American governance system is both related to and separate from documentation.

• Juggling a large number of work hours while negotiating for documentation stretches out the time to graduation, if it does not in fact make it unattainable.

• The importance of family cannot be overstated.

• With early babies, higher education aspirations are really difficult.

### Project 2050:

• Dropping any household income limitation in the selection of student grantees increases the average grantee's comfort level with the concept of college.

• Self-motivation is really important.

• There is a reason stereotypes exist—the ethnic response to this scholarship opportunity corresponded to widespread expectations on group receptivity.

• Less stress, a function of item one above and the large grants involved, steps up the on-time graduation rate.

### Project 2015:

• Adults with experience can underestimate the commitment of young people who come to college with uninspiring high school academic records.

• Large grants equal less stress equals better graduation rates.

• The confidence that grants will not disappear simply because the funder is irritated increases the success rate for young people.

### The Other Program:

• The non-standard modus operandi of the WKBJ Foundation produced greater understanding by the young people being assisted in this unstructured program; analogously, these individuals typically are not coming from "standard" home and family situations.

• With grant size larger than expected, there is a good motivational start to the relationship.

• An understanding attitude by the adult toward the selection of a college, changes in majors, and the dynamics of studying abroad adds to the productivity of the relationship.

### Overall:

• Continuous, caring communication—regardless of whether it is e-mail, text or whatever—has been a clear positive. (P.S. there is no indication that fancier technology, _i.e.,_ all the "digitizers, has meant an improvement in good communication: timely, productive, clarity on the "to do.")

• With broad and deep conversations, and no set question format, students have had no problem disclosing areas of difficulty, whether it be at college or on the home-front, or with immigration.

• There has always been a need by young people for interaction with an adult who has a good awareness of higher education alternatives.

• Young people themselves are aware of their need to take greater initiative at the high school level with respect to the college process and specifically the guidance counseling function.

## Chapter 39:  
Letter From La Paz

Virtually everyone in the United States has a place in their lives where what they do for a living, or where and how they live, intersects with the issue of Immigration. The author's involvement stems from being Executive-Director of a program which facilitates higher education for Hispanics, many of whom are relatively new to this country. The essay below is an attempt to creatively personalize the issue through the tracking of a composite person, bringing a micro reality to a macro situation, and, in the process, perhaps playing a little with the minds of anti-immigration zealots, who apparently have won the day in terms of getting President Bush's 2007 Immigration Bill quashed.

### Intro to the Story

As your writer returns from one of the many, largely impenetrable jungle areas of Bolivia, his wallet contains two innocent-looking pieces of green vegetation. They are coca leaves, grown easily in the highlands of that country since time immemorial. The farming family responsible for this plant, which is widely used by all levels of Bolivian society as a flavoring for tea, as a hunger suppressant, and increasingly as an ingredient in toothpaste and other consumer products, earns a little more than $1,000 a year. The family's five children will average out at less than a high school education, reflecting the needs of the farm, the accessibility of educational resources, and perhaps an absence of discussed alternative paths in life.

Back in the United States, on Wall Street, in Hollywood, in the hot spots of New York City, and in more than a few other places populated, or at least frequented, by some individuals with more money than common sense, $1,000 of cocaine (reportedly available on the street for $25-30 per half-gram) can disappear up a relatively few user noses in considerably less time than it takes to get a plane ticket at the La Paz, Bolivia airport. Coincident with the widening income gap in the United States—punctuated by the Dow Jones stock market averages continuing to set new highs; with approval ratings for both the President and Congress at all-time lows; and with the United States in basic disrepute around the world, the demand for anti-depression medication and illegal drugs alike remains at a high level.

According to United Nations drug experts, as reported in the _New York Times_ of June 26, 2007, European demand for cocaine is increasing, offsetting a slight decline in the United States in the context of "overall stability in production, trafficking, and consumption of drugs," the flattening out in cocaine reportedly brought about by a virtually doubled rate of interdiction: 42% in 2005 (latest available) versus 24% in 1999. This relatively optimistic view of the drug picture, which includes a decline in usage by high-schoolers, nonetheless acknowledges that 2% of the American population (3% of teenagers) is involved with cocaine, and there are 25 million people worldwide who are not only users, but abusers, of drugs.

A prior _Times_ article (June 10, 2007) weighed in more pessimistically on the subject of domestic cocaine usage, "It's definitely prevalent in clubs, bars, parties—everywhere, basically," said Cristiano Andrade, 26, a Brooklynite who manages a wine shop and goes out in the city (ed. meaning affluent Manhattan) once or twice a week. "When you are in meetings and you're in the studio, it's offered like coffee. Coke is the new weed," alleged Teron Beal, 34, a songwriter and aspiring actor. "With Wall Street surging and a 24-hour global economy, young professionals have the money and the incentive to stay constantly wired."

The chances of the aforementioned affluent lawbreakers landing in jail are not high. More likely, if the habit persists, the users will be described as having a "health problem." Cocaine, it will be remembered, causes a variety of heart-related problems, from higher blood pressure to cardiac arrest; combined with alcohol, it is even more lethal. A high-priced health clinic will become the destination for said drug abusers, not a cold cell or banishment from society.

Eventually perhaps the coke user will slip, overdose, and die, but it will be his talent or money which will dominate the collective memory, and he, the user, _i.e.,_ the ultimate consumer, will not receive the indelible tag of criminal. That label is quickly and casually applied by Americans to the country from which the illegal drugs came, to the middlemen involved, and ultimately to the coca leaf farmer, in Bolivia, Peru, or Colombia, in reverse order of importance as suppliers. (Note that Colombia is also the leading interdicter of cocaine, ahead of the United States itself. Bolivia and Peru have recently been offsetting rising supplies with rising seizures of illicit drugs, flattening out the flow of exports.)

### Daniella in Bolivia

In a small farming community in Bolivia, the mother has a weekday job as housekeeper for one of the country's more prosperous families; it is sufficiently far away that she cannot be home Monday night through Thursday, but the money is attractive, and desperately needed. One of her employer's sons is attending a university in the United States, and she has overheard many discussions concerning a subject which never had reached her ears back in the farming community: higher education.

She takes her oldest daughter, Daniella, aside and relays, without truly understanding, what she has heard; Daniella has always been the school-oriented child in the family, eagerly looking forward to classes that were a two-mile walk from her house. She tells Daniella about something called the Internet and what appears to be endless information that fills the screen at all times.

Mom takes Daniella with her to her employer's, at a time when the son is back from the United States. He shows her how to access this strange and magical machine; he gives her information about an Internet-accessible computer about ten miles from where Daniella lives, tucked between the fruit and vegetable kiosks in a farm market, with usage available at a reasonable price. It takes multiple visits to the employer's home, which is akin to having a window opened on a new category of civilization, _i.e.,_ "developed," and multiple conversations back home but Daniella in time becomes enthralled with the notion of pursuing education in America, although it is confusing to her as to whether the son is there for schooling or actually for working, because he is sending significant money home like all dutiful sons abroad.

Maybe the knowledge that her family's innocent coca leaf is the starting point for cocaine, illegally transformed and transported for sale by people having nothing to do with Daniella's family except as buyers of their leaves, has stimulated her thinking as well.

Daniella is initially only vaguely aware that the United States has given the Bolivian government many millions of dollars to induce coca farmers to plant less of the leaf; the result of one such attempt was an overabundance of bananas and other fruits and vegetables, miserably low prices in the marketplace, and an inability to make a living for her, or any other, family. The United States has helped pull plants from the ground, fumigated thousands of acres, and gnashed its teeth over a coca leaf farmer, Evo Morales, becoming President, the first indigenous leader in the 180-year history of Bolivia.

Meanwhile, the first principle of a capitalist economy, such as that of the United States, is that the consumer is king. The coca leaf-growing country supply function is directly attributable to outside demand, centering on the United States, though not exclusively, as demand in Europe is on a growth path as mentioned earlier. Without a drop in demand, there can be no change in supply, because the economic spread is sufficient to bring out the multiple intermediaries who connect the two sides of the business equation.

The United States' financial aid partners in attempting to fix the economic problems of this region, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, have functioned on the theory that better domestic economies would create more attractive employment/entrepreneurial/business alternatives than, for example, growing the coca leaf. In the eyes of many, not only have the IMF and the World Bank proven to be equally impotent to ameliorate difficult situations, they have actually contributed to the economic and societal problems of recipient countries, not the resolution thereof. Without going through the scorecard of all the positives and negatives attributable to IMF/World Bank policies, the election of Bolivian President Morales meant, among other things, that the coca leaf farmer in Bolivia had gone to the polls and given a ringing endorsement to a platform which was anti-these entities.

Without knowing all the political ins and outs, which in any case are mostly irrelevant to her farming family that must adjust to the world as it knows in their daily crops, Daniella decides, with her family's begrudging blessing, to come to the United States on a tourist visa, expending every saved dollar accumulated by the family over a multiyear period, plus more than a few borrowed from friends of her father. At the same time, she realizes that the chances of a farmer's daughter receiving a tourist visa are extremely low, unless—the employer's power can be brought to bear on the visa-issuer bureaucracy.

Like all those interested in getting to the United States, she has heard the stories of people like her literally walking through several countries in order to get to the point where an illegal border crossing is possible. She does not want to do that; she will be patient, she will wait on her employer's advice, she will hope and pray that the latter can pull the right strings, emphasizing Daniella's intention to simply visit this country and returning promptly if she is accorded the privilege of receiving a tourist visa. Finally, it is received. The tears are many as she leaves her modest house for a trip which must be characterized as an adventure into the unknown, even though to American and other users of Google, it sometimes seems as if every last scrap of information is available on every subject.

Her long and dusty ride from the farm to the La Paz airport she has never seen before takes Daniella through the package of characteristics endemic to poor areas everywhere: a myriad of old vehicles, crowded past any theoretical legal limits and topped with bags of all shapes and sizes; unpaved roads; a nighttime darkness which is accentuated by a paucity of street lights; much time spent by those walking from point A to point B; chaotic traffic; everywhere the informal economy as entrepreneurs of every age seek to make a daily living; soccer fields on every surface imaginable; readily available alcohol; the inexpensive entertainment of dancing and the nocturnal hopes which often accompany a new meeting; more stoicism than anger; mostly a submerged sense of unfairness; resignation to the fates of politics or religion. Daniella sees it all without impact as she knows of no other world.

After many, many hours, Daniella is finally at the airport, her treasured ticket in the small purse she clutches tightly. As she sits nervously in the boarding area, Daniella sees the beautifully appointed and well-stocked Duty Free, Tax-Free Stores. Consumers are incentivized to buy inexpensive alcohol and tobacco, which are the product culprits behind the deaths of 100 times the number who perish from cocaine usage. But these items, government controls and legal judgments notwithstanding, have the de facto blessing of all who economically benefit from their production and sale, whereas her family are criminals because they grow a leaf ultimately, partially used by others in illegal activities.

Daniella cannot come to the United States as an international student because she does not know anybody with sufficient financial assets to become her sponsor. She arrives here not really knowing much about the American educational non-system, the difficulties in moving around without a car, or the impossibility of living solely on a minimum wage. (Of course she cannot work legally anyway as she is a tourist, albeit one without money or the prospect thereof.) Crazy, stupid, irrational—why did she not do her homework! Well, she did. She looked at the farm in Bolivia, her family, her neighbors, and her future and saw that she was risking nothing by coming to the United States. Zero risk compared with any reward possibility is an infinite ratio to the good, which, in most lines of endeavor, triggers an investment of time and energy, which Daniella has, and money—which she does not have.

### Daniella to the United States

After changing planes in Miami, Daniella digs in her pocket for the name and phone number of a Bolivian living in Virginia, to be called when she arrives at Reagan National Airport. What a view of the Washington Monument, she remarks to herself, as her plane comes in for its landing in her brave new world. Her nervous anticipation rising, she departs the crowded Boeing 757 and immediately makes her one phone call, praying that it will be answered. She is in luck, and somebody can pick her up in a few hours, but she is simultaneously warned that there is no place at the house for her to stay for more than a night.

Fortunately, her phone contact knows somebody who can rent her a shared-room for $300 a month and will overlook the normal security deposit because the landlord herself was once in exactly the same position. Daniella is not thrilled about having a stranger as a roommate, but she also wants to maximize the number of dollars she can set aside for two purposes: her education and remitting money to her family in order that the latter can begin repaying the debt they incurred in sending her to the United States.

On day two, Daniella not only secures the needed rental but also walks three miles to something called a "community college." Speaking only a few words of English, she is still able to obtain materials describing the courses offered and the price charged. With help from her landlady, she fills out the forms needed, then puts them aside for the day she will actually be able to use them.

Daniella uses her first contact in the United States to find another and still another (what the sophisticated people call "networking"), eventually linking up with an employment agency which is not known for its diligence in checking credentials. It is below-minimum wage work, in a distant warehouse owned by a Fortune 500 company, but it is also much-needed cash in the pocket. In time, as her credibility within a small circle is established, she is able to leave the agency and become involved with an entrepreneur, as a new friend with a cleaning business offers her the opportunity to do a few houses owned by affluent white citizens who do not ask for a social security number, who pay cash, and who are more concerned about their "status" in society than that of the responsive young lady vacuuming their rugs.

Now Daniella has a "reasonable" income, maybe $300 a week from three houses, producing a monthly cash flow, before paying for her ride and before eating, of $800 after her new rent of $500 for the solo room she can now afford. She does not go out to spend money on entertainment or recreation.

A year later, three things have happened: after putting aside every conceivable dollar, amazingly she has enough cash to enroll at the community college; she has received a tax ID number as a result of applying to the Internal Revenue Service coincident with filing an income tax return; and she is now in the United States past the six-month stipulation of her tourist visa and therefore is an undocumented immigrant, lumped in the political pot with, among numerous others, those who walked across the border for a variety of reasons that might be summarized in one short phrase: immediate economic opportunity, not the deferred return on investment associated with higher education.

### Daniella as Collegian

Daniella again makes the walk to that community college, this time with funds, intention, and improved English as she has been attending classes at a nearby church and at times has been able to watch English language programs, mostly cartoons, on the house television. One small box on the complicated college form gives her pause as it asks for a social security number, the "social" about which there has been so much discussion in the landlady's house.

Like others, she dutifully provides a number, nine digits plucked from the air or maybe matching, with an added zero, the birth date of her mother. Whatever. The illegal act does not compare in her mind with the persistent corruption she has seen in her native country, a daily reality which distorts the underlying relationship of input (hard work, talent, passion, persistency, honesty) and output (success), and which creates a different view of "the law." Or perhaps that altered interpretation of legality is driven by an absence of basic necessities; _i.e._ , the above relationship is accurate and understood, but not having something to eat or a roof over your head is the distorting factor, not corruption. And always, in varying degrees throughout the world, there is the corruption of nepotism, cronyism, no-show jobs, and an absence of promotion for women who are not completely friendly toward their predominantly male bosses.

In any case, with her creation of a fake number for the United States government, Daniella is now an "almost-criminal," (anti-immigrants would delete the word "almost"), actually a civil law violator. Driven from an area of the world whose contemporary economic situation and security problem is made hugely more difficult by a fact of life, drug addiction, in which the United States is a main participant, she has scrimped and saved to pursue education and she is now one of those bad people whom the immigration vigilantes want to put on the next jumbo jet heading way South. Incredibly, Daniella is not really thinking about such issues, but instead is struggling with her Reading I and Writing I classes, her command of the English language being the challenge, not the academic content of these courses. The college accepts her money without batting an eyelash, just as the matrons of the houses being cleaned pay her without a glance at the list of immigration complexities.

It takes eighteen months for Daniella to plow through all her ESL non-credit courses, then another thirty months to complete her graduation requirements. During these four years, she has become acutely aware that her path, having no sponsorship from a direct family member, relative, or business entity, produces no way to become legal in this country, no way to escape from the conditions of her present life—fake social security number, no driver's license, off-the-books job, no health insurance, inability to see her family without risking not being able to return to the United States in a reasonable period of time—and become what she seeks for herself and indirectly for her family, a tax-paying, law-abiding resident of the United States, a goal which matches what Americans purport to want as a nation, what is wanted as the outcome for every peaceful, hard-working immigrant who truly wants to be here long-term.

But there is hope, sort of, for Daniella if she really wants to do the required drill. There is marriage to a citizen whose "love" for her is enhanced by the $8-10,000 paid to the willing groom, the timing split among the dates of marriage, first immigration interview, and receipt of resident card. Her family understands and supports her marital decision; in a twist on the normal American path, it is understood that marriage and job prospects drive the choice of residence, not vice-versa, at least not for the educated person.

### From United States to Bolivia... and Back: Daniella

It takes a while, maybe even a year, but Daniella and her "husband" finally have their first interview with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. After answering a series of questions ranging from the color of their spouse's underwear to the last movie they saw together, they succeed in convincing the government of their true love for each other. When her passport is stamped (I-551) by a name-tagged, but essentially personality-free, government representative who merely holds Daniella's future in his hands, it is an incredibly joyous occasion, not solely for the obvious reason of creating temporary legitimacy (later, perhaps two-to-three years in the future, there will be another critically important interview, leading to a green card [permanent residency] if all goes well) for Daniella, but because she finally can fly back to Bolivia to visit the family she both cherishes and has left behind.

On her return to the United States, which would have been considerably more difficult, maybe delayed for many years, had her circumstance been governed by her prior overstayed visa (and maybe the process of obtaining a new visa would not have been exactly kosher!), Daniella in 2007 is confronted by a piece of complicated legislation aimed at the huge and complex immigration situation faced by the United States. She eventually gains a keen understanding of the issues, not because an immigrant per se has a better appreciation of the challenges involved, but because she takes the time to study the legislation, her analysis going far beyond the inflammatory statements issued by advocates on both sides of the issue. She knows that, in any debate, understanding where the other side is coming from is critically important to framing your own point of view.

### Daniella on the (now aborted) Immigration Proposal of President Bush

In Daniella's view: any undocumented person here five years or more, who speaks English, who has a clean record with the law, and who truly wants to stay here (regardless of the opinions of others in her family) should want stronger borders because only then will that individual obtain what they want: status in the United States. She knows that if the illegal immigrant simply wants money for repatriation, including the ability to build housing cheaply in his home country, they do not want any change from the porous border phenomenon of today. She realizes that the cheating employer of below-market wage employees does not want a stronger border either.

Daniella knows that being for completely open borders would kill the chances of the 12 million undocumented/illegal immigrants already here of ever having status because real borders are a must in any legislation. For those who value the interplay of education and opportunity, and want to create a reasonable path for committed students, strong borders are an indirect sine qua non, again if no other reason than they must be part of any legislation if immigration advocates are to have a chance of securing an overall package. With her "moderate" stance, Daniella knows that she will face criticism from both directions. With her newfound confidence in understanding her place in the world, this specter does not faze her. Whether similar pressures will paralyze national leaders, leading to no legislation, and further stretching of already raw emotions, remains to be seen—nobody can seriously believe that the collapse of the President's immigration proposal is the end of the discussion.

### Writer's To-Do List

Daniella's story is a "to-be-continued," but if we truncate it here, what is on the to-do list which might have emanated from the understanding imbedded in this essay. First, the United States must grow in humility; it must recognize the impossibility of unilaterally solving the problems of other countries when, in fact, a big portion of those problems stems from domestic ills. Second, all must remember the history of national boundaries, i.e., they have changed numerous times, and what is considered domestic soil once belonged to others, meaning their people would not have been considered immigrants. Nonetheless, strengthened borders are a must in today's world of transportable terror.

Third, and fundamentally perhaps the most important, or maybe simply the one which means the most to the writer, is that any legislated immigration "resolution" must recognize the outsized returns to both individual and society from educational attainment, particularly given the opportunity cost of limited education. Would you rather have the citizens of any country educated or not? Which is more conducive to any chance for any form of lasting peace? Would you rather invest in realistic hope or continue in despair over what seem to be irresolvable problems?

## Chapter 40:  
Letters to the Editor: Have We Bought the Wrong God

Bob Howitt's backpage essay in the February/March 2007 issue of Forum elicited several Letters to the Editor. We have included them below, followed by additional comments by Bob on the subject.

Mike Zisser: Kari,... I could see [your Dad] hovering overhead, proud but not interfering as you lived and then wrote your article for the recent issue of Forum. I only wish that my daughters have learned from me what you have learned from your dad.

More importantly, I think you got it mostly right and your dad got it slightly wrong (!!) in discussing or implying a certain relationship with God. People find their own ways of binding together spiritual, professional and social values, and then playing them out (always together, never separate) in the real world. I'm sure your dad provided you with everything he possibly could, hoping that you would convert everything into becoming a good person. So, to some extent, "consumption" (defined here as the acquisition of experiences, the acquisition of education and culture, the exposure to diverse values, etc.) can be considered good when driven by the right intentions.

We all want the best for our families, our friends, for the people we don't know who need our support. We live in a materialist world, but this does not mean that we worship a materialistic God. As noted, this is a "large, multifaceted, and controversial topic." But seeing your articles as bookends in a family/communal discussion made reading this journal worthwhile.

Kari Hurlbut: At, first my thoughts were somewhat defensive. I thought, if we didn't have any of the religious organizations in this country then this country would lose so much of its charity volunteers such as Habitat home builders, soup kitchen workers, after-school tutors, clothing donors, etc., etc. The people who attend religious institutions do a lot of social service. (I am not saying service is exclusive to this group, though.) Also, my experience in church is that Jesus talks about money almost more than any other topic and that everyone is our neighbor and that we are not to accumulate but rather to share our blessings. I suppose we each decide what that looks like, to what degree, etc.

When a girl in an African nation walks two miles just to get water every day... how does that impact my life? How am I to live in my town? When 100 people are abducted in Iraq just for doing their job? When teachers are shot just because they show up to work to educate our young people? All this is impacting and becomes a question for "What is my place in the world?"

In trying to discuss the God of Consumption, the article's tone may run the risk of putting off those who you want to more seriously consider looking at their values/dollars. I think the title is clever. I'm guessing that you intentionally used a capital G instead of lower case every time you mentioned "god"?

Thanks for bristling my feathers and keeping my brain working. I am really struggling this year, perhaps more than ever before, about my place on this planet. The news of people here in the US and overseas has really pained me. I don't understand it... the violence... the disparities... but I keep on moving on, loving those who are close to me, working with students to make their lives better.

Leroy Varga: About age ten or twelve, I was introduced to the Christian Church (no religious instructions by parents). My non-traditional Christian values are based upon what my readings meant to me then, and what variations and refinements have taken place since then. I am amazed by the "Christian spin" that got us into an Iraq war and the "Islamic spin" that feeds "fundamental terrorism". Fundamentally, I can agree with you.

Bob Howitt: These comments from readers are interesting, on-point, and much appreciated. Thanks.

Below, I have stitched together, not a set of specific responses to the Letters, but a variety of thoughts on different consumption subjects, as a way of demonstrating the complications of this particular issue.

The world, as we all know, is a jumble of unusual juxtapositions and contradictions, and the subject of gods and consumption is no exception. For example, the United States is 5% of the population around the globe, but has one-third of its net worth—and yet this divergence is not inherently an indicator of "unfairness" or excessive worshiping of the God of Consumption. One can make the case that a country with a modified capitalist system, stable government, consistent currency, limited political violence, brilliantly-devised constitution, and ample natural resources will always significantly out-earn societies which are shy on these characteristics. For example, China and India together are over one-third of world population, but recently were only one-tenth of that in terms of wealth. However, the latter will rise. Why? They will convert their considerable assets into growing discretionary income, and this will mean rising consumption (regardless of their gods), as it always has, irrespective of race, creed, culture, religion, language, and geography.

While the God of Consumption is not limited to rich countries, in lesser-developed countries, that extra discretionary dollar is often going toward a television set or washing machine, which the rich already possess. And those purchases are defined by most first-time buyers as "needs," not "wants." Unfortunately, at the same time as these expenditures are taking place, philosophically this may be the beginning of a slippery slope of change, eventually leading to the essence of consumerism, which is to be perpetually dissatisfied with what you have, always coveting what you do not possess.

One very active alternative to a consumerist life is based on five principles: charity (who can argue), fasting (which, at least periodically, is a good idea for both physical and mental reasons), prayer (news bulletin: hard-nosed doctors have seen that it can work when conventional medicine has proved impotent), pilgrimage (most religions have a soft spot in their hearts for a particular geographic area, but the urgency to visit said place varies), and faith (perhaps the most prominent constant among all religious beliefs, based as they are on understanding and offering devotion to the inherently unknowable).

Then again, perhaps this is not really an anti-consumption model after all. These are the tenets of fundamentalist Islam, with its terrorist streak (the debate rages as to whether said defect is inherent or emanates from a historical misreading of the Qu'ran), its anti-women intolerance (same debate), and its anti-Semitism (ditto). The whole scenario reminds one of Malcolm X in his early years; if you could have stopped him after the first three paragraphs, it would have been great, but then ugliness seeped in. If only the omelet could be unscrambled.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, rapper Snoop Dogg gets $200-500,000 for a 30-second commercial, while New York Yankee baseball player Derek Jeter gets $400,000. Celebrity Jessica Simpson, whom I would not know if she strolled into my backyard, gets $700,000 to $1,000,000. Actress Julia Roberts gets a cool million when she is not seen, _i.e.,_ a commercial voiceover. I am not sure what this all means; maybe Shakespeare got free pens when he spoke in favor of writing as a useful discipline. But somehow the value of contemporary spokespeople is related to our desire to shop, and shop some more, "until we drop."

Soon nearby Route 10 in northern New Jersey will match Los Angeles in its mall-to-mall continuity, which means paying more homage to the automobile and its excessive gasoline consumption, which helps explain, to most people, the United States presence in Iraq. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia uses its oil revenues, garnered through the immense effort of sticking a straw in the sand, to build mosques and schools around the world, whose message is both fundamentalist and anti-United States, and yet it is our thirst for oil which drives (no pun intended) the revenues of Saudi Arabia ever higher. Can anybody figure this out?

Elsewhere on the financial front, the U.S. "consumes" $6,000+ per person in healthcare services, 45% of which comes from the government; for this investment, only 7 of 1000 births are ill-fated and we get to live 78 years. Meanwhile, Canada, that disrespected northern suburb, spends but $3,000+ per capita, 70% of which is government, and only 5 infants die at birth, while the slightly frozen population gets to be 80 years-old on average. Maybe the U.S. should acquire the healthcare management of Canada, instead of making a bid for the whole country. That's what Jack Welch, the ex-GE business genius, would do, perhaps through a. leveraged buy-out, financed by Wall Street hedge funds and Citibank.

Well-meaning, relatively affluent people everywhere bemoan the growth of Wal-Mart (even while many of them shop there, but only "once in a while"), which has driven higher-priced Mom-and-Pop shops from Main Streets across the country. These critics are good-hearted souls clearly concerned about the plight of poorer people, just ask them. Why then, do they resent the opportunity for people whose average income is $38,000 (versus $50,000 for Target and $70,000 at Costco) to shop at the low-cost outlet, the only chance they have to protect their meager, if any, discretionary incomes.

Is not the Sierra Club membership dominated by affluent homeowners with multiple cars and residences, whose concern for stripped Brazilian forests comes right after their vacation cabin has been completed? Awkward as it may be for Sierra Club fund-raisers, reduce-reuse-recycle as a combination is the true environmentalist code. However, the attention is all on recycling, which is much more comfortable; we can load up the SUV and be the good guys, and we can keep buying at whatever rate is desired. In so doing, the God of Consumption continues to be well-served.

