7 Ways to Imagine a Democratically-Elected President

Imagine that the candidate who becomes our next President is the one who gets the most votes from Americans.

Imagine that the door to the Presidency is not through “battleground” states but through the democratic principle of majority rules?

Imagine that the costly, protracted state primaries suddenly become obsolete because there would be no need to win states to become President?

Imagine how fast the democratic and republican machines that thrive on delivering states to their party’s candidates would crumble if winning states didn’t matter?

Imagine that the Electoral College – an institution created by the Founding Fathers and the “Upper Crust” of infant America because they didn’t trust the common people – crumbled under the massive weight of its own injustice?

Imagine that every American vote counted equally?

Imagine that the United States of America finally became a democracy?

8 Ways to Cope with Employer-Speak

When you’re looking for work, you have to deal with employer-speak.  As a seasoned job searcher, I’d like to help you decipher what amounts to coded phrases. Below, taken from an actual job description and rejection letter sent to me from someone I know, are eight common employer-speak phrases and what they really mean.  Employers are referred to as “they.”

THE JOB DESCRIPTION:

Enthusiastic and motivated self-starter. This means you have to smile and look determined simultaneously. Since the muscles in the human face can “lock” when doing this and leave you with a bewildered expression, you need practice. I recommend that you smile and look determined over and over again in a mirror before the interview.

Able to function well in a collaborative, team-oriented environment.  What they really want to know is this:  Do you have the ability to leave your ego in your office where it has space to wallow… and go into the conference room to collaborate with the team, who effortlessly leave their egos in their offices?

Ability to be flexible and work under multiple deadlines. What this really means is this: They work in a “putting out fires” structure and deadlines come faster than a meteor shower assaulting the planet.

Must possess excellent written and oral communication skills.  Given the rapid descent of literacy in America, what they really want to know is this: Can you string together words in the right order to make a declarative sentence:  “My name is John” will usually satisfy this requirement – either spoken or written.

Compensation is commensurate with experience. On the surface, it sounds great. What it really means is this: If you have great experience you’ll get the highest salary on a low pay scale. And if you have less experience, your salary will be commensurate with your lack of experience.

WHEN THEY SEND YOU A REJECTION LETTER:

We were fortunate to interview a number of excellent candidates. While on the surface this phrase can uplift you by suggesting you were in the company of elite candidates.  What it really means is this: If there were two elite candidates, then you finished second.

While your credentials and experience are impressive… When you see the word while in front of something that sounds good, you can bet that something bad is approaching faster than a speeding bullet.  We know this because while is a conjunction (Google Wikipedia for conjunction).

We wish you success in your future job search.  Wikipedia says that “hollow” refers to empty space.  This conciliatory statement attempts to fill that empty space with hot air.  Hopefully, you stopped reading long before the hot air reached you.

The Lofty Perch of My Years

I’m sitting on top of a lot of living.  It’s pretty high up here.  I can look down from my perch and see the landscape of my life.

I can see the terrain below me with great clarity. I can smile at the roads that carried me to fulfilling destinations; and I can lament the roads that led to nowhere.

And from this vantage point, I know this:

The Past creates either the ruts in the road to follow or the wisdom to construct new roads. 

…And from the standpoint of the lofty perch of my years, I’m creating new roads.

A Growing Gaggle of Good Friends

We have good friends.  And then we have Facebook friends.

All of my good friends are on Facebook; therefore all of my Facebook friends are good friends.

If you can still remember Philosophy 101, you know that this statement is a flawed syllogism.

It reminds me of the college student who, planning to take the GRE, reads that people who drink wine score better on the test.  So she drinks a gallon of wine the night before the test.

If you haven’t communicated with a former co-worker for over ten years, is that person a friend?  So now you connect because of Facebook and you say hello, how have you been? and he or she becomes a friend.

If you bump into someone on the street and you each say I’m sorry, does that constitute friendship?  Of course not. It’s absurd.

But on Facebook, you can befriend anyone.  You can befriend a Sherpa leading an expedition to the top of Everest and get a first hand account – that is, if the Sherpa has a Facebook account and at least an iPhone.

