EyeSpy

Happy New Year 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 19:39:00 +0000

I know that it's only a day. A day like all others. This year, it's a Wednesday -- that ignominious middle of the week, no-mans-land hump day -- to start the year. Why does New Years Day hold us collectively in such thrall? It's not as if each year we celebrate a sort of Jubilee where all debts are forgiven and we are released from contractual obligations. No, January 1st will find us just as indentured and indebted as today. Strangers will stay strangers, family will be family and friends will remain friends (assuming a modicum of restraint tonight). But somehow we collectively breath a sigh of relief that the past 365 are behind us and then joyfully look forward to the possibilities of another year. We dress up, drink up and take up the challenges that lie ahead with optimism and good cheer. Tarnish behind, luster ahead. Tonight at midnight the world will take a collective cleansing breath and turn its back on the frustrations, failures and foibles of 2013. We will look ahead with glee to the promise of a better 2014. And that is what makes this day special. It is the one day of the year that we give ourselves full permission to forgive the past and anticipate the future (perhaps we would each be better off if we practiced this pseudo-amnesia more often). We are eager and able, energized and optimistic; ready to make the world - our own worlds at least - a better place. So lift your glasses, watch the ball drop (or potato, tangerine, sardine, peach, watermelon or whatever) and Happy New Year! May your days ahead be filled with all the blessings of Health, Peace, Love and Family.

There ought to be a law.......

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 May 2011 03:59:00 +0000

If you've spent any time in a public space - airport, ballpark, subway station or Starbucks, to name a few - you've heard someone bloviating in an inappropriately loud voice: "There ought to be a law.........." followed by a description of a behavior they find personally offensive that should be regulated or legislated out of existence.

"There should be a law against bi-lingual education in public schools"

"There should be a law against selling guns in America."

"There should be a law that forces US Corporations to hire Americans."

The corollaries of course are:

"I have right to ......"

"There should be a tax on ....."

"They shouldn't let........"

The fact that our children are being (and have long been) subject to this blather-as-pedagogy in our public and now private school systems is likely the cause for the low quality of public discourse in the Republic today.

We should teach our children to be suspicious of anyone who wants to force us to act for our own good.

They should know that liberty and legislation are a zero-sum game. One cannot be increased without the exact and equal decline of the other.

They should know that compulsion is the root of all law and that while some level of freedom is always sacrificed to the commonweal, despotism lurks in the shadows of every pillar of a well-ordered society.

If only there were a national organization that would represent this point of view.

I would send them money so that they could hire lobbyists to go plead my case on Capitol Hill.

I miss you Dad

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:19:00 +0000

Ten years ago today, my father passed from this world into the next.

With him went the last vestige of my childhood.

Until that day there was always someone who could call me their child. Someone who I could rely on for parental advice.

If not a GPS, then my father was at least a map that I could consult with for guidance regarding the pitfalls facing me on the road ahead.

As many sons do, I was too stubborn and close-minded to learn by listening to my father's advice. I insisted on making my own mistakes; only later acknowledging that I should have heeded his good word.

Growing up, I was never without a question, and my father, was never without an answer.

Some times, he would answer: "look it up in the dictionary, encyclopedia or text book." Other times he would answer: "what do you think the answer is?" or "how do you think you could figure that out?"

But most of the time, he answered: "how would you find out the answer if I wasn't here?"

I know now he was trying to prepare me to be an adult and stand on my own and be ready for the day when he literally wouldn't be there any more.

After ten years, I'm as ready as I'll ever be to live without him - which is to say still not ready at all.

If you want a friend in Washington........

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:41:00 +0000

If you're a chef, the saying is "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." The political equivalent of that maxim is "in Washington, if you want a friend, get a dog."

In Washington, I was one of the fortunate few. I had a couple of true friends AND I had a dog. Mollie was her name and she was a beautiful Golden Retriever.

On a crisp cool Shenandoah day we visited the breeder to choose a dog to bring home as a holiday surprise. Mollie was romping around the pen with her her fur-ball siblings under her mother's watchful eye.

Mollie broke off abruptly from the others the second I leaned over the rail. In an instant she turned her not inconsiderable charm on me and lobbied for the job of house puppy. I was immediately smitten and although she was putatively a gift for our four children, she and I bonded immediately.

Mollie was not a good puppy. She ate my wife's nylons and my daughter's hair scrunchies. She chewed a hole in our carpet and ripped the back off of our brand new couch. She loved paper of all color and textures - toilet paper if it was all that was available, but preferably something with ink on it - like my expense reports and receipts.

Through this period and afterward as she grew into a more well-behaved pet, her affection and devotion to our family grew stronger each day.