Enough wandering around various subjects, hopefully tied (with varying degrees of looseness) to the subject of the God of Consumption. Here to me is the bottom line, at least of this essay: the fear that we are educating young people to a consumptive life, inextricably intertwined with media/entertainment branding, including that loaded onto every new technological gadget. As television reality shows have demonstrated, what we do and think have simply become sound bites or video clips, programming material designed to garner ratings, the eyeballs for which companies pay large dollars. The whole situation becomes circular and inbred within a small dimension box, which is one of the reasons why Americans are so flummoxed when those outside the box, especially people in other countries, have a different way of looking at life.

If Anne Nicole Smith and John F. Kennedy can be mentioned in the same sentence, as reportedly happened with a prominent commentator after the former's recent demise, we really have lost all perspective. Entire lives have become packaged goods as we seek to feed the God of Consumption.

## Chapter 41:  
Lifestyle

I have always found that a solo jog, assuming it is not in an area dominated by cars, dogs, and other interfering forces, can be quite thought-provoking. The range of topics can extend from the micro—the practicality of having an effective workshop on time management in a Hispanic community, to the broader issue of how to devise better educational programs in this area, and even to the big question, the meaning of our existence on this planet. The latter probably comes more often to mind when running past the cemetery a block from where I live in Dover.

At a recent memorial service for a young life cut short by a car accident, the minister phrased it this way, referring to the inscription often seen on a gravestone: "everybody has a beginning date and will have an ending date. Life is about what happens in between. Life is about the dash between those two dates."

This was a different way of posing the age-old challenge: who are you, what do you care about, what do you give priority to, what will be your legacy. Is the prospect of acquiring the funds to buy the latest model car, or going to the mall to purchase another shirt or sweater what gets you up every day.

Or is it the prospect of being able to improve your life so you can help those you love? How do you balance your needs with your wants; how do you look at today's consumption decisions versus long-term investment decisions, both in terms of your own position and your ability to provide that help, whether it be to friends or strangers in need or family, which may not even be in this country and for whom a dollar may go much further than here.

There are no answers to these questions; and in a free society, everybody has the right to create their own answer. But awareness of proportionality, or "enoughness," should be mandatory. In returning from a recent trip to India, there was a sense that every car and every house in America was bigger than any car or any house seen in that country of over one billion people.

Is it possible that in the grand design of life, we can use our resources to purchase oversized cars, houses, and food portions alike and not pay some ultimate penalty for our profligacy in a world where natural resources seem outmatched by population growth patterns among the neediest and where the schism between the haves and the have-nots is not closing?

To be sure, the challenge to make good and sustainable lifestyle decisions is more difficult for those now pursuing their college diplomas; soon they must earn the monies necessary to erase college debts, about this there is no choice. However, whether you have a college degree or have taken a different route to becoming an educated person, you have the ability to choose your values and belief structure, your consumption pattern and your degree of "giving back".

You can turn to the person behind you and offer him or her the same hand given you.

You can choose what to do with your dash.

## Chapter 42:  
Michael Jordan, Move Over

How many years did Michael Jordan take off from the sport which made him hundreds of millions of dollars? I think it was two, during which he failed miserably at the arcane art of hitting a curveball. After his return to the court and another championship run which cemented his status as the greatest player ever (sorry Oscar and Jerry), he took another respite—and then returned when he should not have.

But then the athlete's life is a strange one—he cannot pursue his skill, his lifetime love, beyond an age when non- athletes are just getting started on their careers. In pro basketball or baseball, 35 is old; in tennis, it is 30; in gymnastics, less than 25; in football, it is probably 30, depending on how many times one's bell has been rung.

At 5'6" and not particularly fast, with minimal hops, my professional basketball career has been limited to being a fan. Actually, and I hope the NCAA is not reading this, I was paid when playing in a little league game. My father, tired of seeing me function exclusively as a non-shooting point guard, offered me 25 cents for each point scored. I scorched the nets for 10 points, picked up my illicit loot of $2.50, and never again received the same incentive from my Dad.

However, I have now one-upped Mr. Jordan. In August of 2012, I walked onto the court at the Chatham Senior Center after a five-year absence. In 2007, I had been rendered unable to run by a complete erosion of the cartilage around my left hip. After a year of hearing doctors telling me that I needed a new hip and there should be no more basketball, I found a guy who was closer to neutral on the latter subject.

Unfortunately, the first hip replacement had a defective cup, and a do-over was necessary, accompanied by a lawsuit versus the manufacturer. A year after the second operation, my doctor pronounced me "good to go." Whether his statement was in response to my question about basketball or simply a request to leave his office I am not sure.

In any case, a few days later, I was on my way to Chatham, nervous about what was to happen. Would I be thinking about my hip or instinctively playing the game I loved from the time at age six when I scored one point the entire season. Not a problem—the ball felt like an old friend and my legs moved without being instructed. My mobility and stamina were surprisingly good, even though a strong first step triggered by the left (or "plant") leg for a right- handed player was completely absent. As for shooting, er uh, I tried, but it was not there, maybe a 35% success rate, definitely too low for any scouts to thrust contracts in my face.

After playing for 1.5 hours or so, with fatigue setting in, inevitably somebody at Chatham plaintively requests, "one more game!" Like children who want to play with their toys or keep the bedroom light on for five more minutes, we know that the good times will end and leaving the court brings us one more day closer to our mortality.

And so we play again, even if the next morning we will be too stiff to play with the grandchildren.

P.S. If anybody is seeking to round up some seniors for a game—crazy guys with artificial parts and straps of all kinds and medical prescriptions and talent and competitiveness and passion—below is my secret scoring report. A word of caution before making up a squad to compete with the Chatham group, be advised of two facts: Lionel led his team to the championship of the New Jersey Master Olympics—and—Steve is unstoppable!

• **Eddie** : smart, aggressive, pot-bellied but surprisingly quick-footed

• **Bob** : quiet; unusual shot near the hoop after almost traveling

• **Floyd** : an 81 year-old who can drill a shot if you leave him open

• **Bob** : over the head standstill jump shot with good accuracy, high basketball IQ

• **George** : has one shot, a hook with 25% accuracy, calls ridiculous fouls

• **Joe** : good guy, slowed by injury and age

• **Tommy** : back on the court after shoulder work, quick and smart, hustles

• **Steve** : as mentioned, unstoppable; like most great players, wants every call, can be a difficult teammate

• **Jack** : aggressive and that's it

• **Frank** : has a two-hander, can get hot

• **Lionel** : zero body fat, knees replaced, good hook shot, tenacious rebounder

• **Tom** : nice guy with a reasonably good shot if open

• **H** :a three-point specialist who has started to drive more

• **Tom** : guards with his forearm, can hit an open shot

• **Frank** : hits good percentage of a variety of shots, good defender

• **Rich** : sets picks, has good overhead two-hander, always looking to pass

• **Norman** : same as Rich and can bull his way into the lane

• **Rich** : thick goggles, left-handed, erratic decision-making

• **Dan** : tough, physical, good shooter

• B **ob H** : intelligent point guard mentality, good passer, hustles on defense, inconsistent shooter

• **Mike** : interesting two-hander from deep

Enough said. I can hear the ball bouncing and it is time to play—after I stretch of course!

## Chapter 43:  
Motivation and Distraction and Aspiration

It is always a struggle, trying to figure out with some accuracy the combination of challenges and capabilities—both academic and nonacademic, and intangibles which characterizes a particular member of any educational program. When IWW! thinks about the desire by a member to accomplish a particular objective, it cannot help thinking, is it an admirable, but idle thought, or a well-planned goal? Is it a random voicing of an idea which a younger person knows will sound good to the older adult asking the question, what are you going to do with your life? Maybe when a person is unknowingly dominated by "in-this-moment thinking," the member's aspiration is valid but is actually only a collection of words, not a logical combining of the tasks, attitudes, and other factors needed to make the aspiration real.

The person who states his or her aspiration is reflecting numerous background factors: family structure and history—both educational and noneducational, perhaps a relationship to a spiritual being which affects the career path being chosen, and maybe a vague understanding of the political environment into which he or she is born. This environment directly influences the person's perception of opportunity, which in turn leads to thoughts about the degree to which there is a connection between effort and the results of that effort.

Regardless of how analytical a given individual may be, he or she is simultaneously confronted with distractions. The irony is that it is often those who love that individual who occupy the role of distracter. The person with big goals may be in an extended family environment where the daily tasks (particularly jobs) and normal consumption attitudes are the key characteristics; the subject of aspiration is actually not part of the conversation because lives have already been established. With respect to people around the individual, do they understand the motivation behind the goals of the aspirer: do they believe it is power and/or money and/or understanding oneself and/or "being the first in the family" which drives the individual. Do motivation and aspiration line up, despite the distractions.

For anybody to maintain motivation, there must be evidence of resiliency and grit. These are necessities to help the individual rise above the challenges of relationships, documentation, family, health, car, job **. There must be more determination than complaining.** The individual must avoid certain events which are what one veteran educator refers to as "life-changers:" drugs, gangs, a baby when you are not ready for the responsibility.

There is no set road map for connecting the dots of motivation, distraction, and aspiration. In a way, although it may sound like a bumper sticker slogan, the "process becomes the answer." All the years of hard work bring with them the learning of the critical thinking skills which are crucial to reaching any aspiration. At times, there is a minimum of individual control over the elements of the educational process. The individual must fill in the blanks, even if sometimes the educational standards themselves may not be totally understandable. The most dedicated and motivated people must still recognize that college degrees are only "tickets" to get an employer's doors opened. They are not guarantees that aspirations will be achieved.

## Chapter 44:  
My Education Fantasy

Some day, unfortunately not soon in all probability, there will be no magnet or charter or in-district choice or zoned or neighborhood or district or other schools with the equivalent of hyphenated names that can mislead as much as they inform. Instead schools simply will be identified by their mission, the composition of their student body, and their academic characteristics.

These schools will have equal access to funding and facilities, which should never be factors differentiating one school from another. Parents will choose the school in which to enroll their child, with none of the nonsense about certain schools having more committed parents, a description which never has been pejoratively attached to affluent parents moving their residences to so-called "better" school districts. There will be no more spurious allegations against a school which, through no fault of its own, serves less of an ELL population or fewer special education students, solely because parents have chosen to send their children elsewhere.

With each school able to choose its own leadership and teaching staff—and provide its own professional development, gone will be the notion that preservation of jobs, union or non-union, trumps the education of children as the fundamental goal of a school. Data assessment will routinely be part of every school presentation and the results will be readily understandable without the need for a PhD in statistics. Nobody at the school will be asking for delays in the evaluation process or the use of said data.

In making their choices, parents will know whether a school has a longer day, requires uniforms, is maniacal about college as a singular goal, or is better equipped to effectively serve students who want an academically less intensive curriculum as they seek to acquire a specific marketable skill.

Bad schools, whatever their governance structure, will have been closed.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the leading mayoral candidate in Newark has added his voice to the crowd of critics calling for the Superintendent's ouster. In New York City, the new mayor wants to reduce income inequality, apparently in part by being antagonistic to charter schools, many of which improve the educational outcomes of low-income minority students. I guess attacking those who are helping kids clarifies the actual agenda—it is about adults.

In the real world, analogous to the debates concerning immigration reform or global warning, an informed person can work through the specific issues around schools of choice and knock off the objections, but the entrenched opposition retains its animosity. Facts are not allowed to move previously-held opinions.

I love teachers—they are engaged in the number one profession, but the reality is that the teachers union is analogous to that of ironworkers: the mission is about the preservation of jobs for union members. However, just as one would not want to occupy a building erected by ineffective ironworkers, nobody should want their children taught by adults who have been deemed ineffective in their profession. The bumper sticker is true: our future is with our offspring, and each and every one of them must be valued, nurtured, educated.

Having witnessed the bitter, irrational, self-defeating education politics of Newark for many years, I know better than to label my futuristic comments as anything other than fantasy. But then again maybe it is a collection of hopes not that dissimilar from a Newark populated by good schools, a commonality in which all students would benefit. This imagery ultimately must become a reality, not a fantasy, if Newark is to combine educational accomplishment with its on-going economic improvement.

I am not blind; I know that some of the skepticism about charter schools stems from racial tensions rooted in history. My eyes are wide open about why a community could rebel when predominantly white outsiders are perceived as seeking to take over the educational process. And I know that poverty here and everywhere is painfully obvious as a drag on educational aspiration. But could somebody else explain to today's kids why their critically important education has to be put on hold until the elusive day when poverty is no longer an issue.

Education reform has brought us the new Common Core academic and data assessment standards, and new systems of teacher evaluation locally and elsewhere. All are being attacked, and education reform may be at a political crossroads. If we do not proceed with substantive change, as painful as the transition may be, it can only mean a return to a status quo which nationally sees 11% of children in the lowest income quartile earning a college degree, versus 78% in the highest income quartile.

Are we truly willing to cede our position as a world power because we do not have the will to fix a broken education system.

I think I will keep fantasizing; it is the only way to stay sane.

(2014)

## Chapter 45:  
New Jersey: The Sign Capital

For over a year, as we have visited Shop-Rite for our weekly grocery ration, we have always seen this sign in a window in the adjoining strip center: "Coming Soon." It was pertinent to a laundromat, at least in theory, but maybe, we thought, there was a new company called "Coming Soon," because we had seen this sign in numerous other places as well, long before there was a tenant.

Somehow, this unimportant insight got our antennae up, and we began looking at other signs and wondering if they too were part of a huge conglomerate. "Bartender Wanted" has been in the window of a local bar practically since inception. Seemingly every diner has a perpetual "Waiter/Waitress Wanted" sign, which suggests that such jobs are both low-paid and high-stress.

The state of New Jersey overall has a well-deserved negative reputation for having the most confusing, ill-placed, and poorly thought-out set of highway signs of any state in the country. Even if you are perfect in your understanding of the English language, you still run the risk of making a bad decision when attempting to read such signs. If your English is less than outstanding, you might as well make your hospital reservation in advance as the risks posed by last minute, high speed highway decisions are really substantial.

New Jersey could post a different sign, "State of the Brain Drain," because every year, more high school graduates go elsewhere for their higher education than vice-versa. Or it could put out a sign which says, "Beware of New Jersey, it is now Bankrupt," a function of borrowing for current needs and the richest medical/pension plan for public employees (the vast majority of whom, including teachers, have no accountability measure for their performance) in the country.

Here is a good sign of financial excess for a privileged group, government employees, a benefit bestowed on them by taxpayers in general.

Source: Senator Stephen Sweeney; Assemblymen Jerry Green and Paul Moriarty, as reported in the June 1, 2006 issue of the Star-Ledger. P.S. these are Democrats urging a 15% rollback in compensation for government employees. It is surely a sign of the times when Democrats! are advocating fiscal responsibility.

Oh yes, back to the subject of tangible signs.

My favorite is that clever local, handwritten sign, "Sal is cooking," which definitely deserves further examination and explanation. It sounds at first like somebody is simply "hot," in the popular parlance. Or perhaps it means that the place has a cook who is really doing a great job with the huge number of entrees on a diner menu.

In actuality, I am told, Sal once was a part owner of this diner, and people loved his style. So now, prospective customers whipping by in their cars on Route 46 East will see the sign in the window that says "Sal is cooking," slam on their brakes, and come in for good food at a reasonable price.

## Chapter 46:  
New Year's Eve at the Hospital

This is a work of creative writing. Any resemblance to living persons who are actually breathing is patently ridiculous, absurd and freakin' stupid.

Darn, I didn't make it, done in by pneumonia after sixteen days of not eating much of anything and having a whole series of infections Here I am in Heaven, talking with my dear friend, who arrived about two weeks before I did. The subject is a very common one, "regrets," and I am totally fixated on one—why didn't I speak my mind in a way that anybody and everybody could hear. I had so many thoughts running through my head when I was lying there in the hospital before I got called up to meet my Maker ...

Happy New Year!!!

You must be out of your freakin' mind!

I'm 87 years-old, flat on my back, looking up at the same freakin' ceiling that I have seen since they wheeled me into this joint. You want me to put that stupid looking hat on my tired 'ol head and dance a jig? You might as well bring bedside the urn for my ashes!

Is this the way it has to be? Just because I lost my appetite a year ago and then had a "stomach ailment" all last week—which left me weighing less than my age and with no desire for any kind of food, including consommé for crying out loud.

So now I get penalized by seeing my Florence Nightingale daughter so many times I am sick of her. I get to hear my husband (how have I survived 65 years with him!) talking about me as if I were not there. At least he responds, albeit slowly, when I tell him to get the heck out of the room, I want to sleep. Enough of his control fetish, let him go do that with the kids.

Speaking of which, I wonder if Dad and his eldest son will get into their traditional argument—it's always such great fun to hear those two go at it—acorns from the same freakin' tree if you ask me. Should knock some sense into both of them.

The other two sons, they check in once in a while but have the good sense to stay 1500 miles away; besides, their calm demeanors make them fish out of water in this dysfunctional room.

Vicodin, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Damn, where is that fat nurse with my painkiller narcotic. Love that stuff, makes me forget the pain in my ribs, which started a couple of years back when I was shoveling snow. Smart move, save $50 on hired help and start me on a medical bill which is now thousands of dollars and going much higher.

Yeah, Happy New Year, give me a horn so I can use my last breath celebrating the end of life in 2005. Great idea!

Dr. Smiles, I really do not know how to thank you. Yesterday, you patiently explained the logic of pushing an antibiotic horse pill down my perpetually sore throat, said it would do such and such. Today, you patiently explain the logic of a different antibiotic, one which will both help me and also, not so incidentally, offset the damage caused by yesterday's antibiotic.

Love this freakin' food, from the "Nutritional Services Department," bunch of minimum wage high school drop-outs throwing slop on a tray and calling it "patient specific." Today, I gummed some pudding, drank some juice and milk, and looked with disgust at the pasta and meatballs.

Time-out, it's "Tech Services." Big name for a little function—taking my blood pressure. Do I still have blood running, I can't tell. Does it rise when I'm looking at this gum-chewing, underage person number eighteen coming into my room, probably with reluctance.

This room is either too hot or too cold. And I refuse to pay for vapid television programming or annoying phone calls from people too lazy to come visit me in my hour of need.

Dr. Geriatrics, can I get across one freakin' point—I have no interest being with old people! So take those glossy brochures about "assisted living" and recycle them. Maybe you could use them for New Year's Eve confetti if they allowed us to open the windows. No, they are locked tight, probably to prevent anybody jumping out of their bed and through the window in sheer joy that there is outside, fresh air available instead of the regenerated germ-laden atmosphere of a hospital.

Did I mention that I have an oxygen tube shoved up my nose and that my resistance to eating will probably cause the sadists in this hospital to jam a tube in my vein so they can pump some protein into me directly. Oh what fun, should do this every freakin' New Year's Eve.

The only one in the bunch who makes me want to get better is that immigrant woman my eldest boy brought with him. Everything she says makes total sense, even if I don't understand whatever freakin' language she speaks. I guess she worked in a hospital or something, because she gets my signals to lift the damn bed up so I can look forward and see a different design than the freakin' ceiling. She gets my hand motions, as in, "would you do me a slight favor and put on surgical gloves so I do not have to add infection number 13 to the dozen or so now accumulated in various parts of my decrepit body."

Is there a match-making service which advertises for dysfunctional people who want to link up with their soul-mates! Woman in the next room is screaming for freakin' help and once an hour somebody drops by and puts a hammer to her head to shut her the hell up. Sh—t, why don't we just swap families and see if anything positive comes out of it.

Yeah, Happy New Year. A million people with strong bladders standing eight hours in the cold to watch the ball drop in Times Square, while I turn my head to watch the IV solution drip, one milliliter at a time. They should add some tequila, give me a little juice so I can welcome in 2006 in style. What the hell, I have a call button right here in case I hit a different button and set the bed to folding me in half.

What did I do wrong? I never have smoked, drink only an occasional glass of wine, have not done drugs (though Lord knows there were times when they seemed like an attractive option), have not chased men, went to church regularly until they changed ministers one too many times. So my payback is this, I get to spend New Year's Eve in a freakin' hospital, trying to crank up my bed so I can catch a glimpse of somebody else's fireworks, sucking up cranberry juice instead of champagne, looking at the crazy hat instead of wearing it.

Would somebody tell my dear husband, may he rest in peace after he dies, that when and where I go from this hospital will be MY decision, not his or my damn kids. Here's equally ancient spouse, moving like a model T Ford with his walker, not hearing me 'cuz he is too vain to use modern technology, and he's talking about picking an assisted living facility based on our lifestyle. What lifestyle, the one that puts me in a freakin' hospital room for New Year's Eve!

"Where were you yesterday?" I asked number one, overly analytical son. He claims that he was here, and the nurse agrees, but I do not remember a damn thing—maybe the combination of drugs, five minutes of pure oxygen, and switching of my nutrient bag rendered me memory-less. Who cares anyway, the ceiling has not changed!

Jeez—can anybody do anything about this smell, it reeks of unhealthiness. Oops, it's my husband.

"How is your pain?" they ask, "please rate it on a scale of 1 - 10." How about 22 if I did not have my Vicodin! And I'm only talking about my family.

Beautiful, overpriced flowers and a candle which disintegrates when you light the damn thing—they must be from the hospital gift shop, purchased by people who did not think ahead and are unimaginative besides.

Great, I get a little appetite and now I have to open these plastic-enclosed food packets. You need a pair of scissors or a real knife, neither of which is likely to be given to somebody who does not show much will to live anyway. Where's the freakin' nurse when I need her!

What the he—is going on!!! The most solid food I have eaten is fruit cocktail and the social worker says it's time to get the heck out of the hospital. Maybe it's the insurance company gagging over the $25,000 bill for the past couple of weeks. So it will be off to a "skilled nursing facility," whatever the deuce that really means. Is that where they size you up for a casket when you check in?

Jeez—there has to be a better way! Do the 27 different medical people who have been in and out of my hospital room really communicate with each other in a way that produces a unified approach. The probability has to be abysmal—has anybody played the game where you whisper something into the ear of the person next to you around a dinner table. Even in such a controlled situation, the message usually gets botched!

The patient files are handwritten notes, compiled in a binder (ah, my son the binder freak would be proud!), maybe readable, but not necessarily read. The doctors are random, the nurses variable in bedside manner and technique, and the various technical people seem to visit on their schedule, not mine. This is how you get well?

Needles, syringes, tubes, rubber gloves for everybody (memo to stockbroker: who makes this crap—buy me some stock). Is there a company which does malpractice suits where I can get a piece of the action? If this mechanical marvel of a bed snaps my shrunken legs in two, I want some big bucks coming my way.

For God's sake, can't anybody get me a Frosty from Wendy's, it's the only thing I really want for my sore mouth and empty stomach. Pleasssseee!

... Ah yes, what cathartic joy there would have been in letting the world see a different dimension of the person they thought they knew so well.

Why did I wait!

What I wouldn't give for another New Year's Eve with the family I love with all my aching heart, even at a freakin' hospital!

## Chapter 47:  
Newtown

Inevitably, no matter how horrible an event, one hears the phrase, "a return to normalcy."

It is meant to represent a positive lift to one's spirits, not for those directly affected—because their lives will never be normal—but for all the others, whatever their degree of separation.

It is as if "a return to normalcy" is a desirable goal for all concerned. IT IS NOT.

It cannot be accepted as normal to have an occasional Newtown and then simply move on.

Today's normalcy is:

• being able to buy a gun with less difficulty than getting a driver's license.

• video games whose main mission is the variety and number of people killed.

• PG-13 and R-rated movies alike with violence as a featured characteristic.

• a mental health institution being unable to administer medication to a patient whose case is being reviewed to determine whether he or she is a threat to society.

• the NRA believing it is the last word on interpretation of the Constitution, with its members historically having more energy than the rest of the political population and thus able to fight off changes which might have saved some innocent kids.

• an inability to figure out the causes for the skyrocketing rate of autism, and how to productively interact with those affected.

• a sports-loving nation which puts helmets on little kids and instructs them to hit the other kids with helmets, especially the one with the football—while legislators write 50-page definitions of "Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying."

• and—a country which leads the world in gun ownership and the number of children killed by guns.

The only sane response to the above list of issues is to advocate multiple changes.

To be in favor of a return to normalcy is insane!

(2012)

## Chapter 48:  
No More Tears

BACKGROUND FOR THE ARTICLE BELOW: In my view, formed from multiple experiences, colleges do whatever they please with respect to accepting undocumented students; the variations are probably driven as much by the advice of legal counsel as by business considerations; notions of fairness or justice are not within their purview. What is clear, consistent, and calamitous is that no government-based financial aid is part of the equation even if the undocumented student is accepted.

I cannot take it any longer! I do not want to provoke Maria or Jose to tears when the conversation inevitably touches on the question of immigration documentation, or the lack thereof. I do not want to feel the frustration of these perfectly presentable young women and men, eager to pursue higher education but thwarted by the consequences of an action over which they had no control—the circumstance of how their parents arrived in this country.

No matter how often I have been in discussions with prospective college students about the academic and financial logic of different educational paths to a degree—only to find that virtually all routes are almost fatally affected by their lack of documentation, not an absence of resolve—the conversations are unnerving, irritating, upsetting. I wonder about our country's priorities with respect to education, but that is a much broader subject for another day.

(With respect to immigration in general, has anybody noticed that half of Silicon Valley technology companies are led by immigrants—does anybody think that we will be able to maintain world leadership without the entrepreneurial juices demonstrated by these individuals? Did people catch the publicized determination of Russia to create its own Silicon Valley or the relocation of a leading American technologist—with wife and two children—to China because only that country had the required facilities? When Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman spoke at the graduation ceremony of Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute, he suggested that all non-Americans in the class be granted instant citizenship instead of flying back home to become recipients of outsourced American business. Is there any doubt that within the ranks of undocumented students are countless prospective scientists and entrepreneurs!).

I am tired of being on the verge of tears myself as I listen to another deserving student (here is a reasonable definition: high school honor roll, speaks fluent English, volunteers at the local hospital, never makes the crime blotter) who cannot enter college on an equal standing to those who, through no action of their own, have access to everything they did nothing to earn: a social security card, the ability to receive a Pell grant (recently increased in amount), access to Stafford loans, the opportunity to apply for conventional scholarship assistance.

Foundations with educational missions stand ready to assist these would-be collegians, who are typically motivated at a much higher level than their citizen peers, but the overall financial "equation" (net cost = total cost of attendance minus grants/scholarships minus loans) at obscenely expensive four-year colleges is made impossible to "solve" by the lack of access to the above financial resources.

My frustration leads to "radical thoughts," but then does not such a characterization often represent merely a steppingstone to widespread acceptance—when people in the future are able to look back and ask, "what was all the fuss about?" So here it goes, shot straight from the lip, er uh, the hip.

First, with respect to the big picture of immigration reform, with all due respect to the current push in Washington by Democrats seeking Hispanic support as their difficult November elections loom larger on the horizon, I want to ignore the federal level—the whole D.C. scene is rife with shenanigans which on occasion make Wall Street look like a collection of choir boys. Would you trust any elected official or lobbyist with your healthcare plan or your credit card! The impenetrable complexity of federalization, and the accompanying growth in debt, continues to be the hallmark of what is happening in Washington, an irrefutable statement regardless of whether you believe there are good or bad underlying reasons for these trends.

With 10% unemployment (17% underemployment), the chances of a "comprehensive" immigration bill passing in 2010 are probably slim, recent protests against Obama's slowness in addressing the issue notwithstanding. So, forget the federal scene; you know what, ignore the couple of dozen states which have passed their own version of a "dream" act specifically pertinent to undocumented high-schoolers being able to attend college on a level playing field basis. While at it, let us drop the word, "dream." It is soft, wistful, amorphous, subject to widely different interpretations; it is "socialworkerish" and does not resonate well with tough-minded politicians. And avoid, like a political third rail, the word "amnesty" and any proposal which smacks of its meaning.

