The Wretch Point

There is a place in American  politics that triggers personal catharsis.  It can be characterized as "the wretch point."

That incident, moment, policy or response that

turns a supporter to doubter or tips them into the critic pool.

Let's forget about the opposition for a moment. They look at the headlines and wonder why all of this is taking so long.

Let's focus on the changes silently occurring around us. When you look beyond bot-generated hearts and likes during live feeds and get that elevated aerial shot of crowd size footprints at "safe" and supportive rallies, you see a developing trend picking up steam.

Between tepid and rabid is a wide range of inspired independents, the party faithful, the loyal base, and Kool Ade swilling activists.

There are some who miss what they saw as the warm and affable style of the Bushes, the legitimate patriotism of a Dole or a McCain, and the bland wholesomeness of  Romney.  There are others who long for the style of comity exhibited by a Kasich or suggest.



These are folks now quietly reaching their own individual wretch points.  For some, it is attacks on the families of the fallen, for others it is the adamant defense of womanizing and objectification.  For still others, it's science denials, plant jobs that don't come back and depressed crop prices.

Toss in locking up children, separating families, attacking free speech, abandoning allies and propping up his own business sales with taxpayer dollars and there's more than enough wretch points to go around.

What a shrinking number of Americans are willing to accept is the premise that Donald J. Trump cannot be as bad as critics
Many are finding he is worse.

We see influencers openly raising concerns and developments that trigger our indignation drawing fewer defenses, diversions, and false equivalencies.

When it comes to gauging support and ultimately counting votes, wretch points indicate the slide that leads to that legendary slippery slope. #TheWretchPoint

A few observations on the Bush Funeral and Internment.

Over the years, I have been directly involved in the coverage of two state funerals of presidents and wrote copy in real-time for a third.

Reporting at street level, you simply repeat the reactions offered by mourners and others who turn out to witness history.

Writing about such events you hit the major points-- both highs and lows, that capture the decedent's role in history.

For Nixon, Opening China and Watergate, for Ford, leaving Vietnam and pardoning Nixon, for Reagan beating Communism but being late on AIDS and ignoring cities.

In recent years, since leaving news, I have worked for three former members of Congress. One is fond of saying "people vote for candidates they like to believe are like themselves."

I believe that. Each of us is flawed, and none of us welcome being judged by any single act or several acts that define only part of who we are.

In real life, I have known people who raised hell for years, and showed many their nasty sides, only to become loving, caring people to their families. Some have worked for years or decades to reinvent themselves and reform their images.

Funerals are a time to focus on those things worth remembering. They may be sentimental and often will ignore the flaws and scars and even the pain the dead inflicted in life.

But beyond those brief moments of goodbye, true history remains. From unrealized ideals, to outright failures to quiet successes and idyllic victories, the memories left capture the departed individual.

Perhaps my former boss, the congressman was right. People do vote for those they see as most like themselves. However flawed, like us, perhaps they tried, and changed and tried again. Who judges that best, not man or woman, but God.

Ground Hog Day and Super Bowl Too? What's Not to Like

Groundhog Day is Feb. 2.

We won’t know exactly what Puxsutawney Phil will show us until Monday morning, but I lay odds on six more weeks of winter. 

I was in Puxsutawney, Pa. for Ground Hog Day, 1977, covering the big fun of the annual festival for a Pittsburgh NPR station. 

Besides consuming copious amounts of beer, I got to listen to the locals swap all sorts of lore about the over-sized ground squirrels and how they’ve come to represent our hopes for an early spring. 

Seems we owe it all to the very practical Germans who had no interest in butchering livestock so close to the beginning of Lent. Pass around enough beer or schnapps and if someone has a little woodland skill or a bored hound, guys can do the craziest things. 

Drag a sleeping hedgehog from its burrow, grab a club,  and if you work fast--protein problem is solved! The American equivalent to the European hedgehog is Phil, or a member of his family.

This year, we have the convergence of Groundhog Day and the Fortnight of Deflategate—or as some would prefer Super Bowl 49!

We don’t make these things up, so if you haven’t settled on your Super Bowl menu, Woodchuck Stew might be memorable for your guest and a culinary adventure for the cook:

 Either way, as you enjoy the memories of your Super Bowl Feast, look forward to some cold weather, ice, snow or a wintry mix on your way to work, Feb. 2. Here's the outlook for Monday, Feb. 2, from our friends at Accuweather.

Super Bowl prediction? Who lost the game will be one of those difficult trivia questions only Seattle folks and real sports fans will confidently answer within 10 years, and I will be one of the viewers who ate and drank with prudent moderation.

And in case you didn’t get the message, “I’m only here so I don’t get fined.”

Not Our Brand

Let's review:

1) The American subsidiary of an international corporation headquartered in Tokyo decides to take on a project that lampoons a the head of state of a hostile nation with an outsized military.

2) The uniformed leaders of that hostile nation consider the project a propaganda assault on the dynastic leader they are sworn to protect. They respond by devoting unknown resources, including their cash to a preemptive intelligence and digital infiltration campaign against the global corporation involved.

3) Using their own resources and the skills of unidentified global techno-mercenaries, they hack into the communications of the high-tech global company and dig up dirt. Then they tell the world about some of what they found, damaging the corporate brand, to the embarrassment of some of the top officials of the company's American subsidiary.