Mollie took our four children on long walks through the woods and streams near our house and would swim in the lake with them at their grandparent's house. True to her retriever lineage, she would play fetch until your arm hurt and was the only dog I ever saw put her face fully under water to retrieve rocks from the bottom of a pond.

When I walked in the front door, she never missed an opportunity to bound up the hallway with an enthusiastic greeting - regardless of whether I was returning from a two-week excursion overseas or a 15 minute errand to the grocery store. Once she had established that I was properly welcomed, she proceeded to follow me around the house. When I sat down, she sat down; when I went to the kitchen to eat, she followed. If I was outside she sat sentry at the door. Since she was not allowed upstairs in our house, she slept at the foot of the stairs and waited for one of us to wake.

After 11 years as the guardian of my family's happiness, Mollie died this week of a ruptured tumor on her spleen.

I write this at my desk - alone for the first time in over a decade. Under my desk, at the spot where my friend would lie quietly at my feet while I worked, the carpet is still depressed.

So am I.

The Power of Value

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:34:00 +0000

Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema's excellent book "The Discipline of Market Leaders" argues that businesses must focus on one of the following areas to be successful: operational excellence, product leadership or customer service excellence. They used as an example of each Wal-Mart, Intel and Nordstrom's respectively. The authors' thesis is that a company must choose one of these three foci to the virtual exclusion of the others in order to be effective and make an impact in their market.

In presenting various different products to customers over the years and having been a discerning customer myself, I've traditionally used criteria that somewhat resemble the above. Instead of operational excellence, product leadership and customer service, I've used cheaper, faster, better. (by cheaper I mean less expensive, not lower quality).

We often are presented with a product that is cheaper, but not faster or better. Oft times, this is acceptable. How many times have you been out of town and forgotten an essential toiletry item or a belt or a tie? Or when you're throwing a birthday party for toddlers. Cheap will trump performance or quality manufacture.

Conversely we will at times throw care to the wind and pay a premium for a name product that is not the performance leader in its category. For years, Cadillac's name outshone the product. It is arguable whether the food at the Russian Tea Room in Central Park is worth the tariff; but saying you dine there regularly is, as the Visa commercial so aptly puts it, "priceless."

Finally, those at the bleeding edge of technology - the "early adopters" - are renowned for paying the moon and sacrificing reliability to get faster and faster devices.

What a find, then, when we can find a new product that gives us improvement in not one but two of these areas and we only have to sacrifice in one!

Cheaper and faster; or faster and better; or cheaper and better!

In today's economy, customers - in both the consumer and b2b market - are as stingy as ever. Each dollar spent is generally the result of some long and hard consideration. This habit, once inculcated in the generation raised on easy money will be a long time in leaving.

The winner in the long run will be the company or product that can deliver consistently on the promise of cheaper, faster AND better.

How then does one resist the death spiral of discounting and selling only on price? The answer is to be found in the concept of value.

Ben Graham taught in the '20s that not all cheap stocks were cheap and not all expensive stocks were expensive. The trick, he said, was to find stocks that were priced well relative to their underlying value.

This concept understood from the product side is that even though your product may have a higher price tag, it can still be "cheaper" if the value it presents to the customer's enterprise is high relative to the value of a competing product with a lower price tag. Operating costs, labor inputs, repair and replacement costs are all variables to be considered when one makes the value argument.

Of late, I have changed my tune from price to value -- not searching for products that are only cheaper, faster and better, but rather products that are faster and better and as a result -- cheaper.

This is the power of vaule.

My Uncle's Gambling Addiction

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:33:00 +0000

I got a notice from my bank the other day.

It seems that my uncle (who has always had trouble living within his means) is in financial trouble again.

What with the economy being tough and businesses suffering, he decided he could help us out by taking $12,000 of money out of our account (without asking, of course), visiting the roulette table and betting it all on one spin of the wheel.

He bet on red and the ball fell on black.

He's a resilient sort, so he was able to shake it off and is back again asking for more money. This time, he says, he's sure his bet is right. If I fork over another $20,000, he'll get me my original money back.

The problem is, I don't think Uncle Sam needs more of my money, I think he needs to go to Gambler's Anonymous.

Understanding Our Government

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:30:00 +0000

" The Professor brightened up again. 'The Emperor started the thing,' he said. 'He wanted to make everybody in Outland twice as rich as he was before — just to make the new Government popular. Only there wasn't nearly enough money in the Treasury to do it. So I suggested that he might do it by doubling the value of every coin and bank-note in Outland. It's the simplest thing possible. I wonder nobody ever thought of it before! And you never saw such universal joy. The shops are full from morning to night. Everybody's buying everything!"

– Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno

Posted in Science & Math, Society by Greg Ross on December 28th, 2008

The "C" Word

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:34:00 +0000

When I was growing up, if someone had to pass the bad news that a friend or relative had cancer, they would lower their voice to a whisper and draw the word out when saying cancer.

Saying "cancer" meant "he's going to die" since nobody lived very long once they were diagnosed with the disease. Heart attacks and strokes were deadly too, but cancer held a special place in most people's closet of fears.

The medical and pharmaceutical communities have, however, over the last 50 years have redefined the yardstick by which we measure survival rates. Where weeks and months were the norm in the 50's and 60's, we now measure survival rates in the percentage of survivors after 5 or 10 years.

Still, over 500,000 will die this year from cancer in the United States.

In the face of tens of billions of dollars spent each year in the public and private sectors, 1,500 people will die every day of some form of cancer.

Last week, in the aftermath of the announcement that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Hollywood actor Patrick Swayze wrote an open letter to Congress urging action on $10 billion of cancer research funding.

Having survived thyroid cancer myself and after losing my father (lung), an uncle and my best friend (pancreatic) in succession, I am sympathetic to the desire by survivors and their families for a cure. In these days of increased reliance on government it is also natural to believe that increased research funding by Congress will bring these cures to us more quickly.

Unfortunately, because the government and pharmaceutical research communities have stubbornly clung to the goal of treating and curing late-stage cancer victims, the $10 billion Swayze asks Congress to dedicate will be money Quixotically wasted on a recalcitrant disease that has defied virtually every attempt at late-stage cures. Cure rates for late stage breast, pancreatic and ovarian cancer have barely budged in the last 30 years while cure rates for early stage victims of the same disease have increased substantially.

This is why, in addition to lobbying Congress to set aside funds for cancer research, it is critical that this money be earmarked for programs designed to catch cancer in its earliest stages. Patients diagnosed with Stage I or II ovarian cancer have a 10-year survival rate approaching 90%. That rate drops below 10% for cancer patients diagnosed in the later stages. Pancreatic Cancer - the type afflicting Justice Ginsburg - is highly deadly because only 3% of cases are detected in the early stages where survival rates are high. Justice Ginsburg's pancreatic cancer was detected incidentally during a recall appointment for her colon cancer.

Most Americans do not have the quality of health care afforded Supreme Court Justices or movie stars and as a result do not get scanned for cancer until they are symptomatic. In most cases - this is too late.

Cancer treatments is less expensive and highly effective in the early stages - dramatically more expensive and less effective in the lates stages. Deaths from breast cancer and ovarian cancer have dropped precipitously as the mammogram and pap smear have become a routine part of the American standard of health care. Deaths form lung and pancreatic cancer would experience a similar decline if Congress would redirect the billions of dollars currently being thrown into late-stage cancer cures towards a national effort to support early detection of all types of cancer.

Money could and should be spent on programs that lower the cost of cancer screening. Early detection can increase the quality of life for those stricken with these deadly diseases and ultimately lower the cost of American health care. The National Institutes of Health estimates that 140 million Americans will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime.

At a time when every dollar of government spending is precious, let us ensure that whatever money Congress spends is spent effectively -- focused on catching those cancers at the earliest possible moment so that doctors can have the best possible chance to treat the cancer successfully and save lives.

Paradise Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:17:00 +0000

A long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far far away I was privileged to run for Congress. Having received the Republican nomination in the 3rd Congressional District of West Virginia in 1994 I was further privileged to be part of the "Contract for America" class of Congressional nominees that gathered on the west side of the Capitol six weeks before election day. (Yes, that's me on the cover of the book standing a few feet to the left of Newt).

Before the candidates filed out of the basement and on stage to witness the epochal address by the soon to be Speaker of the House, we all met with the then Minority leadership. The Deputy Minority Whip, Minority Whip and Minority Leader all addressed us and urged us to work hard in the coming weeks so that we could sweep the Democrats out of office and take the reins of power that had been wrongfully denied us for lo these many years. We were read the text of the Contract and given guidance on how best to use it to define the waning days of the campaign.

Having espoused Newt's specific flavor of Republican ideology in our Districts on the campaign trail for many months, we all knew the Contract's main tenets: limited government, greater individual responsibility, more individual freedom, higher standards of responsibility for elected leaders; balanced budgets, term limits for Committee Chairman, etcetera.