Instead, I suggest a New Jersey Incremental Tax Revenue Act—perhaps you have noticed that the Garden State is bankrupt and could use the money. As background, we taxpayers (note: those without documentation do file taxes) are legally obliged (Supreme Court) to pay for Kindergarten-12th grade education for every child who walks in the school door, and it is borderline illegal/unethical (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) to ask about documentation. This means we taxpayers could be putting up as much as $100,000 to educate a child from kindergarten through graduation from high school, and then we deprive said student of the chance to earn the college degree which would move their earning power upward and cause them to pay more taxes.

The present approach is thus simply a poor return-on-investment strategy. In contrast, if we facilitate such students to pursue higher education, in time, revenues from income tax collections by the state will rise, not fall, reflecting their projected increased incomes. Keep in mind that Pell grants and Stafford loans are fundamentally federal pass-through funds; they do not really affect the financial ledgers of New Jersey, nor its colleges—except as an accounting item, with no direct impact on cash. Can the colleges accept additional students—easily; they are so business oriented these days that they will deliver their "product" whenever (day or night), wherever (in-class or on-line), however (part-time, full-time; tenured professor, adjunct teacher) necessary to get the student's business.

No documented students would be deprived in any way by the Incremental Tax Revenue Act. And the marginal costs to educate the incremental student are low. Note that when the announcement came on the increase in Pell grants, the President of Rutgers University was quoted (Daily Record: 4-7-10) as saying, "there would be no new administrative costs; the university never sees this money." If you do not think of colleges as being marketing oriented, see what they are doing for the Summer—discounting both credit hours and dormitory rooms in order to put more customers (oops, students) in the seats.

Earlier this year, the New Jersey State Assembly came closer than many anticipated to voting in favor of legislation (which would have then gone to the State Senate) that would have enabled undocumented high school students—with several reasonable qualifications—to enter state colleges on the same basis as those holding green cards or who are citizens. We should move ahead on the proposed legislation at the earliest opportunity: we need the money; actually the colleges themselves now need the money as state aid to higher education has been cut.

I realize that society overall has many investment options, some national and some at the state level: wars, bailouts, prisons, healthcare, education, etc. Is there any possibility that education is not the highest return on investment? (Well yes, if you assume that without wars, our country is destroyed; or that without the bailouts, this country would have become a third-world factor, with a valueless currency; or if prisons were not expanding, crime in the streets would be uncontrollable; or—well, you figure out the healthcare bill, it is beyond me.)

Through the New Jersey Incremental Tax Revenue Act, we could have more educated, higher income taxpayers—and NO MORE TEARS! Is there a better combination!

## Chapter 49:  
North Star Academy Founder Celebration

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote an Op Ed piece which ran in the Wall Street Journal. Immediately following the essay, which touched on a number of negative aspects of life as seen through the eyes of a commuter, I began volunteering in homeless shelters in New York City.

By 1992, I had created an "I Have a Dream" type program for some kids in the town of Dover, New Jersey, and thought I was headed there full-time as I had ceased being a partner in a Wall Street money management firm.

Instead, I was lassoed into the job of Interim Executive-Director of The Door, a large and managerially challenging after-school program for adolescents. Part of the to-do list was holding the hands of funders who were nervous about whether the place would survive.

Into my office came this guy from the Robin Hood Foundation, Norman Atkins. As I was blah, blahing about The Door, he interrupted me and said, "we have put $140,000 into this place and do not know whether it works." I laughed and replied, "I have put some money in too and don't know if it works either. Let's do something about it."

We hit it off and in time, I invited Norman to join the board of the WKBJ Foundation, which had been initiated by me. He agreed and for a couple of years went along with the foundation's directionless pattern of making good, but unfocused, grants, including in the area of charter schools. Then, in January of 1996, the foundation had a "Project X" meeting to decide on a million dollar idea.

The creation of a charter school became the foundation's focus. Not long after, at Norman's request, I went to the Link Community School to see Jamey Verrilli in action. The topic was diversity, and the methodology for discussion revolved around fondue! It was clear that this fellow was a special person.

"Is it better to be lucky or smart?" is a well-known saying. I would add, "can a person be smart enough to know they got lucky?"

The WKBJ Foundation fits in the latter category; it realized how fortunate it was to be given the opportunity to fund two fantastic individuals, with complementary talents, on a mission to address one of the nation's most pressing problems: urban education. When Norman and I gave each other a father-and-son type hug after meeting at McDonald's to discuss the only disagreement we ever had—at the very outset, how management interacted with the board, I was doubly sure our funds were in the right hands.

The history from that time forward is well-known: the educational and school leadership skills of Jamey, who is the long-distance runner in the charter school world, combined with the managerial and all-round brilliance of Norman, propelled the academic success and growth which today is reflected in a number of schools and student count that is constantly in need of updating. There is so much which could be said about the multidimensional benefits of this expansion, but that is for another time. This event is to honor the founders of North Star Academy, without which there would be no Uncommon Schools.

I am incredibly proud to have played a role in the unique history of North Star Academy.

Most importantly, I salute Jamey and Norman for everything they have accomplished.

## Chapter 50:  
Of Passports Both Literal and Figurative

Immigration (2010) is again a headline issue, and rightfully so as the situation begs for "comprehensive reform," to use the common terminology. There are numerous subcategories within the subject of immigration, but this essay focuses on the concept of a passport, and the myriad other "passports" which exist without that specific label. (I am leaving the issue of SB 1070, the highly controversial Arizona legislation aimed at illegal immigrants, for a more complete treatment in a different place.).

At the non-profit foundation of which I am Executive-Director, our mission is assisting prospective college students to enroll and graduate, to fulfill their dream. When we have described the importance of obtaining a college degree, particularly to Hispanic applicants, we have long used the terminology that it is a "passport," necessary in this society to open the door of possibilities, though not of guarantees. The correlation of educational attainment with personal income reportedly is higher than ever while the match-up of low-paid service jobs with a decent standard of living is problematical at best.

Any "academic passport" of course must be matched with real world intelligence (not to be construed as identical with test scores) plus energy and passion—what you know and can do and want to do—if an attractive job is to be secured and retained. Without these characteristics, the nice-looking but quite costly, diploma will be little more than an impressive addition to the living room wall.

Empowered in part by access to this academic passport, Americans have a stronger belief than their counterparts in other countries in their ability to influence the outcome of their own lives. Contrary to societies where fate, God, Allah, the rich, the connected are believed to be pulling all the strings of a person's success, or lack thereof, in the United States, surveys done over the years have shown there is a greater perceived relationship of input, hard work, preparation, passion (a characteristic which repeats), and results: happiness, financial strength, ability to exercise choice. Whether this will hold true in the decades ahead in the context of the rising absolute and relative cost of higher education is a critically important question.

In the context of our foundation's program which served virtually an all-Hispanic constituency, the passport analogy became even more apropos as issues of residency/citizenship and language loom large in the ability to convert the academic passport into a comfortable, sustainable career. The complexities are many: somebody from Colombia may prize an American college degree for its door-opening value back in his/her home country. Content behind the diploma is less important in that instance. Another student, from the same country, perhaps even the same family, may be unconcerned with command of the English language because their intention is to use their academic passport almost solely within the Spanish community. Some may be subconsciously mixing a new thought—having a college degree and its associated door-opening benefits—with the culturally embedded old thought of fate, akin to the agnostic hedging his bets with a periodic prayer.

The whole situation and its attendant terminology spurred me to think about additional types of passports, quite apart from that little book you carry on your international travels. Holders of a literal passport can travel at will, subject to visa requirements and security clearances. Holders of academic passports can get in the employer's Human Resources door. What of other "passports," none of which are typically the subject of precise documentation, but which, in my opinion, exist nonetheless?

The "Financier's" passport, however derived, bring about an opening of doors unrelated to whether you are deserving in any other respect. If you possess a fat wallet, you can glide to a restaurant or theatre seat or exotic destination not available to the average American, nor even imaginable by the average person throughout the world. Passport privileges include the ability, with the help of highly-paid lawyers and accountants, to bestow on future generations the financial benefits of your skill or luck. Were this money simply given to a destitute individual, it would be called either charity, if done on an individual basis, or welfare, if implemented through a government program, but done with a financial passport, it is termed "estate planning." And it introduces the inheritance passport.

Possession of the "Trust Fund Baby's" passport means membership in the lucky sperm club, which entitles the passport bearer at birth to unconsciously exhibit a sense of accomplishment related entirely to the success of his forebears. He has accomplished nothing at that instant, yet is endowed with an unearned privilege.

The "Celebrity's" passport, whether sought or bestowed by others, elicits public fawning by the general population and the media, and opens a variety of doors regardless of the holder's other qualifications. Entertainers, athletes, and more than a few chief executive officers are "Celebrity" passport holders, impervious—at least for a period of time—to the standards applied to the average person. They can float above the rules of accountability. Legal and moral transgressions are not as debilitating as they would be for the ordinary person: small fines, maybe a brief rehab stint, bogus community service, and well-crafted apologies are normally sufficient to "handle the matter" in order than fans are not deprived of seeing the stars whose exploits lift the fan from his humdrum daily world.

The "Beauty Queen's" passport, regardless of whether it is attached to any other passport, from the days of Eve has always provided limitless access to the world all by itself. Above-average looking individuals simply have a better chance in the lottery of life. Their brains are held to a lower standard than is true for the plain-looking man or woman. You do not see, excepting special circumstances, an attractive woman or handsome man sitting alone in a restaurant. If beauty were distributed proportionately, there would be a Miss America sighting every Friday at a WalMart. Note there is correlation between income and beauty, stemming from the affordability of cosmetics and exercise and the diminution of manual labor.

The "Athlete's" passport has its own set of characteristics. To reach the highest level, realizing that industries like basketball, football, and baseball are not large employers, the investment of time, energy, and—in some cases—money, is "beyond category," to use the Tour 'd France description of its most difficult stages in that famous bike race. In a majority of cases, reaching the professional pinnacle requires giving up a normal life and not having a "Plan B." The "Athlete's" passport begins at a young age, literally in grade school, where a budding star is first given room to begin bending most academic rules. Later on, an athlete may have a F average during the season of his sport; his punishment?—academic probation the next semester, which means after the season has ended.

As the years unfold, the passport carries ever more interesting privileges—financially rewarding attention from sports-oriented alumni, physical offerings from attractive (or simply highly-focused) members of the opposite sex, and academic assistance from professors, fellow students, and tutors alike, who help the athlete to pass his course, whether it be sports anthropology or the philosophy of basketball.

The "Achiever's" passport is, sorry—should be, the ultimate passport. Your overall package of abilities and accomplishments should allow you to travel within a free society and be able to take advantage of the multiple opportunities available. Cycling back to the interplay of education, immigration, and "passports," note that countless undocumented students have this "Achiever's" passport; they have poured their souls into getting to the same point in life as a citizen's sons or daughters. They should be treated the same way. Note that in-state tuition legislation would not even give them the ultimate passport of citizenship, but it would require them to be on the path.

Thus, the citizen taxpayer is doing a deal where they have the advantage of holding the undocumented student to a higher standard than his peers without having to promise delivery of the "passport." If the student succeeds, the citizenry has gained a higher income, higher tax-paying compatriot. If the student does not follow through, he is booted. If all high school students were treated in the same way, what a benefit to the educational system: motivated individuals seeking to contribute more to the well-being of the United States. (The specific dilemma of undocumented high school students and their chances for college is covered in my article, "No More Tears," in the May-June 2010 issue of Forum magazine.)

Perhaps keeping in mind these different passports would help put the issue of the official passport per se, and, more importantly, green cards and citizenship, into a broader context and reduce the tendency of many to oversimplify the issue of immigration. Certainly the advantages which accrue to citizens for various reasons are not a slam-dunk reason for softening one's approach to those seeking complete documentation, but greater awareness of the overall immigration picture will be beneficial in assessing the seemingly inevitable legislation.

For me, I would adopt a modified version of an idea broached by Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The World is Flat." I would tear up the documentation of any foreign student graduating from a four-year American college who majored in math, science, or any of the related technological fields and I would ignore the lack of documentation of any immigrant student who did the same. I would give them immediate green cards and a thank you note for contributing to the economic health of the United States. In such fashion, the literal passport would have morphed into an academic passport with a highly probable linkage to an "Achiever's" passport. All would benefit!

(2010)

## Chapter 51:  
On Parenting

Tackling the complex topic of parental love in a short essay is an impossible mission; whole shelves at Barnes & Noble are devoted to the subject. The purpose of the following writing, then, is to take a quick snapshot of certain specific situations, leaving to others or another time the equally valid issues of the impact on children of arguing or absent parents, parents with unrealistic or no expectations at all, verbal and/or physical abuse, neglect, presence of reading and writing in the house, and numerous other influences. In addition, the limited space pushes the presentation toward black-and-white, when the real world is predominantly, but not always, gray.

Each of the mini-vignettes is designed to be provocative, to push parental thoughts in a way that maybe is different from their prior approach. Certainly the reaction of some (many?) will be defensive; that is the initial attitude toward any questioning of ingrained habits. Clearly any of the topics below should by itself be the subject of expanded analysis, as should the role of spiritual belief in the establishment of values. But the perfect cannot be permitted to be the enemy of the good.

Phrased aggressively, "the cruelest, most harmful thing a parent can do is to allow a child to think the world functions in a way different from what the adult knows to be true." Put more positively, "love requires looking out for someone's good as well as creating the emotional bond and celebration of a relationship." Put somewhat sardonically, "what every child needs is someone to be irrationally committed to him/her."

A two year-old child on his or her stool reaches up to the top of the stove. His hand is going directly toward the pot of boiling water, which, if spilled on him, will be painful beyond the words that he cannot even yet form. Fortunately, his mother, who had been distracted for only a moment as she looked in the cupboard for the cocoa she would add to the water, saw him and quickly grabbed him before the scalding could take place. Her brain had communicated an instant message: "getting burned is too severe a penalty to teach a child about the concept of heat." No loving parent anywhere could disagree with that conclusion; it is a "no-brainer" as they say.

The two year-old child pushes his stool to the kitchen table and reaches up to grab a glass full of coca-cola. His mother helps him to drink this sweetened beverage, in fact will offer him more when the one glass is finished. When informed of the nutrition-less calories represented by soft drinks, she will say, "he's my baby, I love him, and he loves the soda, so I give him what he wants." When informed of the association of soft drinks with tooth decay, cancer, obesity, and hyperactivity, she will scoff. "I love my child and I will raise him the way I want."

The two year-old child reaches for the cigarettes left lying on the couch by his father. He snatches them away, proclaiming loudly that "they are bad for you. Smoking is a terrible habit, don't ever do it." His love for his child is evident in his forceful message, mercifully unexamined for hypocrisy at the youngster's tender age.

The two year-old child walks toward the large screen in the living room, exercises his curiosity about the array of buttons, and presto, there is a purple dragon in front of him. He sits transfixed, his rapture periodically interrupted by sounds of glee at the antics he sees in large living color. Every eight seconds a new look is there to stimulate him.

"He just loves Barney", his mother, known to everyone as a loving parent, says when people comment on the child's attentiveness. Later, she will repeat that comment concerning her child's ardor for Nickelodeon. The child will easily master the remote control, and shortly thereafter will have a TV in his room, and his attentiveness and ardor will migrate to other subjects, few of which are really known to his parents.

By the age of 18 in this toxic culture, he will have seen 18,000 murders and enough soft pornography to have permanently altered his naive belief in the goodness of men and women. He will have had more TV time at dinner than parent conversation time. On rare occasions at best will the love of these parents be reflected in a communicated understanding of the positives and negatives of television. Instead, like the two year-old before him, he will have been taught that life is a series of eight-second image changes.

The two-year old son becomes a teenager. His mother tells him many times a day, "I love you", which he receives, in the context of family anyway, without a hint of embarrassment. Simultaneously, his mother does everything for him, this depriving him of learning the tools of independence needed in adulthood.

The two-year old child is now college-age. He could be pursuing the education needed to move an entire family/generation to a higher and better level than that of his childhood. Instead he works two jobs and remits money to his mom so she no longer will have to clean toilets. His love needs no elaboration.

The two-year old daughter becomes a beautiful teenager, catered to, not simply by aspiring beaus, but by her loving mother and father as well. By the time she is 20, she has no sense of self beyond her physical presence and her intellectual confidence is nil, but her love for her parents knows no bounds.

The two-year child is now driving. The seatbelt is awkward and uncomfortable compared with the fashionable clothes he is wearing to go pick up his friends. "Mom, if you love me, don't make me wear that belt; Dad never uses it." "Okay, but be careful."

Love is a longitudinal, complex concept, only understandable (and even then just barely!) over both an extended period of time and over a variety of situations and inputs.

But can it be a real and sustainable love for a parent to put aside what he or she knows about the world and allow a child, who from birth is eager to learn the truth, to prematurely decide what love means?

## Chapter 52:  
Places to See in Dover, New Jersey

Warning: reviewers of this essay have labeled it "DARK HUMOR!"

Have you ever ridden one of those double-decker tourist buses where you can hop on and off at different places of interest? It occurred to me that such a bus would be great in Dover. While you are riding this virtual bus, keep track of these signs: For Sale, For Lease, Space Available, For Rent. If your final count comes within five of the actual total, you win the prize: a round-trip train ticket to nearby New York City. Do not expect the places listed below to be in any kind of order; nothing else in this town is truly organized. I should know—I have had an office here for twenty years, testimony to my true feelings of conflicted love toward this slightly screwed-up town.

• For those who have visited Dover before, you will notice there are even more "Jersey Finest" barber shops than ever. This town has some of the sharpest looking high school drop-outs you have ever seen.

• Since the Route 46 bridge cannot be used until the beginning of 2011 you have an excellent opportunity to see construction workers either (a) standing around talking and drinking coffee or (b) attempting to be the first in history to finish a government project on-time and on-budget.

• After you get around the non-bridge, cast your eyes on St. Clare's Hospital, but cover your ears—they do not handle all medical procedures—that screaming ambulance which passed you is headed to a place that does. Good luck to the transportee! P.S. Do not ask the hospital about their ability to perform abortions.

• Sovereign Bank was not too big to fail; instead it was saved from extinction by the huge Spanish banking entity, Santander, which was named Global Bank of the Year," and nobody screamed about "outsourcing!"

• Across the street from Sovereign is Bassett Pub, where "this Bud's for you" is true from the early hours to the wee hours, and the jail is only a short stumble away.

• Around the corner from Bassett Pub is Dover Business College. Ask any of the overweight students who are standing at the entrance door smoking and they will be happy to direct you to the health classes.

• JFK Park is a beautiful spot, has been for almost 15 years since being donated by a brokerage firm no longer in the area. It is rarely used except for some free summer musical events which are lightly attended.

• Hedden Park is a wonderful part of Dover. Unfortunately it is controlled by the county, which frowns on alcohol and loud music, so the latter, otherwise known as the Colombian Festival, must move to Crescent Field, opposite the nice soccer field with the Keep Out Sign.

• Hispanic Affairs—no, this is not the site of illicit activities by macho Latinos; it offers ways for people to avoid the cold by adding winterization to their homes. This allows them to be warm while complaining about the weather in the town they have lived in for twenty-five years.

• The Dover Antique Center is a marvelous place for anybody seeking junk from somebody else's attic.

• Guys, there is a hop-off point for you: the Showplace Go-Go bar; the bus will pick you up later. If you happen to see Tiger Woods or a certain ex-judge from Dover, say hello for me.

• Anybody with a drug or alcohol problem should get off at the aptly-named Hope House. It will provide you with a variety of reasons why its programs are not more successful.

• We all know that learning English is critical to—well actually it is not critical in Dover, but anyway, get off at the Dover United Methodist Church and slip the Professor a ten-dollar bill (thoroughly reported on his tax return for sure) to sit in on his English class, restricted in attendance to anybody who gives him the money.

• Do not be confused by the lights indicating it is not okay for pedestrians to cross the street. If you paid attention to them, you would still be on the corner. They are as coordinated as a Baptist trying to salsa.

• Eating places are everywhere. Anybody in Dover who can cook believes they can open a restaurant.

• The rundown place of World War II military housing is called "Victory Gardens." It is an adjunct of Dover and sensible residents of the former list their address as Dover.

• Yes, there are many churches. People are exiting from conventional places of worship and going to places where either simple and explicit answers are given to life's problems or there is dancing as part of the service.

• The Baker Opera House is protected with the National Registry. That means the building's outside look cannot be altered without permission, but any sort of architectural idiocy inside is perfectly appropriate.

• Joe Kubert originated famous comic book heroes and established a nationally known School of Cartooning. He is about 125 years old and still gets up every morning ready to draw. Joe also made a great real estate deal, buying—at a big discount—a high school building which the Dover Board of Education, brilliant forecasters all, believed was superfluous only to discover later that additional space was needed in the Dover school district.

• Dinner is available at Al's Westside Café; it is the only place in town where vegetables and salads are visible.

• The Short Train in the middle of Dover is interesting; it has an engine and nothing else, crosses the town as it passes next to the Town Hall, and goes somewhere else on a schedule which does not exist. Quaint.

• There are numerous money transfer places—if you add fees and bid-asked spreads, costs are large, but when a janitor here earns ten times what they made in their "home" country, they are primarily concerned with trust, not expense, when it comes to getting rid of American dollars.

• Heretofore, Hispanic grandparents stayed at home with their offspring, facilitating the former's ability to thoroughly spoil their grandchildren. However, Regency Nursing Home now has a sprinkling of Hispanic elders who apparently have had it with 24/7 family life.

• Back in the day, Dover had a large German population, many of whom worked at a big stocking factory on Berry Street and lived in the opposite row of houses with identical architecture. In the Fall of each year, Germania Park (founded in 1895 when Germany was still in the running for world leadership) is the site of a large festival, featuring large people eating large sausages and drinking from large beer mugs.

• You will notice many beautiful women in Dover. Your guess is as good as mine as to which ones have traveled to their home countries for physical enhancements.

• Dover Diner is in a location which seemingly cannot stay idle for long, despite the efforts of successive mentally-challenged owners to drive their business into the ground. At present, its signage indicates great focus: seniors get discounts all the time, it has Portuguese pastries, offers Mexican food, and is Open, in case you wondered from the absence of customers.

• Shop-Rite: darn, another place thought to be in Dover, but actually it is in Rockaway. In a different direction but not far away is a superfund site. Naturally it is in Dover.

• Nail and Hair Salons are everywhere: women will let their electric bill become overdue before giving up their weekly appointment.

• Note the February 15, 2004 Safe Corridor sign warning of doubled fines in the relevant work area. Rumor has it that President Obama's twenty-sixth stimulus plan will be comprised of removing all obsolete government signs.

• The GDP (Gross Dover Product) is dominated by car dealers, parts suppliers, and repair shops. Every guy who can take apart an engine is here to give you a bad repair estimate and return your car way later than promised.

• Casa Puerto Rico was formerly the Aguada Club, as the earliest Hispanic settlers in Dover came from Aguadilla, a town in Puerto Rico. A few years back, the mayor of Aguadilla came to the local club, got drunk and groped some women, leading a few members to suggest a name change would be appropriate.

• Harry Loory's Furniture was founded in 1911; he undoubtedly paid off his mortgage about thirty years later and thus has been unconcerned about his total lack of business for many, many years.

• There are numerous clubs in town, some of them even legal, like Club Colombia, known for the elevated age of its members as young people seem to have better things to do with their time.

• Bravo is the new grocery store in town; it has all the right Hispanic products and charges shoppers a premium for being politically correct.

• Our lunch stop is Pollo Pucalor, which has the best chicken within miles. The delicious skin comes with its own Lipitor prescription to counter the impact on your cholesterol.

• It can be a challenge to read billboards in this town; think of the situation as a reason to buy the Rosetta Stone language program—according to its advertisements, you will be able to recite an entire Castro speech by the end of your first day of learning Spanish.

• The owners of the residence known as the Dover Christmas House spend an entire year figuring out how to creatively display 10,000 Christmas bulbs, enough to light a village in India for a year.

• You have noticed many black car services, taxis, and limos. There are around 70 in total, depending on who passed the English test—no, that requirement was thrown out by the courts (defeat number three for Dover's less than totally competent legal counsel), the number depends on who is insured this week.

• The National Guard is here to take your wayward teenagers and straighten them out by having them drive trucks in the Middle East.

• Lakeland Bus Lines will take you away to the Big Apple; the fare for this state-owned but privately-operated service is now over $20 round-trip. At least with respect to buses, this ain't South America, folks.

• Zumba classes are held above the Gang Fa Luck store, whatever that is. This combo dance/exercise is helpful to shaping female bodies to the desires of the guys watching through the full-length window.

• As is true in many countries south of the United States, to use the words of a keen local observer, the "Stop" signs here are often treated as either suggestions or decorations, rather than being definitive legal dictates.

• Our last stop is the Dover Town Hall. If you are lucky, the mayor will come out and say his usual few words about how he wished the town still had Newberry's and everybody spoke English.

## Chapter 53:  
Reflections

Standing on the corner

Sitting on the sidewalk

Watching, waiting, hoping

Alone, in little groups, in larger gatherings

How do lives evolve

when dependent on randomness

How do they joke and laugh

when yesterday is today... and tomorrow

Fighting for jobs, for dollars

for families far away

How did they arrive here

what were their goals

how many are mistreated... by us

Can we walk on by

with nary a thought

Are we not compelled

to examine our own lives?

## Chapter 54:  
Robert's Rules

Going "to" (a new job or residence or relationship) carries better odds of success than going "from."

When unsure about a decision, emphasize variable, not fixed commitments.

What are the unshakable truths about you—be totally honest.

What decisions must be made now—which decisions can wait.

Income fluctuates, but debt is forever.

Crawl—walk—run.

Most situations are a matter of degree with respect to the "answer."

A house is not really an investment, it is fundamentally a residence—assume you will be there five years when considering buying a house.

There is no right answer.

Your loving family is not in the classroom helping you when you take a final exam.

Pursue your passion first; at the same time, have a Plan B.

Regardless of the many different paths in life, everybody's initial goals are simple: a place to live, enough food, sufficient clothing, good relationships: family, friends, romantic partner.

God is in the details; so is the Devil.

Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Decide on your course of action based on the net of positive factors minus negatives.

There are always unintended consequences.

Bring the bad news first, the good news can wait.

Half of the "answers" come from being able to frame the questions.

Underpromise and overdeliver; overpromising is a cancer affecting everything you say.

Group data is meaningful, but it tells you nothing about an individual within the group.

Be aware of the Conflict Avoidance Syndrome—fight when you are right.

A college degree opens doors and provides options; it does not guarantee a job.

Be aware of the connection between excessive negative stress and your health!

But also understand that some stress accompanies virtually any aspiration.

## Chapter 55:  
Some Scribbling About Sports

However many words this article may ultimately include, I promise that none of them will have anything to do, at least directly, with Alex Rodriguez! Moving right along—here are a few stray thoughts and some suggestions on how to stay sane when it comes to professional sports; lamenting that everything was better "back in the day" is not really all that useful, even when considered accurate by your fellow social security recipients.

• Realize that on average, fans care more about the outcome of a sporting contest than do the vast majority of athletes. There is typically little monetary impact on these players from a given win or loss. Leaving aside some differences among sports, players now have the upper end at the bargaining table, in contrast to the opposite extreme several decades back, when team owners were able to treat their players as chattel.

• The experts who pontificate in the media are as reliable as stock market crystal ball gazers. Early in the current NFL season, for the Giants and the Jets to have records which matched the preseason guesses, they would have to win nine games in a row and lose nine games in a row respectively. In other words, the experts were dead wrong.

• Similarly, to listen to many sport commentators on television is to invite insanity into your head. Click the mute button and preserve some mental balance.

• Personally, I root for athletic prowess, consistent defense, and calmness under pressure, and against arrogance and stupidity. Which means that I frequently turn away from even a team I might be quietly rooting for. And it means that 90% of the time, I detest the entire Knick organization, from the owner to the players.