Strangers and friends lose their separate meaning and become one on Facebook.

There’s some status apparently in collecting a large number of friends.  We gain a perpetual audience.  We’re always on stage.  Others seem to admire your growing gaggle of good friends.

Whatever we say or do, there are people who will listen and respond.  Andy Warhol was wrong: With Facebook, we have fifteen minutes of fame whenever we want it.

But if you have five hundred friends and you tell them something you think is important and seven of your friends respond, how do you feel?

Maybe you’re still satisfied that someone in the universe is listening.  Before Facebook, you were talking to yourself.

My Father in Hoosier Land

My father became a Hoosier in 1939 when he enrolled at Indiana University.

I never knew what drove him to Hoosier land. Coming from an Italian enclave on the East Coast, it had to be massive cultural shock for him.

After two years as a Hoosier, World War II “pulled” him out of Indiana and into an army uniform.  After serving in Panama, he joined the medical corp as one of a small army who escorted and treated wounded soldiers on trains as they were transported to hospitals around the country.

He had come a long way from his days as a Hoosier.  I believe my father thought of his time in Indiana as the culmination of his childhood.  So he never returned to Indiana. After the war he finished his degree at night at Seton Hall University.

But he always remained loyal to the Hoosiers.

I remember watching Indiana basketball with him for many years.  But after he suffered a heart attack in his forties, he would walk away from the television because of the stress.

Then in 1975 (I was in my twenties), we watched as Indiana, undefeated and ranked first in the nation, won in the regional semi-finals.  It was a Sunday and they were scheduled to play Kentucky on the following Thursday.

On Monday, March 17, I went to class and when I returned, I found my father slumped over on the chair he always sat on.  His head was supported by a stand up ashtray.

My father was buried on Thursday.  Reading his obituary in the newspaper the next day, I saw that Indiana had been upset by Kentucky, 92-90.  It was a double loss, as the two events became interconnected in my mind. In reality, it was such a trivial thing, a game, while my father was gone forever. But Indiana basketball was something we shared for years.

A year later, Indiana won the national championship against Michigan. I remember thinking how he would have loved the moment.

Over the years, my connection with Indiana basketball has remained strong because of my father.  And so on the 37^th anniversary of his death, I imagine my father and I watching the Hoosiers in their  second round game in the tournament tonight.

And ironically, if the Hoosiers and Kentucky win in this round, they will play each other in the regional semifinals.

Shakespeare Loves Facebook

I guess Shakespeare was right:  All the world is a stage.  And he didn’t know about Facebook.

I just wrote a note on Facebook to someone I knew in high school. We weren’t really friends; but our circle of friends sometimes overlapped, and during those times, we came close to friendship.  Because of Facebook, he’s on my “stage” of life again, albeit as an “extra.”

I realize as a newcomer to Facebook, that I can find people who were on stage in my life at various points and have long ago “exited stage left.”

I found a girl I dated briefly in 1971; she’s married and lives in Florida.  I found an old friend’s first wife who still lives in the town in which they lived in the 70s. She exited my stage a long time ago and while my old friend hasn’t quite exited, he’s walking fast in that direction.

But they remain on the larger stage of Facebook.  And through Facebook, I can request their return to my stage.  It’s like the central casting of Cyberspace.

They would return as extras, although they could be more. But the question for me – and for you – is why bring them back at all?

After all, we now have other important people on the stage of our lives and clutter is not conducive to telling a good story on stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Boomers: Children of the Greatest Generation

We’re the children of the Greatest Generation. We’re not senior citizens or active older adults or third-agers or any other euphemism intended to categorize us as standing on the precipice of our productive time on Earth.

We’re a helluva lot more than human sponges for information about how to retire, where to retire, how much money we’ll need to retire and where to get cheaper medicine.

Of course these issues are important; but we’re in danger of getting swallowed whole by the angst of aging and not seeing the collective value we have.  Retirement is like dying, except you can still walk around in an irrelevant daze. Is that what we’re going to accept?