After the speeches we were invited to ask any questions of the leadership. One of the candidates sitting across the room and asked why it was that since we had been talking about term limits for the Democrats, the Contract didn't include Congressional Term Limits that would apply to the new Congress. One by one the leaders moon-walked that issue to the increasing discomfort of the assembled bright-eyed-bushy-tailed "we're in this to save the country" candidates.

At the conclusion of Dick Armey's response (which, in a nutshell, was: You don't really want us to leave so soon after finally winning the majority, do you?"), a candidate from North Carolina turned to me and said quietly "It's already over."

He had sensed the pivotal moment in the Gingrich Revolution - that being the beginning of the end.

The elections that would mark the triumphant return of Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party to Washington were still weeks away and yet the seeds of the public's later disgust and repudiation of the same Party were already sown.

Hypocrisy in politics is as old as the profession itself and few insiders are surprised hear it practiced with impunity. Indeed, Rochefaucauld's maxim "hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue" seems to be the motto of Washingtonians on both sides of the aisle.

But in the hinterlands where Ma and Pa Kettle work for a living, pay taxes and take their quadrennial electoral duties seriously, a broken promise is extremely caustic to the bond made between voter and officeholder -- especially when the candidate has promised to be "different than the rest" and bring "change to the way we do business in Washington."

Such is the crack in the until now perfect record of the Obama phenomenon.

Yesterday, the President's choice for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was confirmed by the Senate in spite of having admitted to what most laymen understand as "cheating on your taxes."

His admission was further compounded by the revelation that even after discovering what he calls a "careless" error he didn't pay the Treasury all of the back taxes until it was clear that he would be the nominee for Treasury Secretary.

With the facts as we know them, there are only two judgments to be made about this man:

1) he is not sophisticated enough to understand that he owed these taxes - even after receiving this money in advance from the IMF for the sole purpose of paying these taxes and signing disclosure forms saying that he would turn these funds over to the IRS; or

2) He cheated on his taxes and figured that he wouldn't get caught.

Geithner's explanation that he was careless might be believable to some (not this author) but still lands him in category 1.

In neither case is he fit to hold the office of Secretary of Treasury - an office charged with supervision of the IRS and management of the country's financial resources.

Perhaps Secretary of Education or Transportation, or Energy; but once the job entails any amount of financial responsibility, one has to wonder whether or not in this country of 300 million another talented individual can be found.

Remember Zoe Baird? Clinton's first nominee for Attorney General. Talented and qualified, she was forced to withdraw her name from nomination because she had failed to pay taxes to illegal aliens she hired as domestic help.

Even Bill Clinton - the man who wrote the book on powering your way through public difficulties - recognized the hypocrisy of putting a woman in the office of Attorney General who had willfully broken the law.

This brings us back to Rochefaucault.

President Obama faced his first litmus test when he was told the news about Geithner. Since I wasn't there, I can't pretend to know what exactly was said, but since I worked in the Office of Presidential Personnel and went through the vetting process with other candidates I am fairly certain that in the discussions surrounding the nomination, someone on Obama's staff recommended that Geithner be ditched. It probably went something like this:

"Mr. President, how is it going to look for you to have promised change and then we have to go to the mat on Capitol Hill to get a TAX CHEAT nominated? Why doesn't he do the right thing like Bill Richardson and withdraw so we can find someone who took their tax returns to H&R Block?"

My other guess is that the Chief of Staff, and the others weighing in on this, recommended that the President not back down and that to give in on such a small matter would be politically damaging. They would have rightfully pointed out that in a few weeks, Geithner's nomination would be old news.

The problem for Obama is that now the bloom is off the rose.

Not for millions of his adoring fans and supporters. The true believers will remain just that for many more Timothy Geithners.

And not for the loyal opposition. They are just that - loyally opposed to Obama no matter what he'll do.

The problem is for the spongy middle of America. Those Republicans and Democrats who rejected Hillary in the primaries and McCain in the general election to support a man they truly thought would change the way things were being done in Washington.

A man who they hoped would put principle over politics.

Obama had the choice between what was morally and ethically right and what he could get away with and chose the latter.

To quote my North Carolinian prognosticator: "It's already over."

Post-Election Post

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:48:00 +0000

I've meant to post on the election since Tuesday but have been running around for work. I had a great chat with a childhood friend Terril Jones, which crystalized my thinking and I wanted to put pen to paper (or key to keyboard) before my 50 year old synapses begin to misfire.

Unlike any other election night in the past where my candidate lost (and I've had a bunch of them) I did not fall asleep sad, angry, depressed, pessimistic or negative. Nor did I wake up this way on Wednesday morning. I felt and continue to feel good about the campaign - even as I wished it turned out a few percentage points differently. Here are the things for which I am thankful:

1) The electorate was energized and engaged in a way we haven't seen in decades. Voter turnout was high among virtually every demographic and interest group measured, but unlike previous races, this turnout was positively motivated towards a candidate rather than against it.