• It did not take the soap opera which is Rutgers sports—or the one-and-done approach to Kentucky basketball—to make it perfectly clear that big-time college sports is a complete fraud. Which does not prevent an otherwise rational person from cheering when his school moves from simply having a "team" to having a "program."

• There are many addictions in life: power, alcohol, drugs, electronic devices, sex, religion, and sports come to mind, as do coffee and chocolate. Everybody picks their "poison." Being a fan of an athletic team might be the most voyeuristic of the bunch.

• As is true in the political arena, the media approach to discussing sports is increasingly based on arguing, with the process being the point (confrontation is good for ratings apparently), not a particular outcome. It makes the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a brutal endeavor appropriate for Stone Age occupants, seem honest in a twisted way, because there is a clear objective for all the back-and-forth: one guy/gal virtually killing the other—or maybe I have confused UFC with another form of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), which is like not being sure whether a knife or an aluminum baseball bat is a more lethal weapon.

• One of my brothers in San Antonio has an annual Super Bowl party at his home. I am on my way; this geographical area will be a complete zoo when #48 comes to MetLife Stadium.

• For all the furor about steroids, our outrage is selective. We care when it is somebody who has paraded in front of us for 82 or 162 games (basketball or baseball) and whom we would recognize if they stumbled into the local grocery store. In contrast, when those found to be cheating are masked gladiators who participate in 20 games at most and who are unlikely to have careers longer than a few years, we could care less what they do to their bodies.

• To commemorate the onset of winter, I must mention a childhood sport not known to warm weather climates: snowball fights, hopefully without pieces of coal in the middle. And we sometimes built forts for these frigid battles that left everybody with at least ruddy cheeks, if not welts from an especially well-packed snowball that happened to strike some uncovered skin.

## Chapter 56:  
Some Wall Street Thoughts

These were first written by the undersigned in March of 1989(!), then discussed at our Wall Street Committee meeting in June, 2012. The comments in [CAPS] are as of September 21, 2014.

### Characteristics of Overvaluation in the Stock Market

• The stocks have been up for years and are expected to rise further. [TOTALLY A FUNCTION OF FEDERAL RESERVE POLICY AND AN ABSENCE OF INVESTMENT ALTERNATIVES. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN QE STOPS AND INTEREST RATES RISE. WILL STOCKS SUFFER?]

• There is a lot of off balance-sheet financing. [NOT AS TRUE.]

• Operating trend analysis/focus smothers balance sheet analysis. [COMPANIES HAVE DONE A MARVELOUS JOB OF MATAINING/EVEN IMPROVING MARGINS WITH LITTLE REAL TOP-LINE GROWTH; THEIR BALANCE SHEETS ARE IN TERRIFIC CONDITION RE DEBT/CASH. IS THIS SUSTAINABLE; EVENTUALLY WILL THEY NEED TO INVEST, IN PART TO STIMULATE DEMAND. WILL THAT INVESTMENT ACTIVITY BE HERE OR IN OTHER COUNTRIES GROWING FASTER.]

• Costs are irrelevant; they are passed through. [MINIMAL INFLATION ACTUALLY.]

• The ability to use conventional valuation yardsticks is impaired; rules of thumb are substituted as valuation approaches. [TRUE.]

• The sale of minority pieces of businesses on a promoted basis is common. [TRUE.]

• Investment funds are put together to participate in perpetual reevaluations [LOTS OF ACTIVITY AMONG THE PRIVATE EQUITY FUNDS AS COST OF CAPITAL IS SO LOW.]

• Inflation is a net positive. [MINIMAL INFLATION ACTUALLY. TO ONE OBSERVER, "THIS FEELS A LOT LIKE THE STORIES I READ ABOUT JAPAN IN THE 1990's.]

• Terminal year multiples of earnings are comparable to going-in multiples. [PROBABLY, BUT DO NOT KNOW.]

• Valuation has shifted from last year to this year to next year. [THE DISCUSSION SEEMS TO BE MUCH MORE ON FEDERAL RESERVE ACTIONS THAN ON COMPANY FUNDAMENTALS. THE VARIOUS HOTSPOTS AROUND A WORLD WHICH HAS BECOME MUCH MORE PERILOUS IN RECENT YEARS SEEM TO HAVE HAD NO REAL IMPACT ON THE AMERICAN INVESTOR MENTALITY, EVEN WITH A PRONOUNCED LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN THE LEADERSHIP OF THIS COUNTRY (A LEADING JOURNALIST IN THE MIDEAST REFERS TO PRESIDENT OBAMA AS BEING "THE BEST FRIEND OF HIS ENEMIES AND THE WORST ENEMY OF HIS FRIENDS.")

• NOTE THAT NOT ONLY HAS EUROPE COME SLOW TO THE PERCEIVED NEED FOR MASSIVE ECONOMIC STIMULUS, BUT THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT OF CHINA ITSELF IS PUSHING FOR MORE GROWTH THAN IS HAPPENING AT PRESENT. AND BOTH GERMANY AND DENMARK RECENTLY ISSUED GOVERNMENT DEBT WITH A NEGATIVE YIELD TO INVESTORS.

[EXPLANATION ANYONE?!]

### Principles of Financial Management  
How to Avoid Being Hurt (unchanged comments except as noted)

• Minimize debt.

• Do not take excessive risk.

• Consumption should be based on definable needs.

• Make a series of small decisions, not a single large decision, unless you are 100% sure.

• Do not take advice on the purchase of vegetables from somebody who sells beef for a living.

• Do not take advice from any expert who won't allow you to talk to three of his clients.

• Be totally honest.

• Reveal mistakes as soon as realized.

• When in doubt, ask more questions.

• Concentrate: pay attention to detail.

• Have an escape route if things go wrong.

• Learn all the time: from customers, employees, competitors, friends, cab drivers, whomever.

[AN ANONYMOUS NEW CONTRIBUTOR SUGGESTS THIS ADDITION TO THE ABOVE LIST: "MOVE OUT FROM LOUSY COUNTRIES, PHYSICALLY AND MONETARILY."

## Chapter 57:  
The Biker, the Talker, and the Vet

Anybody like myself who has either lived or worked in Dover for a period of time, who has walked the relatively few blocks which constitute this small town, and who is remotely observant has seen him:

THE BIKER. On a banged-up two-wheeler which appears to be a relic of the 1980's, he is evident at various places and on multiple streets, including the major route taking me out of Dover to my home to Denville. Always there is a bandana holding back his long hair and effectively framing his weather-lined face. Never does he seem to be in a hurry.

Where is going to or from? Or is the bike ride the whole point of his existence?

It is not known from where THE TALKER with the perpetual striped dress shirt pushes his walker, but it is known where he winds up on many occasions: at the La Sierra panaderia. There he holds court for all those who have taken a seat at the counter looking out on East Blackwell Street in the center of town. It is one of those cases when I wish I knew Spanish, and yet part of me is willing to make the guess that if I asked somebody to translate, to answer my question and get his response, it would go as follows:

What is he talking about? "Nothing important really, you know, the usual stuff."

I have never heard him speak, but on innumerable occasions I have seen THE VET, either standing on the nearby bridge or seated on a bench at the edge of JFK Park near Route 46. On the rare day that I have witnessed him with his hat removed, there is revealed a baldness that is in sharp contrast to his lengthy, unkempt beard. And always, he has his military duffle bag, and never is he with somebody.

"Why?" is all I can think of to ask.

There are many others who populate the street scene of this urban-rhythm town, who move in the same geographical circles as I:

• the younger white man with the blondish hair, a purposeful and long-distance walker.

• the hollow-eyed slim woman of indeterminate age who walks rapidly to a street corner friend with a desperation that suggests a deep-seated fear of being alone.

• the slender young man with his cap on backwards who always appears to be in a hurry, his hair flying, his coat loose, and his eyes unfocused.

• the slightly chubby, balding man with the tinted glasses, his eyes typically pointed downward, often smoking and always wearing designer jeans.

• the peripatetic walker with the perpetual limp and reluctance to make eye contact or say hello.

• the heavy-set older guy with the flowing beard and baseball cap, who, with the addition of a decent costume, could play Santa Claus.

• the 30ish man with long blonde/brown hair, frequently seen having breakfast alone at Three Brothers restaurant, typically cheerful even in the context of an essentially blank expression.

And then there is Warren, a slim black man of indeterminate age. For years, he was a glassy-eyed fixture at a nearby corner, always with a smile and hello when I exited my office in the building above his chosen location. For an equal length of time, he was no longer around; then suddenly there he was in front of me, with a big smile as he hopped off his ever-present bike to say hi.

He had been "away," but now he was ecstatic and articulate about his current good health; he had a place to live in the next town and had a flower garden of which he was quite proud. Every day, he was biking twenty miles to his job at a toy warehouse. He was as trim as ever, with a smile that had survived the implicit ups-and-downs of his life.

When I visit La Sierra or shop at the Dollar Store or walk to the Post Office, the word "resiliency" always comes to mind when I think about these individuals. I would be curious to know their life stories, but I also realize, on self-reflection, that such an exercise ultimately would be nothing but voyeuristic.

Once upon a time, when seeing somebody whose whole body language spoke of being adrift, alone, without hope, I thought to myself that assuredly this man or woman had once been a child loved by parents, as I love my children and grandchildren. Now, a bunch of decades later, I know better—there are people who may never have felt love, or they may have a memory of satisfactory basics (roof over their heads, sufficient clothing, adequate food) but nothing which brings the heart to life.

Are these people aimless, as some would suggest? Is the person with a high-paid white collar job who is surrounded by every physical benefit that money can buy also aimless if he is conflicted between what he believes are his values and what he sees taking place at his employer—whether corporate, non-profit, or government.

If over half of Americans are unhappy, according to the polls, is it because they do not know whether their previous aim in life was the right/profitable/happy/ productive choice? Or do they conclude they have never made a choice at all, but have lived an outcome triggered primarily by uncontrollable circumstances or by the expectations of others.

Many would assume that the roster of specific individuals briefly described in this article includes a few who have some particularly pernicious habits, whether it be alcohol or drugs. For them to create sustainable change in their lives, wholesale shifts are necessary: new friends, new places to hang out, new diversions, maybe even a recognition that one's own family is not without fault.

The affluent person who downs an evening scotch or two to mask his inner angst over the definition of personal values and who concludes he must scrap his consumptive life to become mentally healthy has the same challenge as the drug addict or alcoholic: the necessity for a complete makeover.

Everybody lives in a box; and whatever its dimensions, whatever its mixture of positives and negatives, that box is hard to distinguish from a person's comfort zone, and it is extremely difficult to be inside and simultaneously be self-critical to the point of substantive change. Therapists, motivational speakers and publishers of self-help books make fortunes off this dilemma.

What—you expected a to-do list, a bunch of suggestions, some sort of prescriptive formula!?

## Chapter 58:  
The Blind Side

Here is why "The Blind Side" is a horrible movie:

1. It only 'works' from a production standpoint if the person with power and money is white and the recipient of the largesse is black. Any other ethnic combination is a box-office flop.

2. Clearly the belief that having money trumps all is conveyed by the way Bullock could do anything she wanted, irrespective of any governance structure which existed at any school, private or public, high school or university.

3. The story line never even starts unless the lucky kid is (a) an athlete of "large" potential and (b) re-read (a).

4. So we will ignore two facts: the odds of a high school football player making the professional ranks are infinitesimal, ESPN hoopla notwithstanding, and the average NFL career is four years, with the typical player never being heard from again.

5. The hypocrisy of an "educational" system which passes kids along regardless of academic accomplishment is glossed over as apparently having no meaning.

6. The message that only athletic stardom can lift a black kid from negative surroundings is a defeatist attitude, right up there with the poisonous label of "acting white" if an African-American kid pursues academic excellence.

7. "No, he is changing my life" is the line I mouthed word-for-word before it came out of Bullock's mouth. Puleeze—can somebody explain what this means. It cannot be as shallow as nixing $18 salads with the girls at the country club. She still is all about money and power.

8. Did I mention that the kid would never have had a tutor were he not an athlete. Do we even bother about helping prospective scientists—I forgot, football players and other athletes are simply our version of the Coliseum, for our entertainment; we do not care about either the individuals or the system from which they come.

9. There is no point talking about the college recruiting process. The NCAA and hypocrisy are synonyms.

Other than the above defects, "Blind" is a really well done, inane, feel good movie. I had to see it, despite perceptual reservations, otherwise the multiple recommenders would have accused me of bias, or reverse bias, or closemindedness or some other ruinous character defect.

## Chapter 59:  
The De Blasio-Baraka Reform Agenda

In order to ensure their respective elections, whether renewal or initial, all public school teachers, regardless of the governance structure of their school or whether they want to join the teachers union, will be required to pay dues.

Reflecting the results of an in-depth study of four kids in Scarsdale, students will be allowed to sleep in longer and come to school late.

Teachers currently on the sidelines in either jurisdiction because of negative performance evaluations will be brought back to the classroom.

Because hedge fund managers are allowed a significant tax break on their income from carried interest, they will no longer be allowed on charter school boards, nor may they contribute to those schools.

Given the many changes in standardized tests, henceforth no grades will be given to any students on academic assignments that involve writing.

Consistent with permitting students to arrive at school late, they will be allowed to eat breakfast in their classrooms.

All charter school leaders must be vetted and approved by De Blasio for their views on reducing income inequality and by Baraka for their understanding of the word "community."

As part of the education budget, students and parents will be provided with free t-shirts inscribed, "F... Common Core! Just give us self-esteem."

## Chapter 60:  
The Financial Meltdown of 2008

This essay was essentially completed by November 1; reasons (excuses) on why it took so long to get printed are available on request. A brief addendum will be written to bring relevant facts up-to-date and to flesh out the thinking, but not to alter the conclusions and predictions herein!

"The Thoughts of others were light and fleeting, of lovers' meeting or luck or fame.

Mine were of trouble, and mine were steady, so I was ready when trouble came."

Hah! How many people or companies do you know who were ready when the five days of October 6 - 10 produced the worst week in the stock market since 1933. The S&P 500 was off 18%, bringing cumulative losses for the year to date to a cool $8+ trillion for that index alone. Below, I have attempted to weave together some of the specific factors behind the financial crisis as well as the underlying, more generalized economic causes and consequences. Initially, it was aimed at a non-Wall Street readership, then "it just growed" in scope, including data which could form the basis of many separate theses. Excluding attributed statements and those items dredged up from my memory bank, the bulk of the factual material below, and many of the charts and tables, is gleaned from a daily reading of the New York Times. I did not want to confuse myself by watching television, Googling information from everywhere on earth, or asking my father.

### INTRO TO THE ESSAY

This has been a brutal period. No, I am not talking about the stock market—that is obvious! What I am referring to is that in writing "The Financial Meltodown of 2008," I needed to keep incorporating daily information which either significantly changed the numbers and/or "expert" thoughts of the prior day or simply flat-out contradicted the entire prior wisdom. To use the publishing parlance, the "lead" itself kept changing: was it the Financial Meltdown per se and the resultant gyrations in the financial markets around the world, or was it an abrupt but long overdue reexamination of the underlying economic weakness which predated the above developments. In either case, the vaunted idol of consumerism is clearly under pressure as homeowners and renters alike scrutinize all their expenditures, and employees report for work unsure if their next paycheck will be forthcoming. The average person is finally looking at all their debts, beginning with the mortgage if applicable and extending through credit cards and auto obligations and any other debts; he is reacting at last to the financial imbalance between income and debt, a disparity driven by excess consumption expenditures. Popular mythology not withstanding, it was not merely a group of Wall Streeters, aided and abetted by Washington, who brought us this economic disaster, the worst since the Great Depression; they would not have been able to do wreak their destruction without the participation of each of us. "Greed is good" is not restricted to Hollywood's legendary Gordon Gekko.

The whole scenario reminds me of baseball, where owners and management looked the other way as their employees were doing illegal steroids, and everybody, from advertisers to audiences, was enjoying the home run splurge which ensued. When steroid use went public, and usage declined, so did the number of home runs. Bloated consumer/residential debt is destined to follow the same pattern, at least for the next several years, the length of time being dependent on the interplay between cyclical and secular change. Without digressing into a sermon, will people really change the way they look at life: what is a true "need" and what is a frivolous "want" stimulated by a false image, that more "toys" equals more happiness.

### The Rescue Plan: America Tries a Dose of (Socialism!)

When "the boys" of Washington decided to swap intellectual hopes (cannot we all be John Galt, the hero of "Atlas Shrugged," and have a fulfilling life without any hint of government intrusion) for financial reality (if we do not put the government front and center in the lives of our financial institutions, we are all doomed), the stock market responded on Monday, October 13 with a slight uptick—of 936 points, 11.1%, the best day for "investors" since a big bounce day in the Depression. Before wandering through the landscape, attempting to pull together various factors behind the current environment, here is my reaction to the rescue plan, wherein the United States turned socialist (a little anyway).

### Paulson Changes Course (In the Absence of any White House Leadership)

In what must certainly be characterized as one of the largest "whoops" in financial history, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson in effect said, "er uh, maybe that $700 billion bailout (Troubled Assets Relief Program, i.e., TARP, like the one you put over the ball field when the game is rained out, an apt imagery except a TARP is useless when there is an unprecedented flood) for which I fought so hard was not my best idea. In fact, if you remember my words of a week earlier, when I displayed my lifelong philosophical animus toward direct infusion of government funds into privately-owned enterprises, specifically banks, please regard them as inoperative. We are following Britain's initiative as part of a global approach to the meltdown; we will be putting capital directly into banks and taking equity positions, with wrinkles that incentivize the banks to do intelligent things or pay more for the privilege of our investment, without waiting for the results, or even the initiation, of our distressed debt purchase program, aka "The Bailout."

Thank you Britain for putting $88 billion into your banks directly, guaranteeing $438 billion for refinancing their debt, and cutting interest rates. We get it; and we will follow accordingly, though we will shun words like 'nationalization' or 'socialism' even as we buy stock in banks and pledge $540 billion (incremental) to make money market funds (which exceed $3 trillion overall, triple the level of a decade earlier and compared with virtually nothing twenty-five years ago) safe. We are moving ahead on $250 billion of rescue expenditures."

In "won't do" language reminiscent of what Paulson said about other aspects of the financial system at the outset, only to see exigencies overwhelm him and cause a reversal of position, he will not shore up hedge funds ($2 trillion there), which are being forced to de-leverage to fund investor pullouts. Actually, the appropriate focus of the rescue plan is not clear: should it be the financial instruments—credit derivatives, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, classic home mortgages, consumer credit—the list is endless, or should it be the institutions (conventional banks, insurance companies, investment banks, a myriad of financial intermediaries) which are critical to reworking all the above contractual agreements.

Banks are receiving funding from the U.S. Treasury in order that they keep providing money for other banks, who theoretically will loan money to those existing businesses which have had their credit lines either reduced or frozen in the last month. Small businesses with deposits over the new $250,000 FDIC protection level applicable to all depositors now have those additional deposits guaranteed as well. Will the blood of money be coursing through the economic veins of the country, or will the shaken banks simply sit on the money until their blood pressure recedes? Of course, and this is a theme in thinking about the financial meltdown, if we consumers keep spending the way we have been and the government simultaneously does nothing about our federal budget entitlement liabilities, _i.e.,_ the balance sheet side of the overall financial equation, this set of moves by the government will not solve our fundamental financial problems in the United States, because those ailments flow from our cultural focus: "shop until you drop." Will the many signs of changes in consumer habits be sustained, either voluntarily or forced by circumstance?

### America, for Sure, Is no Longer Alone

The global nature of financial flows is a relatively recent phenomenon in terms of scope, and the escalation was built largely with American financial "tools." Given this scenario, other countries are simultaneously involved in shoring up their own banking systems (a trillion euros put up by France, Germany, Spain et al) and holding the hands of their depositors. They feel defensive about their citizens saying, "you know, having my money in country X is probably better than country Y. I did not bust my pick working long hours all these years to see it dissipated in a burst of patriotic foolishness." Naturally, the guardians of any national treasury are going to do what they can to keep deposits in domestic repositories. Pain has extended to countries not even major on the economic screen: Iceland almost melted into the sea (currency off 50% and stocks down 90%!) with its financial overexpansion and excess spending; for those who are eager to visit, now is the time: $559 for a round-trip flight and three nights at the Hilton hotel in Reykjavik. Elsewhere in the financial world, a country known for its alleged conservative attitude toward investing, Switzerland, was similarly caught up in the lust for incremental earnings. The Netherlands put $13 billion into its leading bank, ING; Hungary, South Korea, the list of affected nations extends from A to Z.

Will these disparate countries and the United States be able to act in a united fashion; can they agree on the details of whatever plan evolves. At present, it appears that total fear is bringing a concerted effort. On October 6, markets in emerging countries had recorded their worst one-day decline in 21 years; does anybody need further testimony as to the existence of a "flat world" in which the lives of all of us are intertwined, maybe excluding the "bottom billion," whose miserable existence goes largely unnoticed except for periodic handwringing. The next step, as developing countries struggle to repay debt from Western lenders, could be some major defaults.

Part of the pressure on the United States stems from the various sovereign wealth funds, which the International Monetary Fund estimates had $3 trillion in assets until the recent downturn, with very sharp growth previously projected for coming years. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Council, the largest in this category had (emphasis on "had") $875 billion in assets. When these entities hold debt of the United States, they have a different agenda that our political leaders; they want their money secure and are less concerned with our unemployment rates or quarterly economic growth (or absence thereof). These sources of funds had been a lifeline, in effect underwriting our lessened mortgage and credit card lending standards and America essentially did them wrong, hence their pressure on us to fix our financial house.

Interbank lending is another key ingredient in understanding the money mess. Not exactly a subject which captures the fancy of the man in the street, it is hugely dependent on the quaint notion of trust. This is reflected in the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), which has been higher than it was before the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy. (To drill down even deeper, analysts compare LIBOR with the 3-month Treasury bill to gauge market nervousness; this spread multiplied in magnitude in 2007-08). When institution A suddenly says, "damn, the emperor has no clothes," then bank B's whole business plan is at least temporarily rendered moot, or is it mute, _i.e.,_ it has nothing positive to say to its customers when they come a-calling for those loans to buy supplies for the restaurant they have yet to open.

Coupled with the skepticism expressed through the LIBOR, the stock market has taken a "sell first, ask questions later" attitude (punctuated by bouts of total disbelief) about whether the combination of semi-renewed trust among financial institutions and an unfolding global plan to deal with the crisis is enough to ward off an economic downturn akin to our Great Depression. Recently, Paulson moved to guarantee inter-bank loans, presumably with some restrictions, but in any case a quietly major move to get money moving again.

Stop the presses: Greenspan admits mistakes!

Hopefully, disclosure/transparency and accountability will rise in the era of government ownership of equity stakes in multiple privately-owned companies. Ironically, and painfully for sure, a 1994 law required the

Federal Reserve to regulate lenders concerning "unfair, deceptive, and predatory" practices. Had this oversight happened, perhaps the current debacle might have been avoided, or at least softened in impact. It was former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who neglected to follow through on this responsibility. In fact, he fought against incremental regulation, just as in 1999, he supported the law which allowed banks and brokers to join hands, a toxic combination. With his halo slipping down and more resembling a noose, Greenspan's recent appearance before Congress revealed his own "whoops." He had "underestimated the severity of financial market challenges and had made mistakes!" Yes, the disappearance of multiple trillions of value might suggest that errors of judgment were rather pervasive.

### THE BAILOUT, aka THE EX-BEST IDEA

### Background and Detail

Winston Churchill once characterized democracy as the worst possible form of government excluding all others. When Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman characterized by many as an astute student of history, and Henry Paulson, the "get-it-done" ex-Goldman Sachs partner, put together their plan to save at least part of the United States financial system, to their credit they did it with introductory comments analogous to those of Churchill. But—the financial markets around the world were not buying, even after a ringing endorsement of the bailout and Paulson from Warren Buffett. A rework was necessary. Since the new "new plan" is a subset of the bailout, I am including thoughts about the bailout that were written before the October 11-12 conference of all the smart financial leaders of the world, gathered together with an outlier (President Bush), to overcome all the damage done by the smart financial leaders of the world.

With rhetoric reminiscent of his tone immediately after 9-11-01, Bush had pushed aggressively for the aforementioned bailout, which gave Secretary of the Treasury Paulson a maximum of $700 billion to indirectly jumpstart the economy; the actual bill included another $100+ billion for various political add-ons, including a requirement about the availability of mental health services, which certainly will be incrementally needed in today's world. The funds were to be used to directly purchase depressed debt securities associated (in a tortuously obtuse manner relating to the packaging of these "financial instruments") with financing the growth in home ownership by people, many of whom would previously not have qualified for a mortgage, and indirectly to get the credit system functioning again. As Paulson seeks to buy low and sell higher over an extended period of time, his ability to buy junk paper (collateralized mortgages et al) at a fraction of stated value will be matched against the marketplace's valuation of those same assets, except that at this scale he runs the risk of creating the market as much as he is reacting to it. The bailout, as indicated, is a horrible idea, except that it was advertised as beating the alternative: a clogged financial system which could not function on its normal credit-driven basis because of the valuation uncertainty of balance sheets. (See later comments on AIG—something about $150 billion!)

To put the bailout figure in perspective, the prescient Prof. Roubini (to be described later) believes the true cost of the housing crisis exceeds one trillion dollars. To throw a drowning man an anchor, he points out what people have attempted to ignore: there are credit problems in every area of our economy. His culprits, identified for _New York Times_ reader consumption on August 17, 2008: "shoddy underwriting, securitization, negligence on the part of the credit-rating agencies and lax government oversight." His assessment of a two-year recession is gloomy, but less painful than the decade-long malaise in Japan after both its real estate and stock markets collapsed. His thought is that the $250 billion rescue allotment needs to be doubled, to both address the financial crisis and appropriately split the banking universe between those with liquidity problems and those with basic solvency issues. Central to the apparent financial crisis is the array of problems elsewhere in creditland: consumer debt is virtually equal to gross national product, a ratio double that of 25 years ago.

Selling the bailout plan to Congress inevitably opened the issue of executive compensation, a Pandora's box for sure; by any standard payouts have been excessive for financial industry executives, particularly those who have left behind land mines for shareholders. Why they should reap many, many millions for having reduced value is beyond comprehension. True, their own portfolios of company stock have been sharply reduced, but no benefit dinners are planned. If taxpayers are taking the risk (through the bailout), they should reap the rewards. This is a basic mantra of capitalism. It is not a tenet of capitalism to run for cover when you have screwed up, which is what the financial industry has done. Infuriatingly, these same distressed companies will be allowed to continue their dividends to shareholders, which are being paid with bailout money. Public cost, private gain. But wait, 20 - 25% of United States Congressmen have MBAs and an unhealthy percentage of the others are lawyers; where were they when the whole charade was unfolding—culpability extends across an extremely broad range, coming very close to criminality.

In terms of prior public sector bailouts, in the $1.5 billion loan guaranty for Chrysler in 1980, there was a profit to the American taxpayers of $311 million. I believe that a bad precedent was set in terms of private parties being bailed out; without that assistance, the automaker would have been forced by the marketplace to either reorganize to compete effectively, or expire. The 1989 bailout of the savings-and-loan industry, in contrast to Chrysler, cost taxpayers a reported $150 billion. It is apparent that we learned nothing from this adventure, which you recall sent some people to jail.