“And by their underestimation of her, [her family] had relegated her to the murky, childlike world of old age.”

This was from a story I wrote about my great-grandmother.  She was an intelligent woman who was cast aside because she was old. Is it happening to us?  Are the children of the greatest generation on the verge of getting relegated to that murky, childlike world of old age?

I don’t think so.  We’re not going to be quiet and get out-of-the-way.  Look at what our parents did:  They sacrificed everything, a half a million gave their lives and they brought down a monstrous empire.

We can do similar feats. We’ve been a force through every stage of our lives, from fashion to music to food to changing the way people think – think Vietnam.  We’re the youngest “older” people in human history and we have a lot more to do.

It’s not only the young who can be idealistic and affect positive change.

It’s imperative, in our  “golden” years that we use the massive experience we have about living to make the world better.  We still have great contributions to make. In politics, we can no longer acquiesce to the Democratic or Republican Brands…and that’s what they are.  We have to remind them they work for and are part of us. Their arrogance has blinded them to this bedrock idea of democracy.

We have the clout, as the children of the Greatest Generation, to change the world. If we were willing to sacrifice as our parents did, imagine what we could do?

We have a common purpose…a reason to work together; and if we don’t, then we will be relegated to the murky, childlike world of old age.

Birthdays are the Building Blocks of Life

We didn’t have Legos when I was a kid.  My building blocks were playing cards.  First you built a wide foundation on the floor with the cards and then built each level up.

Every level was more fragile than the one below it.  You had to be creative and start bending and creasing the cards, which gave them strength so they would withstand the weight of the levels above them.

When you got up pretty high, you knew that a collapse would be imminent. You had to be steady as you laid cards on each level.  And each level was a success. Soon you were high enough to stand up – and that was a major milestone in your success.

Your steadiness was the key here. You knew that you were getting close to a ceiling, a limitation.  Even as a kid, you had an intrinsic sense of the interplay of gravity, geometry and physics – even though you had no idea what they were.

But you were determined to go higher.  As high as you could.  You pushed the inevitable back.  And, in fact, you knew you wouldn’t stop until your tower had to fall.  And in your supposed limited understanding, you understood that when it fell, it wasn’t failure.  You celebrated your accomplishment – and would start all over again.

Birthdays, like the cards, are the building blocks of life.  The higher you go, the more you achieve.  Life does become more fragile the older you get…and there is a ceiling, a limitation.

But like your tower building as a kid, you push on…in spite of the inevitable limitation.

10 Reasons Not to Celebrate Your Birthday

Since I’m in the March birthday season for my family – my birthday, my brother’s, my wife’s, her brother’s – are all lumped in between March 7-9.

 And since we’re collectively older that the United States, I thought I would share some wisdom for baby boomers about why it might be better not to celebrate their birthdays:

10.  You have more years than your Cable TV has channels.

9.   You tell people you’re good at faces but can’t remember names.

8.   You didn’t do well in math so you can’t count that high.

7.   The trees in your yard are younger than you.

6.   You have to call the fire department to blow out the candles on your cake.

5.   You remember when you needed two hands on the steering wheel to turn a car.

4.   You’re closer in age to 100 than to 20.

3.   You’ve been alive 331, 768, 000 seconds if your 63.

2.  You search for your glasses and discover they’re on your head.

1.  Your high school yearbook picture looks like someone else

Any other suggestions….?

Storage for Dummies

I read in the NY Times yesterday that a Silicon Valley millionaire is stocking a gigantic warehouse with one hard copy of every book written in the 20^th century – about 10 million books – in case there is a digital disaster.  A wonderful idea.

Everything from Hemingway to Computers for Dummies.  One book that would have come in handy, though, if it exists, is Storage for Dummies.

Why? Because if you planned to preserve a century worth of books, where do you think that warehouse should not be located?

How about in San Francisco, where many scientists say another major earthquake is imminent and could destroy the city a second time?

Guess where he’s doing it?  San Francisco.

Storage for Dummies, as I said.