2) The question of race and sex as barriers to the White House were finally laid to rest. No matter that Clinton didn't win the primary; her candidacy - unlike errara's and Palin's was substantive and viable on its own.

3) McCain avoided playing the Reverend Wright card. A horrible move tactically, but the honorable thing to do. He could have Willie Horton'ed this issue to death and reversed his sagging fortunes, but he knew that doing so would have exacerbated the racial divide in this country. I was never a big fan of McCain, but I will forever admire his decision to run a clean campaign. He raised the bar for future campaigns.

4) We are now instantly rehabilitated in the eyes of the world. On Monday morning in the eyes of the world (and particularly the Europeans) Americans were shallow, silly, ignorant, boorish, uneducated and uncouth. On Wednesday morning we're all geniuses - all 300 million of us - even though the voters who made the difference were only 3% of those who voted (1% of the population).

I hope that President Obama is as good a man as he seems.

I hope that his internal compass is guided by ideals and that he stays true to them.

I hope that the country stays engaged and interested.

I hope that political debate will flag and political discussion will grow.

I know that scandal, tragedy and emergency will face this Administration and I hope that President Obama handles each with aplomb and calm and that the country never loses trust or breaks faith with him.

I hope that when in 2012 the next candidate inevitably asks the question "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" their will be a rousing and unanimous chorus of "YES."

From the Son Learns the Father

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:21:00 +0000

My four children are amazing - each in their own way, but all of them incredible.

Like all parents I get great joy from seeing them succeed and greater pain from witnessing their failures. Sometime though, I realize that I enable failure.

Such was my experience last weekend when I accompanied my son and his Boy Scout Troop on a rock climbing campout.

Some history first. Jacob was born without incident 17 years ago next week. We didn't note anything was amiss until a few months later when he began to miss normal physical developmental benchmarks. Since he was the youngest of four, I chalked this up to the youngest child syndrome wherein everyone does everything for the baby so they don't have to do for themselves and, as a result, develop later. It became apparent, though, that some of these delays were physical and not environmental.

My wife took him to doctors and each prognosis was gloomier than the last. One doctor told Rebecca that Jacob would never walk normally and likely never be able to run. He was Autistic, mentally challenged, physically disabled...... We were never able to get a definitive answer to what was causing the problems, but he received special educational assistance and eventually made the bridge into "normal" classrooms.

We always thought we were treating Jacob equally, but our family and friends have let us know over the years that coddling beyond the youngest child occurred quite frequently.

Fast forward to Rock Climbing Weekend:

Jacob had a particularly technical climb on a face that looked near impossible. The rock rose 12 feet to a 4 foot overhang and then straight up a face for 20 more feet. At 6'3" Jacob was too big to wedge himself in the crevice that the smaller boys used to traverse the overhang, but his legs were an inch or so too small to straddle the footholds on the outside rocks.

Jacob attempted multiple ascents on different routes with different techniques and it seemed to me to be an un-climbable; but each time I asked him if he wanted to quit he demurred and kept at it. After 40 minutes of climbing and falling back, climbing and falling back, he reached the top and made a quick rappel down the cliff - hands raw, arms, legs and back aching, but grinning uncontrollably.

I am always impressed by people undaunted by failure and today Jacob's persistence inspired me. Had he listened to me, he would have suffered less physical pain and been off the rock in 20-30 fewer minutes. But he would have been deprived of the ultimate triumph of his desire to succeed over his father's suggestion that he quit.

From the son learns the father.

Small thoughts about Big Things

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:46:00 +0000

(reprinted from an online discourse with Obama supporters who stated that the various attacks brought by critics of Obama (Reverend Wright, Flag Pin and Pledge of Allegiance controversies among others) were "small" things. My response follows):

First, by way of full disclosure, I want to state that I am a life-long conservative Republican. Raised in a Democratic household, I nonetheless became enamored of Ronald Reagan at a young age and spent the first 12 years of my adult life working for him – first on campaigns and then in his Administration at HUD, GSA and the White House. I worked also for the Republican National Committee and participated in a score of gubernatorial, Senatorial and Congressional campaigns (including two of my own), as well as a passle of state and local campaigns. I worked in the Jewish and Christian world – serving as Pat Robertson's Press Secretary (during his failed Presidential bid) and immediately thereafter joining the White House staff as Jewish Liaison to the President. I recount my C.V. here first so that you won't think my opinions borne of idle (or heaven forbid idol) thought but rather having come from decades of on the ground, real world experience.