Will today's distressed homeowners be helped by the bailout? Much reworking of mortgages will be required by the banks and their compatriots. Undoubtedly reflecting generalized political and economic pressure, Bank of America, which bought Countrywide Mortgage, one of the major culprits in the predatory lending area, has announced it will redo 400,000 mortgages. Of course, after telling shareholders that all was well, Bank of America cut its dividend to shareholders and was forced to raise billions of dollars in additional capital. Going forward, maybe its new Merrill Lynch subsidiary can pump their customers for the necessary cash! Bank of America is advertising its "be nice to the mortgage holders" program as being worth $11 billion in loan payment reductions, which (its numbers) equates to $100 billion of "mortgage modifications" for 630,000 borrowers. You do not want to extrapolate from these figures to the national scene and come up with the aggregate cost, not without a drink in hand anyway. Somewhere, the ex-CEO of Countrywide, who a couple of years back was selling his company's shares under the guise of diversification, is smiling; other shareholders should be so lucky.

### The Financial Markets Refuse to Buy In

The financial markets' reaction to the bailout suggested that nobody believed it would do the trick as people then realized a perfect storm had come upon the markets: the economy was slipping anyway, foreign banks had similar problems though perhaps to a lesser extent, and credit difficulty was not confined to housing, but, to repeat, was evident throughout the entire debt-saturated economy. Bernanke reacted with a half-point reduction in the federal loan rate, while Britain effectively nationalized some banks. Many stock markets throughout the world had declines even greater than that of the United States; at times, some exchanges suspended their trading. The good news then is that our stock market never stopping trading; that thought must be kept in mind, lest one believe that financial opinions are exclusively in one direction.

### Paulson as Money Manager

The new shareholders, also known as we taxpayers, of the poorly-priced securities brought into existence as a result of negligence (and greed and good intentions) of financial institutions now have an economic interest in the gains ostensibly possible as the Treasury Secretary buys and sells over the next few years. It is only fair that it be so. Let's assume that they buy garbage for 30 cents on the dollar (deals have already been done in the private sector at lower rates; for example, in July, Merrill Lynch sold to much criticism some $31 billion of mortgage-related debt for 22 cents on the dollar) and sell at 45 cents, whether it be through the proposed reverse auction (wherein the sellers bid to dispose of their distressed merchandise) or through direct involvement in the affairs of banks in which the government is going to take a stockholder interest. Banks in the past year have taken $300+ billion in write-offs, which is a start toward creating asking prices which are in line with reality.

That set of numbers on the Treasury Secretary as money manager would mean a cool $350 billion capital gain (before carrying costs and operating expenses), which undoubtedly will not be returned in the form of dividend checks to all of us, instead being redeployed for public purposes, perhaps including the repayment of some debt. Will the federal money managers be able to do Warren Buffett-type deals, recognizing that the latter functions in a much quieter fashion? Or, can they replicate what took place in Sweden 15 years ago; that country instituted a big writedown of bad bank assets, made a guaranty, and received warrants. Its bailout was comparable in percentage terms to that of the United States, and its ultimate net cost was minimal.

### The Late Lamented Lehman Bros.

With all that has happened since, it may seem like old news, but there are some who believe that if the 150+ year-old firm of Lehman Bros. had been saved, the financial bloodletting throughout the system might have been ameliorated. Why was Lehman left to bankruptcy, while others were saved; recall that the government put up a $29 billion guaranty so that JP Morgan could buy Bear, Stearns for $10/share, down from $150 as a result of its financial woes. There are several theories, some downright conspiratorial, but the key seems to be that Lehman's CEO, a true rags (clerk) to riches ($350 million compensation in the past five years) story, was resistant to reading the handwriting on his marble wall: valuations of his firm's securities were wholly unrealistic. He was akin to the buyer of a stock at $100 who will not sell below his breakeven point even as he watches the share price slide to zero. In the six months or so before the excrement hit the fan, virtually any sale of part of the company accompanied by a good haircut of retained mortgage obligations could well have saved Lehman, even if the CEO's ego would have suffered. Now he has become a poster boy for the entire financial mess, or at least the Wall Street portion thereof.

Certain analysts have pointed out that LIBOR kicked up significantly, a clear sign of nervousness in the world of borrowing, when it was evident Lehman was not going to be supported, furthering the theory that the Lehman debacle by itself was a major trigger in the entire freezing-up of the worldwide financial system. Supposedly Bank of America and Barclays (British) were interested in taking over Lehman, but only if they had federal aid in the form of certain guarantees. One would think that the government knew the Lehman situation intimately since the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had people on-site during 2008 as the situation unraveled.

Criminal allegations are now coming into the picture, as they will elsewhere for sure, revolving around the issue of "what did you know and when," and how publicly disclosed information squared with actions taken in the market

As an aside, while Lehman's stock, and that of its peers, was falling, blame was placed on short sellers. Short-selling essentially involves selling a security which is borrowed, and then buying at hopefully a lower price, using those shares to deliver back to the prior lending party. Analytically, the shortseller is investing on the premise that the security is overvalued. Needless to say, many people close to the action and understanding the difficult balance sheets of numerous financial companies were short those stocks, and publicly discussed their positions, a tremendous irritant to managements. Ultimately, the SEC felt compelled to put a temporary ban on certain forms of shortselling. Stepping back from the details, those who believed that the shares of Lehman, et al were vastly overvalued were absolutely right. Shortsellers obviously had done their homework; their success was a consequence, not a cause, of the disastrous financial scenario.

### Politics: A Subject Worth Mentioning Somewhere

Meanwhile, in the midst of this financial crisis that has sent people back to their history books, there is a Presidential race taking place, thankfully nearing a conclusion. The self-styled maverick McCain said he would fire the SEC chairman, which is a correct move and has all the impact of blowing your stuffy nose when you have diabetes. More recently, he would buy mortgages direct from homeowners; take that, Henry Paulson, this is how a real money manager does it! Obama, clearly in the lead, sees his projected political flexibility as President being dissipated by the impact of the Mother of all Bailouts. From a polling standpoint, the whole fiasco has benefited the relative outsider, Obama.

Counterintuitively, given the alleged philosophical basis of the two main political parties, trends in regulatory spending by presidential administrations are mixed. A feat worthy of historical mention, as in 48-point font, would be the ability of either candidate to increase government regulation (to protect the taxpayers new investment positions), not increase total spending, institute selected tax cuts, and fix social ills, all while maintaining a safe and secure country!

Note that _Economist_ magazine constructed a "Global Electoral College;" it had 9120 votes for Obama and 270 for McCain. Ah change—we do not need to know what it means, only that it is good for us! (Disclosure: two months ago, I would have voted for McCain on a 51 - 49% basis, reflecting his greater experience and nervousness over Obama's past associations, which he has never truly disavowed. Now I am willing to run the latter risk and vote for Obama with the same 51 - 49% "conviction." Two reasons: Palin (enough said) and the fact that Obama has a better chance of bringing America back into the world community, which is now more important than ever as nations everywhere cope with the financial crisis. P.S. Historically, there is no correlation between the performance of the stock market and the identity of the political party in the White House.

### HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

### The Clear Crystal-Ballers

Two years ago at a conference, an economics professor from NYU named Nouriel Roubini predicted such a gloomy unfolding of economic events in the United States that when he sat down after his talk, the moderator joked about needing a "stiff drink." Perhaps his perspective was aided by being born in Istanbul, and living in Iran, Israel, and Italy before coming to the United States to earn a doctorate at Harvard. His starting point for being nervous was America's current account deficit in 2004 of $600 billion. As cheap money continued to slosh around the financial world, particularly in the sector of home mortgages, he became progressively more pessimistic. His Fall 2008 prediction calls for an 18-month recession ranking as the "worst since the Depression." Thus far, his crystal ball has proven to be totally clear.

Blauvelt Partners, a well-regarded hedge fund manager (and source of the opening quotation in this essay), closed its 2007 report to investors thusly, "this [difficulties in the financial arena] is a scenario... that we fear, and... we... will need all of our experience, resourcefulness, caution, and acumen to survive reasonably intact." Pimco's William Gross, manager of the largest bond fund ($830 billion) has offered his services to the government for free; he began warning about subprime mortgages in July, 2007.

In September of 2007, Eagle Capital Management (Ravenel Curry) wrote the following to its clients: "... .Americans continue to consume... $800 billion a year more than they are earning. For a family of three, that is $8,000—every year—building and compounding with interest. We don't know how the end of this looks, but we are pretty sure it is not good for the following: consumer spending, house prices, the dollar, cost of capital, interest rate risk spreads, assets with leverage." Good call.

Undoubtedly, there were many others who, without being in the public limelight, made good investment decisions, specifically selling financial stocks (or, even better, shorting such securities) or not having subprime mortgage-related paper in their portfolios.

### The Great Depression

Rather than trying to find and list those money managers with clarity and conviction, which would require much sleuthing, let's step back from the current bloodbath to look at some history. A highly relevant beginning point is the Great Depression in the United States, which was set up by the Roaring Twenties, a period of excess on all fronts. Moreover, that decade had a specific characteristic relevant to the stock market. An "investor" (read "speculator") only had to put up 10% of the price of a share to buy a stock; this margin requirement today is 50%. Do the math then when, on October 28, 1929, the market cracked 13.5%, followed the next day by an 11.7% decline. And by the time shares hit their low, it was July, 1932, and prices had eroded 90%. Ouch! Not only were fortunes destroyed in this decimation, but more than one individual decided that life was no longer worth living.

President Herbert Hoover gets tagged as the Bill Buckner of the Presidential world. In actuality, in 1925, three years before taking office, he had warned against exuberance in the stock market (eerily analogous to Greenspan's unheeded comments a few years back). Hoover came to the White House amidst wide acclaim as befits a life that had been nothing but success prior to "not coping well" with the economic downturn which began with the sudden erosion of the stock market. Tariffs consistent with a protectionist trade approach were ill-advised, and perhaps most critically, the Federal Reserve (established in 1914) comes under heavy criticism for tightening credit, the opposite of desirable. The net of the horrendous economic scenario, which was protracted (unemployment was still nearly 15% as late as 1940, the eve of American participation in World War II), was a change in the definition of government which took it from 3% of the economy to 20% today.

From 1929 to 1933, 40% of banks failed and the money supply declined by one-third, as stated a truly bad idea. The consumer price index dropped 24% from 1929 to 1933. Unemployment climbed from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933. In 1932, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was created to take in failed savings and loan associations; it simply absorbed them without any payment. Later it sold off the assets. RFC received $1.3 billion in government funding; in today's money, that would be about $200 billion. Before 1933, home mortgages were three-to-five years in length; to handle problems in this area, the Homeowners Loan Corporation was created to buy foreclosures. Moreover, it extended mortgages to 15 years and instituted a "pay until the mortgage is extinguished" plan. In 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial banks from investment banks was enacted. Its subsequent repeal in the deregulation furor of the Bush administration was a major factor in the changed financial environment that led to the present crisis.

The good news on the Great Depression, you ask?—the stock market began moving up long before the economic picture turned positive (see later data on valuations).

### James Grant and the Dollar

Grant is a well-known and highly-regarded (though not without controversy) Wall Streeter who for many years has been skeptical about the United States financial system, his arguments being philosophical and structural, not triggered by the events of a single period. His op-ed piece is instructive in delineating the history of the dollar/gold relationship, its demise in 1971, and the after-effects.

### Black Monday

Fast forward to a well-known bad day in the market. On October 19, 1987, when I and several other partners in a Wall Street money management firm left the conference room after our regular Monday morning meeting, we discovered the market had changed rather substantially while we talking about stocks, off some

22.6% (508 points) to be precise. Little apparently was happening from a philosophical or macroeconomic standpoint, at least not in comparison with the global financial tsunami of 2008. It seems that prices of stocks were simply too high relative to earnings, and numerous investors had come to the same conclusion at the same time. (Truth is, Mondays historically are difficult days for the stock market; the theory is that nervous investors have no outlet to sell on Saturday and Sunday, so Monday receives a disproportionate hit.)

The good news here was that the compound return to investors over an extended period of time including "Black Monday" was so outsized as to smooth that day out of the numbers. In plain English, if you had a decent portfolio of stocks before, and kept it for multiple years, you did fine, thank you.

### Preliminary Financial Bailout

In 1998, a money management firm little known to the public, Long Term Capital Management, had to be rescued by a group of banks, who collectively put up $3.6 billion to prevent LTCM from having to file for bankruptcy. LTCM was heavily leveraged in derivatives (who knew what they were at the time, or since) using fancy formulas derived from the intellectual work of certain well-known professors (yipes!), and the reluctant new investors, aka the rescuers, were concerned about the ripple effect if LTCM went down. Maybe a cathartic demise ten years ago would have been preferable to the widespread pain of today.

### Dot.com

The Dot.com bust of 2000 - 2001 entailed a particular focus on an emerging area, Internet related enterprises, which was generally speaking not at all invalid in terms of its evolving business models but which needed a shake-out of the weaker participants before resuming its growth. Insanity in particular had come to the new issue market for Internet start-up companies with non-existent operations and thankfully the market worked perfectly. At the same time, there was euphoria elsewhere, with the S&P Index of 500 stocks trading at a price-earnings ratio of 30 in early 2000. Valuations could not therefore withstand both the dot.com bust and the impact of the horrible attack of 9-11-01.

### The 2008 Perfect Storm

In 2008, the debacle is a culmination of many factors, some of them technical (how credit interrelationships are managed), some of them philosophical (the push to greater home ownership), some of them a result of too much cleverness and too little appreciation for the risk inherent in the new financial instruments. Generally speaking, the pre-collapse valuation of equities outside of the financial industry was not a key issue, at least not in a direct sense. But now, as companies and consumers alike de-leverage, earnings for all companies are unusually difficult to project. Meanwhile, there is another change in the definition of government underway. Regulations and ratios are being altered, probably for a truly extended period of time as our governmental and individual focus shifts to the numerous underlying problems predating 2008.

To say the least, ambiguity of reported financial results has been a major factor in the current crisis. Were earnings, even those of the above high-quality companies, really as stated if one looks at multiple-year economic value? Since the management-dictated/accounting-related disasters of Enron and Worldcom, among numerous others, there supposedly had been added attention paid to financial data integrity (and the Sarbane-Oxley Act passed to connect doing the right thing with the law), and yet the balance sheets of financial firms were laden with misvalued securities.

Marking to market is supposed to keep the numbers current with reality (even if admittedly true economic value is something else) but apparently did not. Scrutiny should rise now that the American public has collectively become a new and major stockholder in a whole bunch of companies. This scrutiny of the numbers has to happen on a worldwide basis of course. As an interesting aside, in the Fall of 2008 KPMG

(a Swiss cooperative of independent accounting firms) took in 734 new partners, and only 20% of them were based in the United States.

### BUMPER STICKER SAYINGS

### The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

Traditionalists can consult their history books and Internet Generations can Google various "isms" over the years to see the truth of this statement.

Everybody had that productive thought: more people owning homes is better than the reverse, as all manner of socioeconomic statistics are improved when people have a vested interest in the upkeep of their property and what that implies with respect to long-term values. To facilitate this admirable objective, and simultaneously to push up economic activity of all kinds, the Federal Reserve System under former Chairman Alan Greenspan created a protracted low-interest rate environment. Money was available in large quantities and low prices, which meant attractive cost of capital for users of such funds. Facilitators and middlemen rose to the occasion, whether it was mortgage lenders/realtors doing deals that in prior years would have been unthinkable or creative types on Wall Street dreaming up financial transactions which literally were previously not in anybody's playbook. At the prosaic level, realtors and mortgage money providers/finders had record levels of earnings. In the more rarified air of the Street, understandability and assessment of long-term risk and reward were trumped by huge current payouts of compensation to the financial engineers.

In 2005, this toxic brew stimulated 28% of housing starts being second homes, versus a normal level of 10%; clearly the same setting which had brought first-time homeowners into the mix was causing speculative buying, in a period when housing prices were rising double-digits per annum. Housing prices were up 50% from 2000 to 2006. At that point, an analyst had this choice to make: is the very long-term growth rate in housing prices (5+% per year) to be ratcheted upward or were current prices in fact inflated, _i.e.,_ not sustainable;. It took a while, but the latter proved to be true, and the bubble burst. In 2007, median prices dipped for the first time since 1950. In 2008, average prices are down 20%, less in New York, more in Florida, Arizona, and California. (Do not fear, the sun, beach, and water will not go away, so markets with those attributes will recover eventually.) Some 10% of rental properties are now empty, near the 1956 high. Moreover, 2.8% of prior owner-occupied houses are vacant, a much higher number than normal.

A major element in the housing affordability equation was the creation by clever people in the financial community of adjustable-rate mortgages, which on closer reflection are close to the bait-and-switch tactics that retailers have used for years. Attract a customer with a great deal, then later move them to a better deal for the seller. The difference with the mortgage is that debt becomes a large and fixed item in the budget, whereas you can react to the retailer's snake oil without severe damage. On an interest-only mortgage (another innovation) for $300,000, the monthly payment could have been $1,250; when principal is added in, that figure could be $2,100, a jump equal to $10,000 per year. Nearly 15% of homeowners are now spending half their income (versus a recommended ceiling of 30%) on housing; some 38%, representing 19 million homes, are above the 30% threshold. In 2007, one-third of home buyers put up less than 6% of the purchase price. To be fair, one-third of homeowners have no mortgage at all, but many of them are retirees, whose stock portfolios have been decimated in the past few weeks and whose incomes, excluding capital gains, are basically fixed. Add in the decline in housing values and many of those individuals are financially trapped, and emotionally devastated.

By 2008 year-end, it is estimated that banks will own one million properties, about one-third of all property for sale in the United States. At present, 1.5 million of 75 million homeowners are at least two months behind in their mortgage payments, while homeowners who are "under water" (house worth less than the mortgage) may reach 15-20 million by 2010.

The headlong push for increased home ownership was not exclusive to a political party. It was the Clinton administration which urged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to facilitate everybody buying a home by sucking up all kinds of mortgages. They accounted for half of the entire residential mortgage market before they collapsed in 2008 into a conservatorship under the auspices of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, fortified by $200 billion of incremental government money. The cabinet of Housing and Development under Clinton told lenders they no longer had to interview government-insured borrowers face to face. One result of the overall scenario was by 2006, 20% of mortgages were subprime and 20% had inadequate information. The Bush administration stood by and watched the Fannie/Freddie carnage pile up while it was fixated on ridding the world of terrorists and providing fodder for late-night comedians. At least the administration was consistent, deregulation and lack of oversight was everywhere.

A search party has recently found the credit-rating agencies, the private market's proxy for regulation. It is now their turn to be on the grill, as the financial industry continues its finger-pointing charade, unlike a wonderful practice of Japanese high-level executives who screw the public and their shareholders big-time and are caught: they literally fall on their swords. There is a minor problem with the agencies, of course; they are paid by the people who are trying to get the highest possible rating for their financial "stuff."

### Moderation in Everything

Abiding by this Calvinist bromide is difficult as the Street is subject to behavioral cycles: "financial innovation, risk-taking, limit-pushing, and hefty compensation, followed by retrenchment, revulsion, write-offs, and layoffs." However, when people read of a money manager, using earnings from but one year, putting out millions of dollars for a single work of art, there is a strong feeling in the stomach that something is awry. The ordinary person asks the inevitable question: what has that individual done in terms of producing goods and services usable by multiple people to warrant such largesse, and, yes, there is an ancillary, equally unanswerable inquiry—how does art become so valuable? Is it all, stocks and art alike, a high-stakes game reminiscent of the tulip bulb mania centuries ago in Holland?

Coming back to the alleged subject of this essay, or at least one of them, the cycle of house mortgage is a picture of unfolding immoderation. Helping in this regard was the breakdown of regulatory involvement. Individuals at most of the agencies have received much criticism for their failure to enforce moderation, whether it be in their approval of the newly-created financial instruments or their failure to react to market conditions as they unfolded. Hmmm—blindness, stupidity, venality, corruption, conspiracy—nice mix!

### If You Cannot Understand Something, Do Not Do It

This applies to homeowner and financial instrument creator alike. For further elaboration, listen to the advice of the Chief Executive Officer of Banco Santander, which is not only the leading Spanish bank but which is expanding in England and the United States (Sovereign Bank), "if you would not buy the security for yourself, don't do it." In contrast, financial institutions bought debt obligations they would not have thought of putting in their own portfolios. "Yield gluttons foolishly trusted these [credit] ratings [of newly created financial instruments] enough to risk complete loss of principal for a handful of basis points [hundredths of a percent] of promised incremental return." Note: in case an isolationist American still does not understand how a foreign bank could be invading our shores, Santander is "over 150 years old, has 80 million customers, 13,000 branches, operations in 40 countries, and $1.2 trillion in deposits and customer funds under management."

The foundation of which your writer is Executive-Director has had its checking account with the aforementioned Sovereign Bank for many years. Is it possible that now our comfort level with a foreign institution is greater than would be true of our own Citibank. And a communist country, China, lends money to the United States! Yipes, the world is no longer understandable, you know like it was in the Cold War or when I watched cowboys and Indians as a kid.

### God Is in the Details, and so Is the Devil

There was/is a little company called AIG, which was merely one of the most valuable entities in the world "yesterday." Its insurance business was known everywhere, its CEO honored throughout the ranks of the Fortune 500 and in charitable circles, where he was a major giver directly or indirectly. Instead of being satisfied with this set of favorable identities, AIG management turned loose some "geeks with formulas" (credit for the clever wording goes to Warren Buffett) to pursue additional profits. The details of how "credit derivatives" were producing real economic earnings over a period of time were not grasped, not understood by the people running the company (or most anyone else). The laudable management desire by AIG to elsewhere know the details of all their businesses, which had served stockholders so well for so long, was apparently suspended in the derivative area.

Derivatives are an offshoot of a basic investment approach, hedging. They relate to underlying assets of stocks, bonds, and commodities. Through such "protection," financial companies could balloon their exposure, otherwise known as taking on more risk, presumptively to earn more return. Derivatives can be traded, which increases the number of people involved in the daisy chain. The theoretical value was many trillions of dollars. Urged on by Greenspan, Congress forbid the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating derivatives; he was content to rely on honor among people functioning in the free market. He apparently forgot that effective self-regulation requires transparency and accountability.

The ignorance of the details on derivatives and their linked credit default swaps (insurance on bonds) at AIG, and its thirst for extra profits, virtually cost them the company! At the "request" of the government, we taxpayers put in $85 billion for an 80% interest; later, we coughed up another $38 billion to protect our "investment," and AIG is asking for more; I think we threw in another $15-20 billion recently. To quote the late Senator Everett Dirksen," a billion here and a billion there, and after a while you are talking about real money!" (P.S. Is it good news or bad that AIG claims that its financial relationships with Lehman Bros. were not part of the problem.)

A not insignificant detail in financial situations is the difference between those who receive economic benefit at closing—when the deal is struck—and those whose economic benefit accrues over time. This is a huge incentive for short-term oriented players to cut corners in order to get deals done, irrespective of long-term changes in value. The latter details are not important, only the check they receive on the spot when the lucky home purchasers have achieved their dream. This aspect of the financial meltdown is repeated as it is one of the several themes which play out in different ways.

After the closing, the instant gratification participants take those mortgages and slice and dice them into more variations than a New Jersey diner menu. To a layman, or ex-Wall Streeter, the mathematics and/or the flow chart of collateralized mortgage obligations are nearly impossible to decipher. Underneath, however, is some simple arithmetic for the original borrower/homeowner/equity purchaser. If you put up 20% and borrow 80% and the value of the asset rises 20%, your equity has doubled (of course, if you then borrow against it through a home equity loan, and use the proceeds for consumption, you have just eaten your asset, normally a difficult act). If the value declines by 20% from the original level, your equity has been wiped out! In other words, there is no true symmetry to risk and reward. Sorry, if life were fair, all the Elvis Presley impersonators would be dead and the King would be alive.

Thinking about the new financial instruments—if you can't understand them, that in a way is all you needed to know. It reminds me of a guy who once bought some sardines. Before he opened the little tin, he sold the sardines to another person who wanted them even more than the first owner; the new owner then sold them to another, who sold them to another and so on. Finally, the ultimate owner of the sardines opened the tin and was immediately knocked backwards by the awful smell. When he complained about the stench, the seller of the sardines explained, "those weren't for eating, only for trading."

Meanwhile, in case you are about to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills, stop—there are many smart people attempting to come up with plans for saving the homeowner who is close to turning over the keys to his castle. Here is an interesting proposal, coming from Daniel Alpert, founding partner of Westwood Capital, as reported in the _New York Times_. His "The Freedom Recovery Plan" entails the following process: "homeowners with impaired mortgages forfeit the deed, but are allowed to stay in the house for five years, paying rent. At the end, the homeowner would have the right to buy the home back at fair value. This approach does not let the lender or homeowner off the hook and does not requirement government funding; the lender would get maybe two-thirds of its regular mortgage payment. Such a methodology, which legally would require legislative action, would prevent the dislocation of homeowners that may be underway at present. In a five-year period, homeowners would pay down debt and accumulate funds for a 10% FHA loan down payment to repurchase their house." Further details are available at their website.

The multi-pronged dilemma Alpert and others are attempting to resolve has these elements (and more): (1) how to separate "deserving" borrowers from those who have shot themselves in the foot by failing to do necessary homework, (2) the irritation at present at the government (read taxpayers) seeming to bail out Wall Street, but not Main Street, (3) the legal position of money managers who have bought various pieces of different securities and have no direct connection to either lender or borrower. Good luck!

### OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD

### Stock Market Influences

It is estimated that 50-75% of stock market activity in October is being generated by traders, which helps explain the incredible swings as their time horizons are quite short, to say the least. In addition, "margin calls" (when an investor has to put up more money because his stock has declined in price to a certain point relative to the funds put up at the outset) are now done electronically, which means there is no time given for excuses –"I am on the way to the bank to get a check" for example.

Margin requirements you will recall were a critical element in the Great Depression stock market debacle. My direct experience with margin was in 1974, when I bought some shares of the Washington Post Company almost at the trough of the market (the S&P was down 55% from two years earlier), and shortly thereafter received the one and only margin call of my life. Fortunately, I put up the extra funds (without knowing that Warren Buffett was becoming a big shareholder, honest!), and the stock rose substantially in subsequent years, until recently that is. Ironically, it is the company's ownership of Kaplan, the large and diversified educational entity, which has proven in recent years to be more important than its famous newspaper. Like its compatriots, the latter media outlet has been hurt big-time by the loss of advertising revenues and readership alike to the Internet.

Looking ahead, with Obama as President, and the odds are growing daily that this will be the case, the rest of the world should think more positively of the United States, whose reputation has taken a big hit under the Bush regime. This attitude may well be reflected in price-earnings ratios, the market's proxy for confidence. Of course, it will still be necessary to have an "E" to have a P/E.

Moving right along in an attempt to talk about the future, you know—that part of life which follows the latest swing in stock markets, home foreclosures, and people downgrading from Heineken to Budweiser (both of which you may recall are owned by foreign companies), there are other developments. For example, the fact that so-called "Vulture Funds" are now circling the carcasses of once-proud financial institutions is a constructive sign because it helps the clean-up process, as will the encouragement being provided to various regional banks to consolidate for their greater sustainable good. To put serious money to work, whether it be a private entity or the U.S. Government, requires that key ingredient of confidence which is now missing from the markets worldwide. As Charles MacKay wrote in "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," his 1841 must-read (and oft-quoted) classic, "men...go mad in herds...they only recover their senses slowly and one by one."

While corporate profit projections always must be taken with more than a grain of salt (maybe the whole shaker at present), as businesses feel the impact of perhaps an unprecedented worldwide financial/economic environment, valuations of stocks do not start from a high level, around 17, the average since the end of WW II.

### Financial Institutions

Banks now have $250,000 of FDIC protection for their depositors, a seemingly dramatic move up from $100,000 but in actuality merely an inflation adjustment from the latter's 1980 implementation. With this insurance and with higher rates on short-term CDs, banks now can attract money formerly invested in stocks, particularly those held by skittish investors being whipsawed by breathless TV commentators.