4) They then threaten to do more damage to the company if the lampooning project ever sees the light of day. That damage could include attacks on the exhibitors and their audiences during the most lucrative period of their marketing year.

5) With the possibility that even more damaging information on the global giant might be leaked, and with its strategic partners distancing themselves from the fray, corporate leaders roll over and throw the project back into the vault.

Now, in case you think I'm off-base, this is how Sony USA self-identifies: "Sony Corporation of America, located in New York, NY, is the U.S. headquarters of Sony Corporation, based in Tokyo, Japan."
My point, if this were Mercedes Benz, Mitsubishi, or Toshiba, would the U.S. government be obliged to respond?

Japan is a high-tech leader with ample defense capabilities.and a keen geopolitical interest in what happens on the Korean peninsula. Despite its global reach, Sony is one its most important businesses.

The USA does a lot in the world, and we may eventually help out here because cyber-terrorism and state cyber-warfare are huge issues, but the Sony attack is one of those world problems that may not have an American solution.

Make A Sandwich and Go to Work-- You Want Cranberries with That?

There are lots of essential jobs that must be done on holidays, but is sales clerking one of them?

We need utility service, public safety, health care staffing and even news and information, fuel, travel and last-minute dinner ingredients.

There are types of entertainment we now consider part of our Thanksgiving holiday traditions, like sports, movies and night life. 

Recognizing that a full third of the year's retail sales are tied directly to thee holiday shopping period, I can appreciate the need to wring out as much profit as possible during that period. 

BUT, Thanksgiving worked well as a marketing day for decades, and turning it into a half sales day is a slippery slope. 

In less than ten years we have gone from 4 a.m. or 6 a.m. openings to Midnight Black Friday sales. We now are rolling back to pre-Black Friday, Thanksgiving night door busters. 

Soon this could be bumping up against the late NFL game, then the early game, then competing with dinner prep and by the time today's toddlers celebrate Thanksgiving as young parents with their families, the holiday meal will be a brunch.

The Thanksgiving holiday marks the beginning of a very busy time for service workers who will open early close late and restock shelves and mark down prices incessantly through mid-January.

Snatching up, for many what will be their final day off for nearly two months is just plain insensitive. This is not last minute dinner prep, public safety, health care staffing, broadcasting, travel or hospitality.  This is a mixed bag of locked and open doors at malls, town centers, and shopping strips.

We have options, and I admit I may make a purchase or two on line sometime Thanksgiving Day. With automated order taking and offshore call centers, there are ways to move merchandise that do not involve Americans in great numbers giving up Thanksgiving and acting cheerful about it.

But for families that depend and need retail income, I do hope adding this extra Thanksgiving night shift (stores open at 6 p.m., staff needs to be there by 4:30), is not another sign of a disturbing trend.

Retailing is changing, the shopping experience and the way goods actually get to the gift giver are rapidly evolving and we could see big box stores go the way of Blockbuster Video or Photomat.

As traditional storefront operators fight for ways to maintain their market shares, they will sacrifice the family time of their staffs. For increasingly limited gains the pressures to man the sales floors and monitor the self service checkouts will continue to grow.

This could eventually come down to choices and trade-offs for some desperate last minute push to fill out schedules during the predawn hours of Christmas Day.

Fear, Hype and Chicken Little

For Newsers, Journalists, Bloggers and Assignment Editors:

This may not warrant "Top Story Status," but in thousands of communities across the country, including dozens of major media markets.

Biohazard decontamination unit set up outside of Fairfax Innova Hospital, Fairfax, Va.

Someone is publicly displaying symptoms of nausea, vomiting, weakness, and perhaps a need to find the closest restroom.

EVERY SUCH CASE IS NOT SUSPECTED EBOLA.

Now, I know you may want a good lead, but it is October, there are colds, flu, allergies, and a bunch of worried people out there.

Let's tone it down people. If the idiots on the desks are not cooler heads, call someone in who thinks responsibly.

--- What the hell do I know? I'm just a retiree! ‪#‎PandemicsWarrantPerspective‬

Ebola: What We Have to Fear is Hysteria

When the hysteria begins, it will be far too late. The whispers are slowly building to a roar.

Although no Ebola suspected patient has flown directly to the United States from Africa, the railing about banning flights is building among the angry voices and disaffected.

There is an undercurrent of noise that would stop U.S. citizens and legal residents from seeking medical treatment in their own country just because they have traveled abroad.

That those flights are coming from Paris or Brussels or London needs to be considered because that amounts to bans on international air travel. I remember how silent the skies were after 9-11 and personally, I never want to go there again.

EBOLA IS NOT NEW. Yes, it is new to the civilian world in the United States, but U.S. military, foreign service workers and some journalists have been dealing with the risk and building awareness for more than a decade.

When we start denying Americans opportunities to come home from business trips or vacations, we will become victims of the fears we have refused to surrender to during decades of international terrorism.

People are now listening to and believing hearsay from unidentified callers who get through on talk radio stations. I spent enough time doing radio to have a few names for such attention seekers.
Veteran broadcasters call them squirrels or trolls.

The day I leave this country and find myself in need of help as I try to get back in only to be denied is the day everything I've ever been taught about my country becomes a lie.

Read, learn, take precautions... but never let fear change who we are.