I believe that Barack Obama is, perhaps, the most fascinating political figure on either side of the aisle to appear on the American national political landscape in a generation. With Clinton-like charisma (Bill not Hillary) and Reaganesque/Churchillian oratorical skills he has captivated a nation hungry to follow an inspiring/inspired leader. After 8 years of George W. Bush and facing the prospect of a return to the Bush/Clinton/Bush political ping-pong duopoly that has dominated for the past two decades, the American people have given Obama a pop culture welcome not seen since the Beatles launched the British invasion on Ed Sullivan. Crowds mass, women swoon and the press loses its objectivity in the rush to laud.

Some of this celebrity is due and well earned. Obama is thoughtful and articulate. While a neophyte, and ill-credentialed for the position he is educated and well spoken.

How, then, does one objectively assess the candidate and properly decide whether or not to support a candidate?

I believe that to properly evaluate a candidate for any position – be it President of the United States or soda jerk at the local diner – you have to know the requirements of the position.

The job of President has many requirements, and it is easy to get lost in the details. Broadly said, however, the President has two jobs – lead the nation and represent her to the world. The nuts and bolts of the job – running the Administration – is generally left to underlings (Jimmy Carter notably did not do this and was consumed in the process) so that the President can be free to concentrate on the job of leading.

It is no surprise that the Presidents we think of as being the most successful in history were the most inspiring. Clinton, Reagan, Kennedy and Roosevelt all were either great orators or shepherded the nation thought difficult times – or both. Bush I, Bush II, Carter, Ford and Johnson were all deemed middle of the road or worse. The job of President is chiefly to have a vision for the future of the country that inspires the population and then to be able to articulate it well. Everyone remembers lines from the great Presidential speeches:

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - Roosevelt

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask only what you can do for your country" – Kennedy

"Mr. Gorbachav, Tear down this wall." – Reagan

"I did not have sex with that woman." – Clinton (sorry, couldn't resist that one).

Each of these Presidents understood the importance of speech and symbology as essential tools in leading the nation.

Obama too understands this. He is a bright – indeed possibly brilliant – politician whose every word is crafted to move an audience. Every important speech that he has delivered has been in front of an appropriate audience or organization. His campaign team has trotted out his family when needed and attacked others for bringing his family into the campaign when it suited him. Each move has been well planned and executed. This had to be the case – he was running against a former First Lady and the head of a formidable political machine - Hillary Clinton.

I say all of this in preface to make the point that there are no small issues when it comes to picking a President. It was not an accident that Barack Obama didn't wear an American Flag lapel pin and it was not an accident that he didn't have his hand over his heart during the singing of the American anthem. If it were so, then he and his campaign should be impugned for insolence and negligence. No, this was no accident. These were moments reminiscent of the raised black gloves of Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968.

Obama was making a statement. He knew that there are no greater symbols of American patriotism than the American flag and the Star Spangled Banner. He knew precisely that these were symbols of the status quo establishment in this country and – like it or not – he made the conscious decision to flout the standard.

To deny this is to say that Barack Obama was not smart enough to understand that Politics 101 in this country dictates you wear an American Flag lapel pin and put your hand over your heart during the National Anthem.

To say that this is a small thing and it doesn't matter is to deeply misunderstand the second part of the job of President – that of diplomat in chief.

Just as the President's main job is to lead and inspire the nation at home, so too is it his job to inspire confidence abroad. The use of symbols in diplomacy may be even more important than their centrality to domestic tranquility.

Without belaboring this point to the point of utter boredom, let me say that while I'm fascinated by Obama and enjoy his ascendancy through the political ranks, it is apparent from his recent jaunt abroad that he is not seasoned enough for the job of leader of the free world. Lapel pins and anthems, flags in headquarters and errant ministers are mere distractions. The world is a dangerous place and I'm not sure it is prudent for America to put such an abject rookie in this role at such a critical time.

In the fight against terrorism, dictatorship and oppression, it might not be wise to entrust our future to a man who has such scant experience in the world of real politick.

In some ways it is quite sad that Obama is so ill-prepared for the job. I believe it would be a healing balm for the nation's long illness with racial discord for a man of such obvious appeal to be elected to the highest office in the land. His defeat in the fall – even if sound and uncontested – will be a cause for a deepening of the white-black divide here and will likely be used as an excuse to ignore participatory democracy by a generation of young enthusiastic Obama supporters.

Were it not for the equally obvious danger he represents to the Republic and our allies in Europe and the Middle East, I would be tempted to cast a vote in his column.