Reflecting the new financial world realities, Goldman Sachs (by all odds the brightest collection of talent on Wall Street) and Morgan Stanley decided it was advantageous to reorganize into bank holding companies. This will provide them access to deposits and reduce their overall leverage. Goldman recently had $22 of assets for $1 of capital, while Morgan Stanley had $30. In contrast, Bank of America (presumably excluding Merrill Lynch) had $11 of assets for each $1 of capital. Goldman starts with about $20 billion in retail deposits, while Morgan had $36 billion as of the end of August. Goldman people are evident throughout the government rescue personnel, but one hopes this is a reflection of smart, energetic people known to Paulson as opposed to a naked bid for decisions favorable to Goldman.

To show the prior transformation of Goldman, a decade ago, investment banking was 40% of revenues; in 2007, it was 16%, while trading and principal investing was 68%. In other words, it had moved from a balance of agency and principal activity to domination by the latter, putting up its own money to gain profit. Last year, it made $11.6 billion, and individual partners made upwards of $50 million. No mas. The strength of Morgan Stanley was enhanced by an infusion of $8 billion from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the leading bank in Japan; its investment bought 20% through a hybrid common and preferred stock transaction. Mitsubishi has $1.1 trillion in deposits, making it the second-largest in the world. To get some sense of what this change to a bank means procedurally, consider that JP Morgan Chase has 70 Federal Reserve and Comptroller agency people on site daily, with access to everything.

### Economic Factors

While savings rates are subject to wide definitional variations (e.g., do company contributions to pension plans get included), on the standard numbers issued by the U.S. Government, consumers spend all of their income. Moreover, through home equity loans, they have already spent what in many cases was their leading asset—the difference between what they paid for their house and what it was worth at that time. The rate of foreclosures is obviously accelerated by this underlying situation, irrespective of conventional mortgage affordability; the safety net has been pulled away and the fall is painful. Going forward, Americans are in the process of recalibrating their budget/consumption allocations, and they are likely to work longer as well since retirement accounts of all kinds have taken big portfolio reductions.

The prior tax rebate stimuli of $150 billion is already history, smothered economically by declining housing prices, no lift in wages, and increased unemployment. A recent positive influence admittedly is the drop in energy prices; at $70 per barrel, half of its peak, the savings, or more accurately, the avoided costs, exceed $200 billion. Put another way, one penny per gallon per year in the United States represents well over one billion dollars.

Contrary to what one might expect, American exports (12% of gross domestic product) are satisfactory. It is the consumer's voracious appetite for all manner of goods that produces a $2 billion per day trade deficit; the United States is now even a net importer of high tech products, contrary to the previous pattern. At home, consumers fight off the tax collector so that more money is available for consumption, which combines with a major commitment to entitlements to foster the huge deficit in government spending. Does anybody not believe that the U.S. must consume less (and dispense worshiping the false idol of monthly GDP growth) and tax more/differently (to put both the public sector and entitlement programs in an improved finance condition).

Quite naturally, other industries suffering economically from a combination of international competition, intellectually inferior management, and backward-looking labor unions are lining up for their own bailouts. Did someone say, automakers? Yes, the Big Three of Detroit (you will have to look up in the history books what year they ceased being the Big Three in terms of actual sales) are soon to be the big one and one-half if General Motors merges with Chrysler. General Motors' debt can be bought at a discount similar to that of a lousy subprime mortgage, _i.e._ , down 75-80%. All the automakers want to fix their structurally unsound business model is $25 billion, chump change in the current high stakes environment. But wait, there is a line of people in other industries behind them, similarly asking for help.

History suggests that when the newspaper clipping is too faded to be read, its advice will be ignored. There are signs that consumers are reacting (and business owners in effect saying they really do not need or want to play for the next few years of depressed or sideways economics): Linens 'N Things (300+ stores) is calling it quits completely; Circuit City is closing a bunch of units; 10-15% of car dealers are folding; American Express' uncollectible ratio was recently 6.7% versus 3.6% a year ago (and the company is cutting 7,000 jobs) and the NBA is reacting to the specter of empty, overpriced seats in the professional basketball season now beginning by cutting 90 jobs. Maybe instead of going to the doctor to reduce our weight by cutting out a section of our inflated stomach, we are starting to change our diet.

### Macro Political Environment

Led by the bankrupt (with transparent accounting) and corrupt (check the count of public officials thrown in jail or at least out of office) state of New Jersey, governors are looking at their own balance sheets and asking for federal money (which means from you and me) to overcome their states' profligate spending habits. The state equivalent of entitlements (pensions, health benefits to unionized employees—municipal and teachers predominantly) has, in the context of the financial crisis' reduction of values, put those future payments in question. As one wag put it, "the United States now will be more like other countries—where fixed, contractual obligations are not thought to be either fixed or contractual."

Think of the series of events so far in the 21st century: (1) 9-11-01: the U.S. is proven far more vulnerable to terrorists than previously imagined, (2) August, 2006: Katrina shows how exposed the country can be to a combination of Mother Nature and bureaucratic incompetence, (3) 2003: with loans from China in effect paying for the ammunition, the U.S. attacks Iraq, infuriating not only most of the Muslim world but a major portion of the non-Muslim world as well, (4) August of 2008: Russia attacks Georgia and ships some armaments to Venezuela, reminding people that the long history of Russia is one of aggressive leadership, not democracy, (5) With boldness generated by huge oil revenues, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is able to bring Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, and probably Argentina into his anti-U. S. sphere of influence,

(6) September of 2008: a financial crisis unfolds, unseen in its magnitude since the Great Depression of the 1930's, (7) In case anybody wanted a truly universal negative, there is now widespread agreement that global warming is for real, even if the financial meltdown has pushed that issue out of the media spotlight.

In some ways, the financial situation is the non-criminal (mostly anyway—it is hard to discern where the line gets crossed between venality protected by legal entities and indictable corruption) counterpart to the illegal activities outlined in the unnerving book, "McMafia," by Misha Glenny. The author traces the creation of worldwide criminal networks as an outgrowth of these developments: financial deregulation, globalization, the Internet, low-cost communication, the collapse of Communism, minimal interest rates, the futile continuing attempts by the United States to restrict drug trafficking, and the ease with which government officials worldwide can be persuaded—by cash—to change their policies/minds.

### China

As one example of the worldwide aspect of life in the 21st century, and the ability of people to transact commerce in a fashion not consistent with alleged political philosophy, five years ago, China held an estimated $3 billion of American debt obligations. Reflecting its economic prowess (neatly covering up its many undemocratic practices), its gullibility, and the persuasiveness of American bond salesmen, China now owns $100 billion (including Fannie Mae et al) of American debt. Pick a percentage decline number, apply this to the amount put up, and you have an unhappy investor. (Wonder what it thinks when money it lent the United States goes up in smoke in Iraq—that use of funds does not exactly enhance the ability to repay said debt!) China is playing a pivotal role in global growth; its economy has been expanding 11% per year, and it has been shoring up the finances of the United States. How this transactional balance can be healthy for us is beyond me.

Longer-term, the disparities in affluence around the world make apparent financial assistance (in this crisis) to wealthier sectors particularly difficult to swallow. The United States, with only 5% of world population, is about one-third of aggregate net worth. Some 40% of the wealthiest 1% in the world live in this country. For all their progress, China and India combined have ten times the population ratio (40% of the world) compared with their share of net worth. Another way of looking at relative economic status (plus cultural norms) is that the United States consumes approximately 25 barrels of oil per capita annually and Europe consumes about 10 barrels, while China uses only 2 barrels.

The reader will be pleased, I am sure, to learn these factoids: some 1,047 alumni of the prestigious Wharton School live in China, with nearly 50 Chinese students graduating from Wharton each year. And Coca-Cola paid $2.4 billion to purchase China Huiyuan Juice Group, the leading juice company in China. Isn't it time for everybody to hold hands and sing, "we are the world."

### BEARISHNESS/BULLISHNESS

### Bearish

In the educational/civil rights world, there is a famous phrase, "a dream deferred is a dream denied."

In the arena of the American Dream, _i.e.,_ buying a house, denial may apply to many people who are losing their homes bought in the frenzy of only a few years ago. Credit standing for some has been shot; moreover, it will take years for them, if ever, to recoup the necessary down payment for another try at the American Dream, as many of the ARM-enticed borrowers do not earn the money needed to quickly replenish capital. Add heightened lending standards, and the dream is being shifted to the next generation.

Naturally, there is growing pressure on the government, as it seeks to fight multiple wars, to mount a program which would stem the flood of home foreclosures now underway. It seems more likely that the government would work indirectly, by pushing the mortgage holders to redo terms and conditions, than by writing checks directly and be caught up in the agony of trying to put values on individual properties. Meanwhile, retirees, as indicated, are faced in many cases with the decimation of their portfolios. Many of those affected got to the 8th inning of their lives winning handily only to be seemingly crushed financially in the closing stanza. Helping these individuals, both homeowners and retirees, is, if possible, even more challenging than dealing with the big financial institutions.

If you want to be fundamentally negative, you could spend time thinking about healthcare (the United States spends twice as much per capita overall as most developed countries, gets no gain in longevity for that extra expenditure and, for example, ranks 29th in infant death rate), education (the longer our kids are in school, the more they lose relative ground to their peers in other countries), energy (consumption is six times production), and family formations (slightly more than half of our kids are now being born to single parents). Did I mention the seemingly irresolvable immigration dilemma, or our 14% illiteracy rate, which is actually understated. Oops, I forgot our world leadership in prison population.

Unarguably, economic growth has been heretofore fueled by readily available credit and everyman's desire to turn such borrowed funds into houses, cars, trips, and toys of all descriptions. Credit is not going to be as available as before, so growth will be more driven by sustainable underlying variables: population, income, and productivity gains, all of which are small numbers. While the rest of the world also has been determined to deploy incremental discretionary dollars into consumer expenditures, most of them now have their own problems, either on the financial front or the economic impact from falling commodity prices. Thus, there is no longer a big boost to American corporate earnings from disproportionate growth overseas.

### Bullish

Now for a deep breath to keep bearishness in perspective, realizing it permeates the entire essay. Since

World War II, the United States has had ten recessions (excluding the current one). They averaged

10 months, with typical peak unemployment of less than 8%. In a more difficult downturn (1981-82), there was 16 months of pain and unemployment reached almost 11%. The latter measure was a little over 6% in September, 2008, but is undoubtedly rising as this is written.

Similar to the good wallpapering job which begins with a stripping of the prior underlying mess, recessions are typically a prelude to a better stock market, since the latter is a leading economic indicator. In the nine recessions since post-World War II, the minimum rise in the stock market in the year following a bottom was 30%. It should be good news that "everybody" is scared out of their wits. Only those who intellectually, if not emotionally, regarded their prior market gains as being "unreal" are able to absorb the current hit to their portfolio without throwing up.

Let's assume the stock market and corporate earnings are both down the same amount, 40-50%, slumps of truly historical magnitude. This would mean the beginning price-earnings ratio is unchanged, around 17, but with a difference—now the P/E is tied to "down" earnings, not "up." Since the market is a discounting mechanism this set of numbers makes positive sense by long-term standards of valuation and leads one to the question, "do earnings stagnant at the "down" level, do they grow slowly (6-8%) or do they accelerate in comparison with the "down" level, as has been true in prior economic rebounds and which mathematically becomes easier with such a sharp decline.

The wildcard in the equation is deflation, which was prevalent in the Great Depression and which is rearing its head in the current environment. Before one gets hysterical, it should be remembered that the direct participation of the American government in the economy is a multiple (6-7x) of what it was 75-80 years ago. Second, globalization includes efficient communication of information relevant to economic conditions (admittedly, this did not seem to prepare anybody for the Financial Meltdown of 2008!). Third, Federal Reserve systems have more weapons in their arsenal than heretofore. (Repeat the prior caveat!).

The horse would seem to have left the barn long ago in terms of wholesale selling of stocks, the volatility in the market notwithstanding. Alternative investments like real estate, antiques, gold, etc. have no extra appeal, excepting special situations of course, as is always true (the same with stocks). Identification of individually attractive companies will be more important than broad-sweeping trends in an era of slow average growth. Investors will need to hone in more on unit demand, pricing ability (perhaps indirectly through new products which actually are moneysavers for consumers), financial integrity, appreciation of risk, free cash flow, and motivation of upper management. You know, what investors were supposed to be looking at all along.

### WARREN BUFFETT

You think of people who are recognizable with only a single name: Pele, Michael, Tiger, and...Warren. The only defect I can note in this incredible individual (okay, he has had an unconventional marital history) is that he could not find the ping pong balls for his table when I visited his house in 1979. The occasion was the sudden death of an important general partner of First Manhattan Co, where your writer was a very small partner; this tragic event—the deceased individual was my mentor and friend—required our founding partner and two others (including me) to consult with the Oracle of Omaha, with whom our founder was already acquainted. P.S. Fast forward again—said founding partner is now on the "Forbes" richest people list and a board member of Warren's Berkshire Hathaway. The co-managing partner of First Manhattan amassed a smaller fortune, "only" a quarter of a billion dollars, but afflicted by lifelong depression, leaped to his death from an apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Sixteen years ago, I left First Manhattan to pursue multiple educational endeavors.

When Warren finally moved in this crisis (the 2008 financial situation that is, not the missing ping pong balls), he took the same road as in his decades of unbelievably successful investing: a high quality investee (Goldman Sachs), a discounted price of the underlying common stock ($115 vs. $250 a year before), a protected financial instrument (preferred stock, which gets its 10% dividends before the common shareholders), and the opportunity for capital gains through $5 billion in warrants to buy the shares at $115. This is expensive capital for the issuer, but the indirect benefit of having the world's best investor take a stake in your company when everything is disintegrating is so substantial, it is worth the deal. General Electric followed Goldman to the Buffett Bank with an almost identical transaction valued at $3 billion. Relatedly, Wells Fargo, in which Warren is a major stockholder, swooped in to buy Wachovia Bank, shoving Citibank aside with a much higher preemptive bid versus the depressed level to which the once mighty Wachovia had fallen in the past year.

In Warren's October 1, 2008 hour-long televised conversation with Charlie Rose, advertised ("heralded" is probably a more appropriate word) with a full-page advertisement in the _New York Times_ , he made the following points (others have been incorporated elsewhere in the essay):

• the economy runs on credit and trust; unfortunately, at the moment, everybody is deleveraging.

• the next Secretary of the Treasury might be a more important selection than the Vice-President.

• (Buffett is pro-Obama, and publicly identified as an advisor to the probable next President).

• he loves Secretary Paulson, who not so coincidentally was formerly with Goldman Sachs.

• the United States has a remarkable economy, with a gross domestic product of $40,000 per capita and a standard of living seven times what it was at the beginning of the 20th century.

• there are 24 million households earning less than $21,000 per annum; it is this group which needs tax cuts, not those at the upper end.

• the capital gains tax and the payroll tax are now comparable; of $2.5 trillion in U.S. budget receipts, the former is $1.3 billion and payroll taxes are $900 billion. This is highly regressive.

• his economic crystal ball (wavering as is typical with all such forecasts, normally shunned by Buffett) calls for a recession of six months folded into of five years of slow growth.

• such an outlook is not rosy, but if policies are successfully implemented, it means the avoidance of 9% unemployment, versus 7%, which is three million jobs, a critically important difference in terms of socioeconomic impact.

In assessing Buffett's remarks, his implicit assumption is that after the bone of the financial meltdown is removed from the choking patient's throat, it will be business as usual. But if it was inflated credit availability that drove prior business expansion, and this characteristic is not to be relevant for an extended period, that why should it be business "as usual?" Perhaps Warren's comment about protracted slow growth covers part of that eventuality. Perhaps he was slightly premature in his investments. But then he has always counseled taking a unique approach to investing: pretend the stock market is closed for five years and ask yourself if you would be satisfied with your stock if you could not touch it until then. This forces the investor to think of the stock first as a business, not as a piece of paper.

On October 17, the _New York Times_ ran a bullish op-ed piece from Warren. It was curiously devoid of various economic or financial data, instead dwelling exclusively on the aforementioned historical relationship of rising stock markets in the midst of lousy economic conditions.

Warren's public presence brings to mind the role of the legendary JP Morgan. In the financial crisis of 1907,

JP gathered his buddies around him, undoubtedly with big cigars and brandy snifters (thus giving rise to caricatures which exist to this day), and said, "boys, we need to rescue the system." Yes, it was an opposite situation to today, when we taxpayers have to save the financiers, but a big similarity does exist: Morgan was given substantial public funds to do what he thought was necessary; it appears he may have also threatened some people on Wall Street who were considered obstructionists. Ah, the good 'ol days! In any case, JP's involvement and actions represented the necessary signal to the marketplace that turned the panic around. It is a dramatically different world in 2008, and Warren's broadcast bullish stance may not resonate to the same extent as that of JP. But then again nobody ever made money betting against Mr. Buffett.

### BOLD FORECAST

And now for a prediction, fearlessly delivered from my spacious third floor office in beautiful downtown Dover, New Jersey: considering the business profiles of the investees and the terms of Warren Buffett's various deals, I will go out on a limb—if he has lost money (no inflation adjustment) on these transactions after five years, the implication is a world which is in such serious, protracted trouble that wistfulness about past rates of economic gain will have been replaced by a lethal combination globally of high unemployment and social unrest. In this negative, "Buffett loses money" scenario, maybe only drug, alcohol, prison management, and cremation companies would be beneficiaries! More positively, all an investor has to do is examine Warren's long-term record, and happy times in the stock market, at least relative to today's doom-and-gloom levels, will return even before we get past this economic downturn and the Financial Meltdown of 2008. To close the loop on comments concerning consumption attitudes, this scenario means I am dubious that the current retrenchment will substantively change spending attitudes longer-term.

I close this meandering exposition with one last favorite saying, "For every complex question, there is a simple answer—and it is always wrong." Enough said!

### The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions: Everybody Should Own a House

\+ Low-cost money available in Large Quantities: Thank you, Mr. Greenspan

\+ Deregulation: We shall rely on Honorable People in the Free Market

\+ Geeks with Formulas: Really bright, Historically ignorant, Debt-addicted

\+ Globalization: And Internet information, unedited, shall Flow Freely

= Overleveraged financial entity and individual balance sheets

\+ Reversal of above-average price inflation for American houses

\+ Realization that nobody knew how to value credit derivatives or credit default swaps

\+ Awareness that the American economy was already slipping, assisted by high oil prices

\+ Onset of mortgage failures

\+ The Summer stimulus checks had come and gone, to no discernible economic effect

= Slowly growing, then accelerating desire by managements to deleverage their balance sheets

\+ Discovery of a minimal market for highly-valued "creative" financial instruments.

\+ Virtual expiration of Bear, Stearns lifted the lid on Pandora's Box of Wall Street ailments

\+ Unexpected absence of Government assistance for Lehman Bros. drove LIBOR up sharply

\+ The Bailout, positioned as being of Wall Street

\+ Realization that Main Street, _i.e._ , the consumer, was in deep financial trouble as well.

= PANIC throughout the worldwide financial community: stocks crumble everywhere.

\+ Change in attitude in favor of direct infusion of government funds into bank ownership positions.

\+ Understanding that the ethic of Consumerism/Entitlements was in need of examination

= The Specter of the worst Financial Crisis/Economic Downturn since the Great Depression

\+ Fear-gripped Investors

= A long-term stock buying opportunity of major proportions (Buffett inter alia).

## Chapter 61:  
The Funeral Flags of Palmer Road

The time was 12:29 am on July 4, 2010. According to the police, Jorge Ocampo-Arenas' Honda Civic hit a tree located on the opposite side of the road from the lane in which he was driving. Police indicated there was excessive speed involved and a violation of Graduated Driver License restrictions concerning hours of operation and number of passengers. Jorge (18) died on contact and Jean Carlos Navarro (17) died of injuries after being taken to the Morristown Memorial Hospital trauma center. Two other teenagers in the car suffered severe injuries; they are recuperating after being treated at the hospital and released.

The tree of the July 4 tragedy is marked by the flags of Colombia and Costa Rica, with multiple written messages, candles, and mementos. It is barely a minute's walk from a tree on the other side of the road which marks the site of an earlier, similar fatal accident. There, a Marine Corps flag was planted; it remains in place, though faded. A young man home from Iraq had been celebrating with his buddies.

Over the years, as an old-fashioned reader of multiple newspapers, I have noted numerous observations and data points about teenage driving. Realizing the typical teenager is oblivious to the concept of mortality, when he or she takes the wheel of a car, he does not run through this information:

·When a 17 year-old is driving, adding a 17 year-old passenger doubles the accident rate, and adding a third of the same age triples the accident rate. Car crashes are the number one cause of teenagers' deaths. Macho displays, innocent distractions, and sheer inexperience combine to produce this set of negative data.

Accident rates in the first four years of a driver's experience are the same as in the last four years of a driver's tenure. So kids, do not mock your annoying, seemingly less competent elders.

·Ignoring the seat belt, an action apparently still undertaken by 20% of all drivers, is highly correlated with making an injury more severe and making a bad injury deadly. Increasingly it seems, newspapers are reporting the use or non-use of seat belts when describing accidents.

·With texting, the accident rate skyrockets, reportedly over 23 times that of non-texters. This data comes from a recurring Allstate Insurance commercial. According to an MCT News Service report of 9/26/10 (quoting a State Farm Insurance survey), 50% more teenagers believe drunk driving can be fatal than believe texting while driving can be lethal.

·Unless you are on a restricted track and have made a zillion left turns and an equal number of split-second decisions already in your driving life, speed kills. Granted it is not easy to understand the logic of all speed limit signs, but the issue is one of probabilities. If you drive at a high rate of speed on a road with less than stellar characteristics (curvy, bumpy, erratic visibility), bad things happen.

·Alcohol—the most lethal legal drug on the market—is so well-attached to auto accidents in general, and weekend hospital admissions in particular, that seemingly no elaboration should be needed. The data are conclusive: drunk drivers have an accident rate 15 times that of the average.

·Marijuana-influenced accident rates are double to triple the average. Something to keep in mind with the current trend to legalization.

·Under Kyleigh's Law (implemented May 1, 2010 but being reexamined because of its unintended consequences, for example, calling attention to young female drivers who have nobody else in the car) first-time drivers ages 16-20 must display decals on their license plates during a one-year provisional license period. The purpose is to help police enforce rules about number of passengers and driving hours. In the opinion of many, the need for additional out-of-home supervision of young people is triggered by an absence of in-home respect for authority, perhaps an offshoot of the freedom which is America—but that is a subject for a different essay.

Cell phone users are four times as likely to be involved in an accident. "Hands-free" does not cut the risk. If you are driving and talking on the phone, you get immersed in the conversation and your response time to traffic situation is adversely affected.

The equation is clear: when inexperience, the number of young passengers in the car, high speed, absence of seat belts, alcohol and illicit substances are combined, the driver is rolling the dice. A level of maturity—not necessarily correlated with age of course—or having experienced a calamity, is seemingly required to pay attention to the equation. For example, while more than 80% of teenagers are aware that distracted driving is risky, the same percentage engages in such activities anyway, analogous to those who know the lung cancer data and keep smoking regardless.

When any driver, regardless of his stage in life, passes by the funeral flags of Palmer Road, and many others, does he think about cause and effect? Does he lament the tragic loss of innocent life and pledge to not become another statistic?

Palmer Road is essentially the stretch, less than two miles, from Randolph's Franklin Road to the T-intersection of Denville's Franklin Road. That portion of the road which is the site of the two tragedies is barely a half-mile in length. The speed limit there drops from 35 mph to 30 to 25 as you approach a curve which takes you over a small bridge virtually simultaneous with sudden, fairly dramatic dips both before and after the bridge.

Contrary to the implication of the modest 35 mph limit, the approach to the Palmer Road bridge has no impediments to a higher speed. It is an open section, with the buildings set back, creating an enticement for drivers to accelerate. And the dips are not a deterrent to many, but an attraction—it is fun to fly over them with the accompanying adrenalin rush from the risk involved. Again the macho element.

With the country in what has been labeled, "The Great Recession," stress is particularly high, albeit according to a recent survey, more so among adults than adolescents. The bromide, "live each day to the fullest because it could be your last" is widely trumpeted. Unfortunately you cannot learn from your mistakes when they are fatal.

Every parent is saddened by the sudden loss of a young life. They pray when their children first take the wheel, they know that alcohol is omnipresent, laws and mores notwithstanding. They dread the phone call in the middle of the night, the heartbreak of another demonstration of the fatal equation.

They plead with their children—think, be careful, read over the above data list—no more funeral flags on Palmer Road or anywhere else, please!

(2010)

## Chapter 62:  
The Great Societal Experiment: The New United States

• A nation of multiple minorities; with all having voting rights. Therefore, the diminution of white power is inevitable.

• With no national language, what will this mean for the functioning of government offices. Will the combination of English and Spanish be acceptable.

• Single parenthood is now completely acceptable, with society content on providing services (band-aids for broken legs) to all the children adversely affected. Few are effective trumpeters of the message that mutual commitment should precede the creation of children.

• While there are signs of education reform, the overall system remains dysfunctional. Will pushback, _e.g._ , on Common Core, prove fatal to the prospect of school choice and high standards bringing the country back to the educational forefront.

• The USA leads the world in prison population; this characteristic, with its heavy skew toward undereducated minorities, cannot continue. Resolution of the country's attitude toward marijuana will ameliorate but not solve the problem; the same can be said for innovative efforts (read: education) aimed at cutting the high rate of recidivism.

• According to surveys, a majority of the population is unhappy. Moreover, parents do not believe their children will do better than they did economically, which is the first time in American history that this has been the generational expectation.

• An unsustainable financial position for the country is apparent to anyone who does the numbers on mandated benefit programs. For those in the highly affluent class, with assets either protected or kept in a risk-averse posture, the macro data is admittedly irrelevant, except when one looks at the course of history and the level of income inequality which gets people truly annoyed.

• Of the many consequences of globalization, one which is revealed in all its specificity is the basic amorality of corporations, the most powerful institutions in the American governance system. Moreover, many of them are too big to fail, to use the terminology which emanated from the 2007/08 debacle which brought the country its Big Recession.

• With children being deployed to market virtually any product or service, there is no longer the idea of young people being at least somewhat protected in their early learning years.

• Given the fact that the technology is available to disseminate any information at any time on anybody, there is neither true privacy nor the opportunity for the type of reflection necessary for serious dialogue.

• Repeated failures in military actions ostensibly aimed at foreign issues calling for American involvement should lead to a reduced military presence and budget. The first pushback in this regard was because such changes would mean fewer jobs in an economy still struggling to move ahead. And now there is an odd situation: the President says we must again go to the Mideast (after the bad guys gave us the middle finger by beheading Americans), and he gains the support of the American public in doing so, the same populace which indicates they do not think the intervention will be successful.

• The complete collapse of confidence in the political process shows no signs of being turned around; court cases at the highest level have exacerbated the problem of "pay to play." The belief that corporate power is beyond reach is underlined by the fact that none of the criminals of the 2007/08 house mortgage fraud have gone to jail.

• The environment continues to be basically a non-starter in terms of energizing serious action. The fundamental dilemma is simple: regardless of how much reusing and recycling takes place, true change can only come from reduced purchases of stuff-and this the American public is unwilling to do.

• On the spiritual front, it is hard to detect anything in the way of a trend which is both constructive and large. The Catholic Church is its own worst enemy, the fundamentalists keep getting tripped by another leader revealed to be a hypocrite, and mainline Protestant ministers must walk a fine line in their message—stimulate the congregation, but don't provoke them.