Pex Pickin

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:43:00 +0000

I recognize how anecdotal this observation is but I can't help but get the feeling that we've reached the mid-term peak in oil prices. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Americans have cut 40 billion miles(yes, with a B) from their driving as compared with a year ago. Even assuming that the average American vehicle gets 20 mpg (which I think is hopelessly high), it means that we've shaved 2 billion gallons of gas consumption from the demand side of the equation. That equates to roughly 100 million barrels of oil or only 5 days worth of US oil consumption, but it is also not entirely clear that Americans will not continue to modify their use of high energy transportaion.

Just as rising prices cause suppliers to hoard, falling prices cause producers to oversupply the market. This coupled with the billions of gallons of alternative fuel infrastructure coming online in the next 24-36 months and I think you are looking at sub-$3.00 gasoline in 2009.

Market inertia is a very hard thing to fight, but $4.00 per gallon gasoline has finally made the American consumer more energy aware and once the American consumer changes course, it's very hard to get them to change back.

Things to watch: Canadian/Venezuelan Oil Sands. 1.3 million barrels of oil per day from Canadian Oil Sand fields now and growing - roughly 10% American consumption. Contrary to the petro-chicken littles fear of depleting oil reserves, Canadian crude reserves are over 170 Billion barrels. Experts believe that Canada will triple production of oil from these fields in the next decade.

Half Full or Half Fool

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:15:00 +0000

Too much popular media can be bad for your health.

Reading the newspaper, watching the news or listening to the talk show drones and you would think that the nation, western civilization -- nay the planet is on the verge of imminent destruction.

Global warming has been added to war, pestilence, famine as the things we should fear most.

This generation is not as well off as the previous we are constantly reminded.

Bringing children into this sad world is, if not criminal, certainly ill advised.

With the incessant drum beat of Malthusian pessimism it is easy to miss the good, the hopeful and the promising.

This weekend in Wise County Virginia thousands of the working poor who find themselves without dental care will trek to the fairgrounds and receive extensive and professional dental care provided free by hundreds of volunteer dental practitioners.

The Virginia Dental Association has sponsored MOMs (Missions of Mercy) projects across the region for years helping tens of thousands of people without asking for any government assistance of any kind.

Dentists, hygienists, assistants and laypeople volunteer their time and resources to provide care to the underserved - many traveling 8 hours each way.

A reporter could witness this event and write about the sorry state of health care in America that would force thousands of people to go without care or write about the generous outpouring of care by the dental community in response to a void that needs to be filled.

Human deprivation or human imitation of the divine? Turns out that we have that choice of lenses through which we can view the world each day.

I've put away my pair of "see the world through the eyes of the popular media" lenses for good.

Misquoting the Killah

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:21:00 +0000

It's not often that I pick up Rolling Stones magazine (how about never?) and less often (if that's possible) that I am drawn to read about Hip Hop rap stars at all - let alone empathetically. But the other day I have to admit that I felt a certain sympathetic vibration for Ghostface Killah, the critically acclaimed Staten Island born rapster.

During the recent holiday travel period I found myself on an airplane sans suitable reading material. I had already read all of my own magazines, nearly memorized the US Airways (award winning) Attache magazine and was getting dirty glances from the man in 12C over whose shoulder I was attempting to read the previous day's USA Today. On my way back from the rear lavatory I spotted an issue of Rolling Stone magazine (Dec 27th issue) in a seat back.

After diving in and lapping up as much information on the current state of popular culture as I could stand, I came across the single page Q&A interview of Killah by Austin Scaggs. What caught my eye was the exploded text from the article - purportedly a quote from the Ghost himslef: "I don't wake up and pop Cristal - I eat a bowl of cereal and read the Koran."

As I read the article though, I was immediately struck by the fact that this quote was at least a partial fabrication. Killah was quoted in the article as having said "I'm not about to say I wake up and pop Cristal and go get my f___kin nails done. I wake up hungry, eat a bowl of cereal, write some music, try to read to read the Koran......"

Perhaps this is a distinction without a difference, but I would say not. The image one gets in the first quote is of a not very humble and perhaps a bit ideologically doctrinaire, while the true quote is of a person a bit more grounded and working on spiritual advancement.

Maybe I'm reading into it too much and perhaps the rap star didn't care one way or another, but I think the author and editors fell down on the job and I don't think the Killah needed a Ghost(face) writer.

Blogged with Flock

If it's Tuesday, it must be Purim

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:04:00 +0000

It's Tuesday and I went to the polls to vote for the my representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate as well as some Fairfax County officials and ballot measures.