• Sports in aggregate are more popular than ever, in part because they bring back memories of childhood and unfulfilled dreams and expectations, and in part because there is a clear winner and loser in the contests, a delineation which does not take place in the daily lives of most spectators. It is not coincidentally that many retired athletes find jobs on Wall Street, which is an industry with clarity on winning and losing. As a footnote, one reason _futbol_ does not resonate with many Americans is because they cannot abide the thought that a tie, especially a 0-0 outcome, can be applauded. Fans elsewhere clap for clever _futbol_ maneuvers in the middle of the pitch, demonstrations of skill which do not even lead to shots, let alone goals

• Given my extremely limited cultural awareness, I have nothing to say about art, architecture, movies, paintings, or music. I thought you might want to know this unenlightening fact.

## Chapter 63:  
The Idea Process

It all starts with the Idea Generator—the person who has an idea for an activity, event, workshop, or program which might make sense either directly for our membership or for improving the interaction among our members, and its many volunteer sites.

**Step One:** Idea Generator asks the Executive-Director whether the idea might be appropriate for IWW!

**Step Two:** After brief discussion, if the idea is potentially appropriate, the Idea Generator will be asked to prepare a Who, What, When, Where, Why, How sheet. If the situation does not lend itself to the 5W/H approach, then the Idea Generator can submit a two-page write-up instead.

**Step Three:** The Executive-Director provides questions to be answered before proceeding; he also will assist with respect to the written materials provided to him, so do not worry about language challenges.

**Step Four:** The Idea Generator reworks the idea into a complete written document.

**Step Five:** The Executive-Director reviews it, and provides his comments to the Idea Generator.

**Step Six:** A final version of the idea is formulated; this includes selection of a date, or dates, for the idea to be put on the calendar and decisions on how to reach out to members to participate.

**Step Seven:** The activity, event, workshop, or program takes place and everybody benefits.

An Idea Generator begins with enthusiasm about his or her idea. This is essential. At the same time, like a sculptor with a ball of clay, there are many steps between an idea and the finished project. Sometimes the Idea Generator gets discouraged: there are questions to be answered, and The Executive-Director is persistent about requiring the answers—because in doing so, the Idea Generator learns additional ways to think about an idea. Please keep in mind that we are a "can do" program, and yet an idea must still be judged by how it fits with our policies, overall approach, and schedule.

Sometimes when another community-minded organization asks us to do something, there is a feeling that we must do it—for the community. However, I WILL WALK! must stay focused to accomplish its mission and thus there will be times when it does not jump to participate.

By succeeding at our task: becoming empowered through education which results in graduation, we are serving both our membership and the community. That is why focus and follow-through are critical at all times.

It is important to continue to be Idea Generators, even while recognizing there will be times when the answer has to be "no". Ultimately, it is the activities, events, workshops and programs which do happen that really represent the most important outcome of the Idea Generator process.

P.S. This was written many years ago, but the essentials are timeless, and applicable to any program.

## Chapter 64:  
The Peacemaker

It seems that in many families with multiple siblings, there is one who receives more than his or her share of contentiousness as part of the genetic make-up distributed at the time of conception. With four, it is not uncommon for three to be of the calm category, which means the above judgmental one is even more apparent than would be the case in a truly large family.

In my family, I drew the short straw (no height jokes please) and have struggled throughout the years in terms of disagreements with my father. We just clashed perpetually, about everything.

The only saving grace was that I was gone from the family home from the age of 17, when I went off to college and never returned, excepting periodic, mostly holiday-related, visits. My brothers were far away from the fray—San Antonio, Texas compared with Rochester, New York. Distance plus disposition did not render them immune from differences of opinion, but they were not persistent. I only lived 5-6 hours from "home," so the opportunities for crossing with my father were increased. My sister is a Florence Nightingale type, so her proximity

(25 miles from Dad) did not bring the demonstrated anger which would have characterized father-son interactions of similar frequency.

When our mother passed away in January of 2006, we gave our father several ideas about his future life, and he basically told us to take a hike—he was very much determined to live solo in the house in which he had resided for 65 of his 90 years, even if it meant climbing the 14 stairs to the second floor without his trusty cane or walker to assist in the process. After much fruitless discussion, we stopped making unwanted suggestions and hoped that the Lifeline button we had purchased for him would not need to be pushed because of an emergency.

His heart, always strong, finally began giving off some nervous signals and his physician began recommending a pacemaker. Installation before dire need was thought to be preferable to waiting.

So into the hospital he went in the Fall of 2007. We siblings were nervous, not for any specific reason, but simply the generalized fear of something negative happening to an elderly man in the hospital. None of us believe that any hospital procedure is routine, regardless of how many times it is has been done. When we saw him after the procedure, he was smiling and comfortable, and not because of drugs. He conversed easily and had no interest in a professional accompanying him home to ease the transition back to the house.

Not long after, my father visited me for Thanksgiving, an interaction which lasted about five days. Stunningly, we had zero arguments during that extended period. In the months since, in which we had several conversations and personal visits, there had not been a case of stress, even when opinions differed. It was amazing, a gift for my father and me, his contentious son. And so, we planned a multi-segment trip.

When I told this story to Paola Rodriguez, she immediately relabeled the pacemaker as the "peacemaker," an accurate revision if there ever was one. I have told doctors about this unpublicized quality of pacemakers, bringing down the anger, which elicits the same reaction in the other person, which then further cuts the stress. Maybe the idea should be copyrighted. All those people with bumper stickers saying, "you are never too old to change," should be advocating the installation of peacemakers!

Love ya, Dad. Your son, Bob.

Whoops, my article was not really finished. It appears that maybe an electrical lead became disconnected somewhere along the way.

Because my father is not truly an initiator of conversation, and because I wanted the right setting for starting up a meaningful dialogue about the history of our family, the car ride from Rochester to Buffalo and the subsequent plane trip to New Orleans by way of Chicago were pretty quiet. It was not until dinner at a top steak restaurant a block from our downtown hotel, the day after we had arrived and become settled at the hotel, when I felt the setting was right for combining a leisurely, exquisite meal with such a conversation.

I posed the question, "what was it like growing up as a single child?" Maybe it was as much the writer in me as the son, but I wanted more than anything on this planet was a torrent of words from him, minutes long, to flow as a response. I wanted something different than before in our lives; my expectations had been raised by everything outlined earlier in this essay.

Instead, I received a succinct, even terse, reply. Reluctant to give up so quickly, I then wandered into the subject area of parental love. It was then when he hit me with, "why are you cross-examining me. Why can't we have a normal conversation! Why are you spoiling my dinner!"

My instant mistake was to interpret this as an attack on me rather than a tacit admission that he hated his father, or whatever a psychiatrist would have concluded from his attitude. Being slow-witted, I further did not realize from this exchange that I was forbidden to talk about anything important on the entire trip. Holy s—; I was on a multiday outing with the man who fathered me, whose DNA is part of the successful life paths of his four children, and who wanted to take an excursion prior to his 90th birthday! What now?

Friends whom I had told about this trip had applauded the idea, their image (like mine) being one of both fun and shared memories between father and eldest son. But when the "no meaningful conversation" sign was posted, it was as if the peacemaker wires had been cut while current was flowing and the resulting sparks could not avoid causing an explosion. My frustration was palpable and voiced too strongly. And then verbal tension was replaced by silence, normal for my father and, for me, reflective of a fear that anything said would worsen the situation.

After the 14-hour train ride (his choice of transportation mode) from New Orleans to San Antonio—talk about a missed opportunity for conversation!!!—my brother picked us up at the train station, and I immediately requested to be dropped off at the airport for my solo return trip.

(My father had already scheduled a month-long stay with his San Antonio sons.)

So I guess the pacemaker is simply a cold, computerized engineering device which happens to be connected to the heart. It is not an emotional life-changer, not a peacemaker. Damn!

Some readers will wonder why this article was published; some might even strenuously object to it being in print for others to read. I would say a few things: one, the therapist I liked the best encouraged me to be more open about my emotions; two, my expectation level had been built up and I (selfishly) needed a cathartic outlet; and three, it is an act of love as I want my father to be recognized for what he has accomplished, even if he does not want to talk about matters of the heart. And maybe he inadvertently is the reason why I end every phone call to my daughters with, "I love you."

## Chapter 66:  
The Route to a College Diploma

A Fantasy Student Speaks His/Her Mind

10 Months before Delivery: I hope that both the man and the woman think through this whole idea of having a child.

**At Delivery** : I confess, I really want a mommy and a daddy. If I cannot, I want two adults who live full-time where I do, and who give me heaps of love.

**0-1 years** : Love me and be patient with my learning curve.

**1-5 years of age** : Please, Read to me, talk with me, Read in front of me; give me both quality time and big quantities of it.

**6-14 years-old** : Do not change, keep talking to and with me, keep Reading as an ingrained habit of the entire household. Help me with my homework when I don't understand, but do not do it for me. Help me understand that learning is my responsibility.

**Freshman in High School** : Enroll me in academically challenging courses; start me volunteering at a place of my interest. Do not let me substitute partying or games for homework; the latter precedes the former.

**Sophomore** : Take me to visit a couple of colleges simply to see what they are like. Start me thinking about what I want to do with my life.

**Junior** : Help me to identify a list of colleges of interest.

**Senior** : Help me to apply to college, but do not do the work for me.

**Freshman in College** : Send me those delicious "care" packages, but do not flip out when I start to think differently from that young child at the dinner table.

**Sophomore** : I hope you like my new friends; if you do not, it's okay. Do not misconstrue fewer phone calls or less visits home as a reduction in my love for the family.

**Junior** : Yipes, where is the time going! Please give me moral support when I ask to study abroad for a semester (I will find the money somehow); do not get nervous thinking I have a specific lifetime plan in mind.

**Senior** : I am getting anxious about the nearness of real life; please keep quiet about the issue of my finding a job, but help me if I want to bounce ideas off you.

**Graduation** : Please be there with the whole family, cry, take a million photos. Without you, I would not have made it!

## Chapter 67:  
Thoughts About _Futbol_

In talking with Latinos, any reference to futbol is an instant conversation starter—which led me to have some fun with the subject in the following article titled "Heresy." But first, some personal background, aimed at establishing a small touch of credibility.

When I was a senior in high school more than a few years ago, I played "wing" on the soccer team. Our season was jumpstarted to a winning record by two exchange students from Ecuador, and we made the playoffs even after the Ecuadorians returned to their home country. In the playoffs, I was switched to halfback and from that position, I scored a goal against the fattest, slowest goalkeeper extant.

In the championship game in our section of New York State, we played an inner city team from Rochester loaded with kids of European background. The regulation game ended

0-0. In overtime, our class President, Wes Stauffer, headed in a goal to give us a 2-0 lead; yes, goals counted for two at that time, at least in our area. The guy I was supposed to be marking in my relatively new position slipped free, but then our fullback clobbered him, giving the opposition a penalty kick, which only counted for one. The final was 2-1 and we were the champs.

So I have had some exposure to soccer, aka _futbol_ , the world's most popular sport. My article which follows (written several years ago) suggested eight changes in the rules; I did not attach my name for fear of my life in an Hispanic community. If one thinks that people in various parts of this country seem passionate about the game we call "football," they have not witnessed _futbol_ mania "up-close and personal." Close actually is a relative term as many stadia have heavy duty fencing between the stands and the pitch, such is the assessment of the odds of mayhem breaking out at any moment.

_Futbol_ is somewhat analogous to aspects of Latino culture, in both positive and negative ways, as I have enumerated below. Steven Leon, a committed _futbol_ player and fan from Colombia (and an exemplary student in Project 2050), provided the responses in parentheses.

• Beauty and pageantry ( _futbol_ is treated as a fiesta, a big celebration where beauty is of the essence)

• Individual brilliance in the context of communal effort (there is a famous Latino unity chant, " _el_ pueblo unido, ja _mas_ sera vencido!")

• Players born to the game

• Salsa-like moves

• Great noise and second-guessing

• Unbridled passion, at times leading to violence (think about the celebration after a new president is elected in Latino countries, great for the winning supporters, not so great for the losing ones)

• Theatrics (not unique to Latinos), leading to the "golden stretcher" where players seemingly at death's door are revived by a trip on the stretcher that lasts a few yards and maybe a minute or two

• Lack of discipline, with players continually clustering around the referee after a dubious call (could be attributed to the poor education in various Latino countries)

• Very little closure, which is why a goal brings on celebrations that are virtually orgasmic in their demeanor (similar to Christmas Eve in Latino culture, which is unrivaled in its fiesta ways)

Somewhere in the mix of _futbol_ fervor, there needs to be a message about an alternate life plan for a student, the one which is more likely than playing for the national team, the one which involves Reading and writing and math and academic accomplishment, creating a path to a sustainable economic life. But all that stuff is for the body of GUIDE, on to—

### HERESY! By a Fearful Writer.

There are certain thoughts that, if voiced, are potentially suicidal in nature. For example (deep clearing of the throat prior to courage coming to the surface)—being an American and suggesting rules changes for the sacrosanct sport of futbol. "What do you know about our sport?" "Futbol is unique!" "It is the most popular sport in the world—why should it change anything!"

These are the mild reactions; even those are inevitably delivered at great and rising volume, and in a derisive tone which suggests the Anglo has day-old dog food for a brain.

Well, what the heck, Fearful Writer has only one life to live, so here are some ideas anyway, the "goal" (pun intended) being to make the game slightly more interesting, where a 3-2 outcome would become as common as a 1-0 contest, and there would be fewer 0-0 battles of "beautiful soccer" followed by the lottery of penalty kicks to decide the winner—ycchh!!

• Have a second referee. World Cups produce more acting than seen at the local Baker Theatre in a lifetime of performances. With another pair of eyes, players would be more likely to play _futbol_ , rather than flopping or diving like third-rate Hamlets. The flow of the game would be enhanced and more legitimate scoring opportunities would ensue, as many thespian actions are taken in the scoring area. (Although it would be a good idea to have a second field referee, the sport requires much vision and positioning. One single play interrupted by a referee could change the outcome.)

• Have a Golden Goal after the two extra-time periods. I have never heard of anybody who likes penalty kicks as a way to resolve the winner; they simply have objections about alternatives. Have people heard about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good! Yes, the players would be tired. Yes, television executives would not be thrilled about games being longer than at present. So? (Penalty kicks are unfortunate, but they also add an extra level of excitement to the game. Teams are tested on their nerves on top of existing tests of stamina, heart, and desire.)

• Increase the number of substitutes to five per game from three. This raises the "fresh leg" ratio, which, all other things being equal, should augment scoring possibilities. In the extra time periods, up to three of the players who had been removed for substitutes would be allowed back in the game. This enables the coach to make additional decisions weighing both skill levels and fatigue. Note: this rules change could also reduce the probability of Golden Goals being deciders of games. (I agree with raising the number of subs, but not having players who have been replaced being allowed back into the game. Soccer is played at a certain rhythm; it would be interrupted by excessive substitutions.)

• Offside violations would only be relevant beginning at the 18-yard line, the box. This would open up the game more as teams would make decisions about putting their lead scorer further up field with the practical elimination of big-yardage offside traps. (I disagree with this; it would remove the offside trap from being used by both the defense and the offense.)

• If a team elected to kick the ball in from the sideline on an out-of-bounds call, it would be permitted. Again, the field would be opened up more, and more quickly, leading to the "beautiful" game actually resulting in more goals, which presumably is the objective, otherwise why do they keep score. (I believe that it would only make a difference in the last quarter of the pitch; it would change the game considerably as teams would have to develop new tacks to cover offensive plays off an inbound ball; it could be positive.)

• On a set piece/direct kick, the team putting the ball in play would have a maximum of 15 seconds to do so. If the defensive team did not comply with the distance rule in that time, it would be penalized the distance from the original spot to where the defensive team should have been. (This would speed play up; could it make it too easy for teams to score?)

• For the first yellow card, there would be a 30-minute penalty for the player. The second yellow card would draw a 60-minute penalty, and the third would mean a 90-minute penalty. At present, the first draws no penalty (during that game) and the second means a penalty of one game (90 minutes) plus the balance of the game being played. This rule change thus would make yellow cards somewhat more onerous, while retaining the concept of a one-game penalty for egregious behavior (the current red card system). There would be no substitutions permitted during yellow card penalty time. (Having such penalties would interrupt the rhythm of the game.)

• If a player who is apparently dying, judging from the magnitude of his gestures—groaning and moaning and crossing himself—is taken off the field on a stretcher, he cannot return for 10 minutes. After all, reincarnation should be a serious process, not accomplished with a little medicinal spray. (I agree; the player who is going through such pain should have more sophisticated treatment. This would limit the amount of acting on the field and leave it for Hollywood.)

P.S. 2013: Periodically, there is the thought by some observers that soccer/futbol in the United States is about to become a truly important sport. Usually the facts of attendance and television ratings contradict the optimism. For example, looking back only a year, a tape delay of a Premier League regular season match between Chelsea and Liverpool had an audience almost double that of the championship game in the MLS.

Lately, there has been a renewed buzz, reflecting the American national squad's splurge in victories and goal-scoring, plus the upcoming World Cup in 2014 and the high-priced signing of star Clint Dempsey to an MLS contract. However, the knowledgeable fan knows that the quality of play in leagues outside the USA continues to exceed that of the MLS; the people who run the various television networks in this country recognize this fact and are sharply increasing their coverage of top-quality futbol matches throughout the world.

## Chapter 68:  
Thoughts on Communication

Okay—I know I am from a different generation, the Neanderthal age of technology, when as a kid attempting to make a phone call I had to be careful of not intruding on somebody already talking on the party line. (For those fun-seekers, "party" meant multiple phone users, nothing else. Sorry.)

So any comments I have on the subject of communications are not coming from a social media or digitally-drenched geek standpoint; nor, because of the timing of my life, am I concerned about how to effectively communicate for the purpose of making money. (I am either that old or that lucky.)

Instead, my thoughts emanate from situations which can be labeled "simple," seemingly trivial, and yet, like all the successful people I know, I agree totally that "when you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves."

Here then is an unordered list of communication situations:

• "I'll send it to you." Then do so, otherwise what is the point of stringing together those letters.

• "Let's get together." "Okay, let me know some dates which work for you." And then nothing, which by now I do not take personally even though it seemed that way back in the day (I will not name names). Are the impediments those of practicality (distance, tight schedules, etc.) or forgetfulness, or simply de facto insincerity, again not really aimed at the non-recipient of the non-communication follow-up.

• Do earplugs enhance independence or simply hinder interaction (a throwaway thought about the world of enhanced devices and reduced human satisfaction with their lives).

• In the "you cannot be serious category:" A person walks into a restaurant and immediately looks at his smartphone while sitting down with his partner, who, half the time, copies the action. Why are they here, together but apart, or in fact presumably together, but with the other end of the smartphone, either a person or a collection of digits.

• It is a Thursday request, reacted to immediately by me. The response is, "I have to make a doctor appointment." Given the track record of the initiator, an erratic at best scheduler, I did not instantly wonder what was wrong. What ensued was zero response for ten days, and only then because I sent an "I'm traveling" message. In this case, it turned out the doctor reference was about a true situation, not to be discussed with anybody as it involved a reticent, conservative husband. A three-second communication along the way would have been nice, but "family was visiting too."

• Communications shortcomings afflict really nice people—do they realize that while they will forever remain nice, your writer would never want to invest or live with them (maybe more my problem than theirs, but that is a complex story of relationships made and lost).

• The plane and hotel reservations are made, the flight is five hours, and along the way, I get an e-mail from the person I am meeting in Los Angeles saying, "I had to go to San Francisco to study for the bar." Uh, that's a last minute decision?, whereas a long flight is a casual commitment? Fool that I am, I let a close cousin of this combination of circumstances repeat itself, yes, with the same person. By the way, the individual involved has a criminally high amount of student debt, accumulated by a "series of bad decisions." (Her words.) No surprise there.

• "Sure, I will help you on your writing." My response, not my initiative. Their response—"thank you, I will be sending you my essays". Nah, not really. Did they think I had a truly weak ego in need of false stroking, did they forget, or are they simply embarrassed by their struggles with a new language.

• "Bob, can you look at my essay for this class I am taking: Women's Lib in Contemporary Wall Street America?" "Of course." I send along my red-tracked comments, edits, proof-readings, and that is it. Never a word about their usefulness, certainly not a thank you—which by itself has little meaning anyway, it needs to be attached to a "why" to make an impact on me. (I do not disagree with others assessing me as "hard on the outside, but soft on the inside." I am a closet sentimentalist as it were.

• It is a request to look over and comment on an internal employee review, which automatically makes me nervous as it seems –to my hidden fragile psyche anyway—that my comments might be tied to the person's compensation or promotion, you know, important stuff. But I do my best, and rarely hear back.

• Communication is about closing the information loop; after all, the topic is not psychoanalysis of a person's life, but rather about a specific something which is being done, closure as it were.

• If you are going to be late, call before the time, not after; in other words, do not call to tell me what I already know from the clock, not from your unnecessary words.

• When you use e-mail to begin a communication, I must be able to assume that my response goes to the address you used. Duh!

• You will spend a lifetime wanting something from somebody, why not establish a good communication track record. Call it enlightened self-interest.

• Okay, a meeting is set; while, in one sense it is tentative, I am not a doctor or an airline, I do not double book. Which means that I block out the day and time and do not have it available for anyone else. The first time you know that the meeting is not going to happen, you must communicate that—and I do not mean a few minutes before the scheduled day and time.

• Ah yes, do people change? Consider the kaleidoscope—a single configuration has the same contents all the time and yet one shake elicits a different picture. Or the onion, with its multiple layers. Or matroishka dolls, each one honest and true while simultaneously hiding another which is both honest and true and therefore rendering the former doll entirely "false." There are numerous other theoretical comparisons, but I will leave it to the broadly defined social work professions to address the question.

• In many cases, the closure communication takes but a few seconds; do not tell me you did not have time. It's absurd.

• The employee reference letter—as the joke goes, I take the last one I did for somebody and change the particulars and it is done. If only it was that easy. Actually knowing the people well, as I normally do, makes each letter much more customized than one might imagine. In the case of these letters, there are so many variables involved in whether the person ultimately receives the position that a simple thank you is the perfect near-term communication closure—hopefully followed by word that the job was secured. (Usually an absence of communication in such a situation is a negative indicator, a position not obtained. Actually, newsflash, many non-communication situations are suggestive of negatives at work.)

• J, ah J. The young woman who stands out in my experience for her combination of being non-communicative and not nice. It began at the beginning, funny how that is often the case. At the last minute, she left a garbled message about not being able to attend a meeting of students who, like her, were receiving $50,000 in real money (not college-based price discounts, aka scholarships) to attend a four-year college. The reason was family matters. On subsequently meeting her mother, the tardy excuse made some sense, sort of; she was one of 18 kids in a Dominican family who came to New York City and was now making $88,000 as a teacher, while having a very short bungee cord on what her kids could and could not do. But still.

J was simultaneously receiving financial and academic help from an organization called the Posse Foundation, which assists minority students by getting big financial packages from a list of partner colleges and by providing consistent counseling. As I talked with a Posse representative, I was chagrined that he felt it inappropriate to share information on J, given that we were effectively partners in her college education path. I confirmed that if Posse knew J was not even attending class, it would feel no obligation to inform me.

After a two-year series of no-shows /poor excuses for meetings missed, delivered after the fact in each instance, I arranged to drive 90 minutes and meet her on campus on a Saturday. I arrived a half-hour early and called her to say where I was, _i.e.,_ the agreed-upon student center on a small campus, maybe ten minutes from her dorm. She sauntered in about twenty minutes after our set meeting time as if it was no big deal. I lost it, told her she was disrespectful, and left.

Part of what was going on was that J, in her evolution as a young woman, was asserting the Black side of her Dominican roots, and she was sporting a huge Afro to prove it. I am certain that like many in her position, she had realized that all the problems in the world have been and continue to be caused by white males, and was acting accordingly.

As I reached out a final time, with an invite to a summer activity of the group of students receiving our scholarships, she indicated she was at an internship or job (unclear which) in Oklahoma and could not afford the $280 needed for a round-trip bus ride. My response was to congratulate her on her graduation, which was on-time, and say how proud we were to have provided $50,000 so that she could accomplish that goal. Subsequently, when her name was on an activity reminder group e-mail, she took the time to send me a Reminder (her punctuation) that she could not attend, whereupon I sent her a Reminder (my punctuation) that I needed her address to send her something. She did not ask, but the latter is all the Forum articles she wrote over the four years of her college experience; the mailing itself is a voluntary gesture by me that seemingly is appreciated by those students with a sense of personal growth. Unsurprisingly, I have heard nothing since from J.

J was number three in her dysfunctional New York City high school class, with an SAT of less than 1000 combined for Math and Reading. I wish her well and hope that her college education facilitates an economically sustainable life path, our goal for all the foundation supports.

## Chapter 69:  
Thoughts on Entitlement

A parent confuses his/her child by not having the word "no" mean what it says in the dictionary. A society sends mixed messages to its citizens when it enforces laws differently based on the socioeconomic characteristics of the supposed criminal. A coach creates negative attitudes among his players if he will not hold his star player to the same standards as his teammates. In each case, there becomes a sense of ENTITLEMENT which, in the long run, is hurtful to all involved.

In similar fashion, IWW! probably confused its members in the early years by being overly flexible in both its policies and its enforcement of those policies. Unfortunately, this shortcoming on the part of IWW! management seems to have brought with it a sense of ENTITLEMENT. What this term means at IWW! is that members have sometimes thought they could make any decision they wanted—and that regardless of the consequences of their decision-making, IWW! would always keep them as members and continue writing those grant checks even as the stated mutual goal of graduation was perpetually delayed.

This sense of ENTITLEMENT is misplaced. IWW! fully understands the dilemmas/challenges of its members, but like any other program which aspires to success, it must be focused, which means it must have policies which are consistent with its graduation goals. At IWW! there are three requirements; consistent pursuit of education, continuous volunteering, and timely communications. The policies are clear, and they revolve around ways of looking at life which will benefit members far after they have graduated, and IWW! perhaps is but a memory. In every circumstance in life, there are uncontrollable aspects, just as there are non-negotiable points of view and requirements.

Does IWW! get frustrated when some people do not follow its policies—yes—should it drop those policies because members have difficult lives—no. Everybody has obstacles to success; it is a simple truth that different people react differently. IWW! is there for those with strong determination, the type of individuals who do not regard assistance as an ENTITLEMENT. (Further and related thoughts were expressed in the July/August 2005 issue of Forum magazine, in my article entitled "Do You Really Want to Move the Needle?" Subsequent Letters to the Editor about this article were in the October/November 2005 Forum.)

In the Fall of 2006, there were some difficult conversations when IWW! policies were enforced versus members who had erroneously demonstrated a sense of ENTITLEMENT. One can only hope that the clarity which frequently comes with the passage of time will assist people to realize the necessity of the changes, and that there will be a benefit to the critical thinking skills of all those involved in these situations.

On a more positive note, remember that once an IWW! member graduates from his/her level of higher education, he/she does receive an ENTITLEMENT: the person becomes a lifetime member of IWW!

They are not required to do anything; however, if they are seeking additional financial aid for further education, then all the existing IWW! policies of volunteering and communicating again become relevant.

To close on a final note of realism, graduates should not ignore the fact that having a college diploma does not carry with it an ENTITLEMENT. A degree is not a guarantee of instant job placement. Factors of language skills, depth of knowledge about the product or service offered by the company, trainability, personality, passion, and energy all play important roles, as does that particular characteristic which none of us like to talk about in public.

## Chapter 70:  
Time on Task, not Whatever

It's 9 am on a Saturday morning, the starting time for this particular college class. Only one student is there. Perhaps the others are still getting past the effects of a hard work week. Nine classmates are scheduled for an appearance, hopefully not a cameo, and a teacher is due as well! When I asked the lone person actually in attendance on time about the impact of lateness at his job, he replied, "they would take me off", in other words, he would be fired. Why, because his time on task would be insufficient to meet the needs of his employer and earn the wages which were predicated on that time on task, not on "whatever".

Culturally, I am told, it can be a learned trait to be late, apparently without distinction as to whether the situation is a multi-hour party, with a loose beginning and an undefined end, or a clearly defined span of time aimed at producing a different person at the end than was presented at the beginning. To be flip, one could say, "hey, if "whatever" works, it's okay, the process is different for different people". In that case, I would ask to see the longitudinal data to show that "whatever" is a successful approach. I do not believe you will be able to find such results.

Alas, I fear that some students at innovative educational programs can believe they have found a magic bullet, an easy way to accomplish difficult objectives, that time-on-task is a negotiable concept, a "whatever" not related to the outcome of a person's input. Were it to be so, education and life in general would be so much easier, but for most of us, if we do not put in the time, we will not demonstrate progress in our understanding of a new language, of a formidable academic subject, or, for that matter, of the other person in a relationship.

As a manager trying to understand people and programs and progress, there is an additional challenge, that of communications with those involved. Many consider it "not nice" to raise negative questions about a situation; making an uncomplimentary comment about a person's actions is often considered an attack on the person, not a critique of the action. There can be an argument avoidance syndrome, which is good in terms of preventing ugly confrontations but bad in terms of escaping the need to come to grips with difficult problems, for example, when your best friend is engaged in inappropriate behavior or your classmate is holding everybody back by his unwillingness to do the work required. Trying to gain an objective insight is the goal of a managerial question—it is not about instilling "terror of the error", but rather avoiding a pollyannaish glossing over of negative truths which need to be addressed.

In more rigid societies, where it is common for parents-priests-political leaders-police to all have more direct and important power than in the U.S., it is understandable that forthright opinions might be measured carefully before public utterance. Here, to hold back on constructive criticism, delivered in the appropriate context, or to shy away from offering up ideas for fear of being wrong or offending, is a recipe for living in a small dimension box, for not being able to move ahead and grow the scope in which a person lives his life.

To have this confidence to move ahead, you need a true sense of self-esteem. To possess the latter in a sustainable way, it is not sufficient to attend a self-help group meeting attempting to verbalize self-esteem into your personality, you must know "stuff". You must be educated. To become educated, you must put in the time, both on-site at the classroom and off-site through homework. There are no shortcuts to maximizing the benefits of the educational program in which you are enrolled.

There is no substitute for time on task.

## Chapter 71:  
Truisms of Travel: Notes From Italy

Contrary to the above enumeration, the traveler should not devote significant time to counting these characteristics of an international trip, riveting though they may be at the time, particularly when the lovely Italian train takes one to Venice. Instead, he or she should focus on absorbing the gestalt of everything around them, after ordering wine that is.

In no order of importance, what are some of the takeaways from international travel?

• every country has the best bread in the world

• language capability is important if a person desires to go one level below a surface interaction

• _futbol_ is the world's religion

• there is wide variety in bathroom construction, including placement of the water closet

• a European hotel breakfast is better than that of many New Jersey diners—and I love diners!

• trains are regular components of travel, not confined to a small number of geographic corridors

• people who "serve" tourists do not act subservient, but as equals who are providing services

• there is always somebody who will disobey the "no cameras" sign in the Sistine Chapel

• not all hotel keys are bits of digitized plastic; some are heavy metal works of art

• most beautiful buildings are older than the United States

• the street salesmen from Africa sell their umbrellas and handbags everywhere in the world

• there is no subject which cannot be rendered in a t-shirt format

• graffiti is universal

• wine is widely available—as if thinking people can handle it without doing stupid things

• daily life continues even when the bad guys are fighting or the country is wallowing in debt

• the concept of money is more complex—involving fees, security, and exchange rates

• marble connotes stability in a way that wood does not

• there may be more cell phones than people globally but thankfully not everywhere (yet)

• people can drive energy sensible vehicles which are really small

• restaurants seating 25 people can have museum-quality artwork—and guitar playing owners

• the United States is not alone on the planet (!)

• your ways are not the only ways to accomplish something

• traffic is bad in every city, only the composition of vehicles, people, and animals differs

• the importance of family, of tradition, of history is greater outside our borders

• the digitization century is flattening the world for sure

• every locale has something interesting to see

• since power is resented, the United States can never win the battle for international public support

• smoking is still okay in many places

• McDonald's is in every hamlet throughout the world

• airport security is apparently deliberately inconsistent

• every country has a parade which is economically nonsensical but everybody loves

• you can always find coffee and ice cream

• there can be a floor zero in a hotel

## Chapter 72:  
Welcome to the World

TechnoLife, Inc. recently unveiled a unique package of products and services for the new boy or girl. Unfortunately for the company, the press release accompanying its introduction received little media coverage as people everywhere were focused on the announcement that there will be a cable television channel totally dedicated to infants. This article is to describe the "Welcome to the World" package and its many benefits for Baby, his parents, and society in general. Grandparents for sure will be interested in adding this item to their Christmas or birthday largesse.

"Welcome" includes a Sony remote control to Baby's own Hitachi wide-screen television. By accessing the new cable channel, Baby will be able to learn that the world is a stimulating place, changing its entertainment focus every few seconds, occasionally as long as a minute for extended visceral experiences.

Baby will gain the instant advantage of seeing people for what they really are: programmers. He or she will find that changed images are possible with the slightest touch of a colorful button, the one with the Disney character or the Nike swoosh. When Baby turns off the television and goes to the mall, he will be able to select the right products to buy to be like all the other babies.

A Cingular cell phone is part of the "Welcome" package. TechnoLife will preprogram the phone with Mom's name and home/work numbers, plus those of Dad, if one is so acknowledged. Thus Baby will be able to call from the KiddieLand daycare center, where Baby is left off from 9 am - 5 pm Monday-Friday, if the center's supervisor will not allow Baby to use his remote control during the day because of an irrational distaste for television.

In "Welcome," Baby receives an e-mail address: idonotneedanybody@yahoo.com to allow him to immediately communicate with unknown people around the world.

A half-dozen Eveready AA batteries are included in the "Welcome" package. Baby's toys must never be without power, a calamity which would require Baby, and his parents, to think about how to manually operate the toys. TechnoLife appreciates the quandary of parents without batteries.

Coupons from McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's will introduce Baby to Kids Meals, complete with detailed nutritional information of course.

To ensure that Baby begins life in the right frame of mind, he will receive a week's supply of official "I Have Self-Esteem" t-shirts from The Gap.

In the "Welcome" package, there is an Oshkosh B'gosh pacifier for family members to stuff in Baby's mouth to prevent the child from verbally intruding into their world.

There is a Panasonic GameBoy to foster Baby's manual dexterity.

Included in "Welcome" is a Home Depot hammer and an American Girl doll, both in neutral colors to prevent any accidental association with a particular gender.

Most importantly, in "Welcome to the World," TechnoLife provides Baby with a copy of its best-selling "Politically Correct Rules to Live By," which teaches that absolutely every person around the world is the same as the next person, regardless of:

• Their attitude toward chocolate

• Religion

• Physical beauty or lack thereof

• Language

• Gender

• Illegal immigrant status or citizenship

• Favoritism toward imported cars

• Extrinsic or intrinsic handicaps

• Preference for dogs or cats

• Whether they are basketball or chess players

• Right or left-handed

• Skin color

• Sexual persuasion

• Taste for white versus red wine

• Age

• Height

• Weight

• Attitudes toward abortion or capital punishment

TechnoLife's innovative and thoroughly contemporary "Welcome to the World" package allows Baby to eat, be entertained, and be educated, without the necessity of his parents having to be involved in a way which interferes with their lifestyle. Love will flow through technology, and strangers, and the consumption of pleasurable nationally-branded food and products.

## Chapter 73:  
What Americans Believe

The Institute of Politics at Harvard University conducted an interesting poll in the Spring of 2012. In it, they asked respondents to evaluate which issue was more important when paired with a second issue. There were 12 issues used. What I have done is ascribe two points to "wins," when an issue was clearly more important; zero to "losses," when an issue was clearly less important; and one point to "ties," when there was not a statistically significant difference in the responses to the paired issues.

Here is the scorecard indicating how those polled valued the different issues:

These are my one-line comments on each issue:

It appears both Presidential candidates have it right in their non-stop speechifying about the economy. The healthcare issue will be revisited politically after the Supreme Court makes it decision on the constitutionality of forcing individuals to enter into contracts with private enterprises. There is no way to lower the tax burden. If the country does not formulate a better education system, it is doomed to mediocrity. Becoming energy independent is doable. Reducing the federal deficit is unlikely near-term.

Social security is a third rail; nobody wants to touch it. Protecting individual liberties loses traction when the government apprehends another would-be underwear bomber. Income inequality cannot be effectively addressed directly; if tax rates are cranked up for the 1%ers, it will not solve the issue of unequal opportunity to advance. Reducing the role of big money sounds great; the question is how.

Developing a comprehensive immigration policy is an admirable target, which will stay submerged when unemployment is 8-9%. Climate change is too nebulous an issue to consistently galvanize more than a small number of people, even though it might be the most important long-term topic on the list.

## Chapter 74:  
What Do You Think of Christians, Jesus, The Church

My daughter Wendy asked me this question several years ago.

Since the trio of subjects about which you ask has been around for more than a little while, the question is not really about UnChristians (ugh!) or the Next Generation, which have similarly existed for centuries—really the inquiry, as I interpret it, is about me and who I am, and it should be the subject of a long essay, drafted and polished over an extended period of time, not merely a few days which include a schedule and an unavoidable mindset which has me waking at 5 am. Consequently, what you read below is disjointed and semi-shallow, a rough first draft at best.

• Contrary to what might be thought in some quarters, I am averse to labeling people (hence the reaction to UnChristians!) and yet, each New Year's Eve, I "burn the burden" (a family ritual wherein each person writes something on a piece of paper, leaves the house, and then lights it up, the paper that is) of being judgmental! My comments frequently are, or appear to be, negative (when I worked on Wall Street they were regarded as properly analytical, particularly in the direction of identifying risk), and yet every day I engage in positive actions. By one definition, I am a very involved person—with a long list of activities. At the same time, I am very uninvolved. The list of ordinary endeavors that I have no interest in on any type of regular basis is quite long. Moreover, I am not part of any geographical/peer group, whether it be a list of local friends, ex-high school or college classmates, neighbors, avocation acquaintances, or the military.  
As a result, it has always been difficult to find my place in this world, inclusive of a church environment, where much of the culture, from small talk to serious bonding, evolves from shared interests which affirm a person's credibility. Christians, Jesus, and the Church are simply not part of my daily dialogue, nor of Sunday specifically. Of course, as an individualist, if I was seriously interested in these topics (already this is the most direct writing ever on the topic!), I would pursue them without waiting to be affirmed.

• I have never created much in the way of rituals (maybe the burning above is the only consistent such endeavor), religious or otherwise, and find the Holiday season challenging in its mixture of forced cordiality and obscene commercialism. If I were a PR person for the church attempting to attract customers, I would redo much of the message at this time of year—unfortunately I would simultaneously cause the church to lose so many clients that I would be fired for sure. Suffice it to say, nothing at that time of the year draws me toward the subjects of your inquiry.

• In a way, the church is simply another aspect of normal life in which I have not been involved. As a child, I attended church regularly and was active in youth fellowship. On entering college, I thought my church attendance would be consistent, but that resolve lasted barely a month or so. On returning home for College Day at the church, I delivered a sermon on "Nihilism among College Students." Perhaps all those years of youthful attendance had not penetrated my soul to an extent that I knew the meaning of church, or at least that interpretation which would keep me going back for more every Sunday.

• Yes, there are times when I am quite depressed; certainly over the years the absence of any relationship with my father or one of my two son-in-laws has contributed to that feeling, as has the inability to sustain a romantic relationship. And yet I do not look to the church or the Bible for solace, nor to any of the therapists I have sought out in my life, the last being a very long time ago.

My close friends are gold—I can say anything to them in complete trust; unfortunately they do not live nearby, not even in the same state) and I am not good at initiating "hi, how are you doing" so interaction is sporadic. Hence, my actual local socialization is primarily with individuals in my various educational programs; since many are now interesting adults, it works fine. I do not recall the last time the conversational topic shifted to Christians, Jesus, or the Church. Maybe it is partly because the speakers are still on the young side (under 40) and my understanding is that as one gets older, thoughts of mortality rise, as does interest in the hereafter. When I think about that combination of inevitable and imponderable, it strikes me initially as a monstrous joke—do your thing for a few years, then dust—what is the point! Well maybe it is to make a positive impact on somebody else, maybe empowering that person to make up their own mind about these cosmic questions.

• My churchgoing when you and Kari were living at home was triggered almost entirely by attendance at special events. Ironically, I liked the minister, but has always has been the case, my mind wandered too much during the sermons –thinking about essays I wanted to write or wondering how many of the parishioners came within shouting distance of living the life espoused from the pulpit. Yes, I have never been able to truly figure out the difference between exercising judgment and being judgmental. You would have to know the members of my programs, read their comments to better understand my approach to real live humans, a far more interesting endeavor for me than trying to decipher the meaning of religion.

• When I went to Ecuador on my second trip (in the mid-1990's), the Compassion International guide immediately asked me about my "faith walk." My reply was analogous to that of the famous football halfback who when asked about how much yardage he had gained, answered, "I don't know. I just run." My answer was that "I do not think about my faith, I simply live." If somebody else wants to judge, that is their option and obviously beyond my control anyway.

• I am nauseated by the present world situation, by senseless violence, and by income inequality (especially the kind which stems from situations where people have no real chance for advancement). The latter is bad in the United States and even worse in many of the developing countries. Trying to discern the role of Christians, Jesus, or the Church in this mess is extremely difficult. There probably are as many successful situations as the opposite, but all this means rationally is that the value-added of religion is inconclusive.

• The concept of Jesus is a truly great story (as they say on Broadway, it has "legs!"), and its validity is confirmed by the primary narratives within any other great religions of which I am even tangentially familiar. The essential focus is always, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Is the logic of this contradicted by any rational agnostic or atheist?

• The church is a hybrid—it looks like stone and glass and awe-inspiring beauty, but the critically important part is plastic: the message is shaped/molded/configured to fit the characteristics of the parishioners—in my view mostly prodding them enough to make them think, but not enough to make them uncomfortable or sufficiently stimulated to create real change.

• I rarely draw attention to the following, but it is a possible factor in my intellectual development, or lack thereof. My best sparring partner of the mind in high school—Pete, gone way, way too early. My mentor at First Manhattan, Jack, gone far too soon. A valued consultant to WKBJ, and good talking partner to me (which is what a consultant is ideally), Andra, struck down in her 40's. Is it probable that of these three quite diverse individuals, a Catholic, a Jew, and a question mark, one would have prodded me over the years to think more about the issues you raise? I have nobody consistently stimulating me in that direction—which is why those periodic interactions with close friends and family are so crucial.

Anyway, these are my draft thoughts. I have omitted any listing of my mistakes—not enough paper—or any speculation that a better relationship with Christians, Jesus, and the Church would have prevented these errors. And no wandering into distinctions between religion and ethics.

Thank you for asking. You know what you and Kari mean to me—beyond words!!! LOVE, Dad

## Chapter 75:  
When Five Guys Came to Upscale Denville

As a long-time resident of Denville (50 Smith Road), I was upset a few years ago when a nice group of trees on Route 10 bit the dust in favor of still more stores catering to those with already stuffed closets and lots of discretionary income. The composition of "The Shoppes at Denville," was irrelevant—none were needed except by an overly consumptive society. Today, the uber-shoppers who must have their Gap (or whomever is the store of the moment) fix on a regular basis are fighting the application of "Five Guys with Fries" for a place to sell its hamburger and potato products in this upscale environment.

FGWF is labeled as "fast food." Question—is what one buys at Bensi, Maggie Moos, Panera Bread, Qdoba, and Starbucks, food? Does it arrive at the consumer fast? Yes and Yes.

So the critics must not be against fast food—it is already there. Is FGWF upscale? Yes, the most popular hamburger is about $5. Must be the fumes. Oh, the abysmal working conditions in dress manufacturing facilities around the world are irrelevant but we must here not have the smell of French fries. It's the parking is the next claim, but this was not an issue when The Shoppes previously expanded with even more upscale retailers.

Nutritionally, nobody should patronize a hamburger place on a regular basis (true as well for most "fancy" tablecloth restaurants), but that is not the issue. What seems to be the case is The Shoppes patrons simply do not want the free market to decide about a product they personally would never buy of course. Come on, hypocritical snobs, let us common folk have a delicious lunch. I bet you would not care about fumes or parking or speed of service if it was an organic, free-traded, vegan burger!

## Chapter 76:  
Which Is the Most Defensive Institution in the World?

In my early days on the learning curve pertinent to educational reform, I talked with a fellow in Oregon named Richard Meinhard. He said, "when you meet a new person, ask them which gene they have: entrepreneurial or bureaucratic. With their answer, you will know how they will react to the concept of change."

There have been numerous occasions when I have recalled this sage advice in attempting to figure out the proper niche for our non-profit foundation in tackling the well-publicized (now) educational achievement gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged of our society. From years of experience, both direct and indirect, it would be easy to label traditional education as the most defensive institution around, particularly in the Northeast, where union regulations and tenure provide a remarkably high and often nearly impenetrable wall for reformers to climb.

However, besides education, there are at least two other general nominees for the title of most defensive institution: the majority of traditional medicine providers and a disturbing segment of the Roman Catholic Church.

First, what is defensiveness? It is an attitude which is common to monopolists, whether corporate or institutional, and the vast majority of the people who work for them: a reluctance to acknowledge that anybody outside their cubicles can possibly have a fresh, productive idea. Arrogance, unintended by most of these "nice" people, comes with the territory. They see no reason to return phone calls, e-mails, or letters from the great unwashed common folk or even outsiders with credentials that in their own worlds have commanded respect.

For example, most traditional medicine providers typically give little credibility to alternative ways of treating illness, and, at times, seem positively antagonistic to approaches which might actually prevent disease from happening in the first place. Always in a hurry, many doctors and nurses seem to have developed the art of non-listening while physically being so close you would think they could not avoid hearing what the uninformed, annoying patient is asking or saying about their condition. Advances in healthcare seem as likely to happen outside the system as anywhere else; _i.e._ , they are random, not geared to a conscious attempt by the industry to be proactive and transparent in their interaction with their different constituencies. With complex procedures and thick regulatory manuals, it is particularly easy to treat "customers" as ignorant. Internet-based information, hopefully provided by entities without axes to grind, may be making a dent in the defensiveness, but the tangible impact is thus far hard to perceive.

It sounds harsh, but it is true that the church, with mystery (faith) as its very essence, cannot really be transparent for fear of having nothing which is provable, other than written advice and interpretation emanating from authors many centuries ago. This has been understood for a long time, but Catholics and non-Catholics alike have to be beyond chagrined at the duplicity of members of the Roman Catholic Church who ignored priests who were molesting young boys. Going completely against its own teaching, the perpetrators not only hurt innocent people in a direct fashion, but some church governing bodies put lives by the millions at risk by their defensiveness toward any attempt to find out the magnitude of what was going on and put a stop to it. They quietly shifted a few culprits from church to church, changing responsibilities but never taking the guilty parties out of the paths of temptation and never holding them accountable in a public fashion, the way you and I would be pilloried if we were to engage in similar activity. Defensiveness has been synonymous with this sector of the Roman Catholic church. Perhaps it is not coincidental that fundamentalism has grown in popularity (despite its well-publicized hypocrites), Catholic schools in urban America have lost students (multiple reasons for that, to be sure), and abortion has become more freely advocated in largely Roman Catholic South America.

So is it education, medicine, or the Roman Catholic Church that is tops in defensiveness? Or is it the government?

## Chapter 77:  
Who and What Is a Star

When a star is with friends, he listens as well as speaks. He respects the opinions of others, which he can only learn about from listening. He keeps people as friends even when they disagree with each other on some subjects. Not listening drives people away. Wanting the limelight exclusively reduces the number of people who are around to applaud when a star is justifiably in that limelight.

A star realizes that most people most of the time are not really plotting to hurt the star. Instead, they are trying hard to move ahead in their own lives, and probably experiencing the same range of frustrations and triumphs as is the star. To continuously refer to "they" as being responsible for the negative actions or situations of the star is for the star to shun real responsibility for his or her decisions, and to neatly avoid the focus necessary to achieve real success.

A star knows that stopping negative behavior must be coupled with beginning positive behavior for the change to be sustainable. Otherwise, the former will inevitably suck the star back into poor decisions. What a person does when nobody is watching is the real test of values.

A star is thoughtful about his or her creative product, whether it be a movie, book, essay, or poem. He or she knows that an editor adds value, as does a proofreader, because they see things which have not been noticed by the star. There is only one way a star can have his or her creative effort, uncommented on, in front of the public, and that is for the star to print and distribute his creation entirely at his own expense and without anybody else being involved. The audience for such a publication is usually very limited and people who have any different thoughts about the creative effort will not bother to say anything if they know the star will not listen to anything but unquestioning (and frequently unthinking) praise.

A star must deal with jealousy, but simultaneously realize it is not the driver of his actions or life, nor the lives of anybody except low-level people. It does not help the star to think about the jealousy factor too much, and it is downright harmful if the thought of jealousy is a daily concern of the star.

No matter how great the strength or success of a star, he or she cannot reach back and correct all the perceived mistakes of his or her childhood. Nor can a person's "star quality" be translated into an ability to fix the current problems of anybody around him, whether they be family, friends, or acquaintances. Taking care of "job one," yourself, is mandatory in order to be able to help others.

A star must understand the difference between unthinking selfishness and enlightened selfishness. If a person treats another badly because it provides a "gain" to the former, he or she is simply justifying the same action by the other person, which means that nobody has gained, and both have lost time, energy, and often, money. Depriving oneself of a temporary benefit is, in fact, frequently enlightened selfishness, because that action may bring about a positive move by other people.

A real star thus becomes a person whom others want to know and be with, to talk to and debate with and come up with mutual decisions and actions, and have fun with and move ahead in life.

Can you be a Star?

## Chapter 78:  
Writing Tips

• An "I believe" statement as the thesis sets the tone, leads to "here's why" sentences

• Avoid generalizations and soft comments

• Be specific and descriptive in supporting statements; answer the question of "what does that mean?"

• In a persuasive essay, emphasize the active voice versus passive

• Take the next step—pull back the curtain, unwrap the package—tell what is inside the general label

• If outline information does not come easily, do a WWWWWH (who, what, where, when, why, how) in outline format. This is a forcing mechanism for filling the raw material basket when the mind may be empty. While you are doing the WWWWWH, you may hit upon your "I believe" thesis statement and you may see which are the three most important reasons for your belief. When writing, see that information in the WWWWWH is used on an as-needed basis. Remember, the outline is simply a tool; there is no right or wrong with respect to points listed under each heading.

• Put the three supporting points/paragraphs in order of least to most important

• Have a title which leads the reader toward the thesis statement

• Reference the opposite point of view and then write why it is not acceptable to you

• Avoid redundant words, as well as phrases which repeat the same thought

• Use contractions very rarely

• Use complete sentences

• Use transitional words/phrases to connect thoughts within paragraphs and paragraph to paragraph

• Use imagination in a rational manner, prefaced perhaps by a "what if" introduction

• Content knowledge is increased by reading the daily newspaper, watching selected TV programs (especially documentaries), and having conversations with people who possess larger vocabularies (and Google!)

• Ask yourself where does the topic come from historically

• Creativity: broaden the horizons of the topic, both vertically (historically) and laterally (comparison and contrast with attitudes from different regions of the country or country-to-country)

• Proofreading: look for run-on sentences; be consistent in capitalization; check for consistency in tenses; spell out the name the first time, put abbreviations if relevant in parentheses, and then use the abbreviation; you cannot start a sentence with a number; use highlight to make sure your revised draft has made all the corrections; be consistent in terminology; make sure that there are no extra spaces between words or between words and commas; no one-sentence paragraphs; avoid repetition.

• Read out loud when revising and proofing; go slowly.

• Check for consistency in tenses and in singular/plural

• When the wording of an essay is characterized by macro comments, generalizations, and bumper stick statements, the overall impression is one of emptiness—nothing is really said that differentiates the writing or the idea from any other essay or idea. Using micro comments, specifics, and detail creates a picture in the mind of the reader—who can then envision what the writer is really talking about, how the thoughts and conclusions come together.

• Facts—discussion—recommendation.

• Reduce the number of times you use "the, that, it, some, also, all, so."

• Camera-on-shoulder: as if you were looking through the lens of a camera, describe all the details you see, not just the focal point of the photo.

• If struggling to get started, simply type what you are thinking or saying out loud. You cannot edit your writing until you have something written.

• Do not worry if you do not have a title when you start writing.

• Even if you do not know all the facts about something, if the essay assignment is to be creative, you can make up the missing information.

• POWER: purpose + plan, organize, write, edit, revise + rewrite

### Comments about Certain Words

### Guilt:

• Not a productive feeling long-term

• Needs a cathartic release

• Can be self or other-generated

• Cannot be the basis of a healthy long-term relationship

### Honesty:

• An admirable trait

• When applied to volatile emotions, can be attached to diametrically opposed thoughts, by the same person, within a very short period of time

• Not productive as an emotion descriptor

• Highly usable with respect to facts

### Fairness:

• Who is to decide

• Parents, friends, counselors—all come from their own context, set of experiences

### Confusion:

• Handy descriptor because it can be applied to virtually every unclear situation

• Ignores the fact that non-clarity is virtually synonymous with life

### Emergency:

• Cannot be applied to a situation rectifiable by the actions of the person saying the word, must be reserved for accidents, no money, sudden health changes, family challenges

### Memory

• Individual:  
Ask a person for his memory on how to do something.  
If the memory is not there, it is a problem!

• Institutional:  
Have written facts to go by  
New person can learn quickly  
If existing person unavailable, easier for substitute to step in  
Can examine data to assess impact of policy changes  
Can present historical data in a fashion understandable by outsiders, including founders  
Reduces errors caused by faulty memories.  
Is not contradictory with individual creativity in a constrained choice environment

## Chapter 79:  
Ya Gotta Love It!

Unlike the case at some playgrounds, whether indoors or outside, the Senior Center Basketball incorporates no three-point line, so scoring quickly is more limited than otherwise. Similarly, fast breaks are verboten, which again is a limitation on rapid comebacks. There is no "winner's out," so when team A scores, team B gets the ball. And, in an eight-basket game, you only have to win by one, not two.

All of which means that when you are behind 7-0, you are in a heap of trouble, which is what my team was recently. Maybe we were a trifle complacent, having won the prior game 8-5, despite your writer having a cold-shooting hand. Intelligent passing and teamwork had carried the day, plus the mismatch that our quick lefty, Al, had over the defensively challenged and unswift of foot, George.

At 0-5, I switched defensive assignments and took Joe, whereupon the guy I had been guarding, Ron, promptly (and surprisingly) hit two shots to make it 0-7. "OK, guys, let's go," I said and promptly hit a corner jumper to erase the spectre of a shutout, not a nice result in any game, at any time, at any place. "Let's get a stop," I urged, and we clamped down on defense, contesting every shot and pursuing every rebound. Our George used his butt and savvy to hold off lanky Floyd. Frank took care of Ron, Jack fought off Ed well enough, I tracked Joe like his shadow and prevented his high-percentage fifteen-footer from happening. At the offensive end, I got hot, calling for the ball and hitting from a variety of angles.

Passion and desire, a little luck on missed short shots, and our willingness to make the disputed foul call that we knew they would call at the other end, brought us back, and a foul-line jumper (thank you Steve or Tom or xyz for not being there to stuff me) produced the victory.

An 8-7 triumph after being down 7-0 is sweet, really delicious. Irrational as it may seem, the memory stays for a long period of time, maybe even surviving early Alzheimer's!