When I ran for office myself I used to hear people say "what's the use of going to vote, it doesn't matter who I vote for. They all do the same thing once they get elected.

I used to protest that it did matter. Republicans, I would say, are dedicated to protecting the interests of the taxpayers and they are for smaller, more responsive and responsible government. Given the chance, I would continue, Republicans will change things for the better.

Since taking power in Virginia and nationally, the Republicans seem to have lost their foundational beliefs. Once elected, they are no better than their Democratic predecessors when it comes to pork barrel projects and funding the ever increasing size of the state and national governments that they had previously promised to hold in check. In this case it didn't take absolute power to have absolutely corrupted Republican elected officials nationally.

Purim is the Jewish holiday commemorating the redemption of the Jews from a Persian King's despotic Prime Minister named Haman who sought their annihilation. The hero and heroine of this story are Mordecai and his niece Esther who are able to turn the tables on Haman and save the Jewish people.

This festival has many deep spiritual and esoteric undercurrents and meanings but on its surface seems to be the Jewish equivalent of Mardi Gras. Costume parties are the norm and there is a much quoted halacha (commandment) that one should "drink until one cannot tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman."

Standing in the voting booth, trying to decide whether to vote for Democrats who promise to spend more tax money and a Republicans who promise they won't but do anyway, I feel like politically there doesn't seem to be any difference between Haman and Mordecai.

I think I need a drink!

Why Peace in the Middle East is so Elusive!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:57:00 +0000

Robert J. Gould - In Memoriam

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:22:00 +0000

In 1995, software giant Microsoft corporation introduced a product to help computer users who were experiencing problems with their software or hardware. If you didn’t know what to do in a given situation, this animated figure would jump in and help you. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year it was unceasingly helpful and friendly. It never said no and when you were done with it, 99 times out of a hundred, you had the answer to your question. The software program that could and would solve all your problems was named …………“Bob.”

I always suspected that Bill Gates must have modeled his program after our Bob, because helping people was the quintessence of Bob Gould’s life. He lived to serve and help others. Whether it was in the public arena – where, as many of you already know, he was involved in hundreds of policy debates and political campaigns, or in private – where he acted behind the scenes to help scores of family and friends with difficult situations, Bob was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

In our family, we had a simple but effective contingency plan for any emergency – Call Bob. When our four children were young and my wife asked me for detailed instructions for how to carry on in the event something would happen to me, I was able to reassure her with this advice – “If anything ever happens to me, Call Bob, he’ll know what to do.”

And know he did. I’m sure that I am not alone in this room when I say that he was there countless times for us during business and personal crises. He never sought the limelight or took credit. His advice was always on point and well thought out and the only downside was that there was never a way to repay his generosity in kind. Bob never asked for himself, he only gave to others.

In a world full of smart people, Bob was the smartest person I know. And not just book smart, although if you’d ever had more than a momentary conversation with him you’d attest to the fact that he was – in fact – a genius. No, Bob had great wisdom. He prioritized his days so that he could spend his life with Denise, who he adored and the children he so loved. Bob was pursued by many companies and firms who offered him great sums of money to move from Charleston to Chicago, Dallas and New York. Each time, Bob said that there wasn’t a value to be placed on being able to take his kids to school each day or to be able to have lunch with his wife on a regular basis. That’s real wisdom.

Our Sages tell the story of two twins growing up inside their mother’s belly. For nine months the boys grow strong together - nurtured and protected in their mother’s inner recesses until one day a great catastrophe occurs. The world as they know it starts to shake and rumble; the walls of the womb close in on the boys. In horror they scream as the sky opens up and the one twin is sucked from his brother’s grasp. The remaining twin is heartbroken and in shock. He cries out in his sorrow “Brother, brother where have you gone? What has happened to you? Why did this terrible tragedy befall you?

Our sages say that this brother – like us – is hampered by his limited perspective. What he sees as a death is, in fact, a birth. A birth into a life more wonderful and spectacular that can be imagined in the womb.

The sorrow that we feel, the sadness and loss, the grief and emptiness that naturally follow a tragedy of this magnitude, are feelings that we feel for each other and for ourselves. No tears need be spilled for our friend Bob Gould.

He lived a life worth living. He gave to others. He loved and was loved passionately. His days had meaning and his name will be honored by all who knew him.

If, as the holy texts say, “the righteous shall sit at the right hand of the King of Kings” then we know that our beloved Bob is even now at the side of the throne.

Weight Watchers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 May 2007 03:10:00 +0000

I've been familiar with Weight Watchers nearly all my life.

My father was an early devotee and we sampled lite cuisine for many a meal. I credit the Weight Watchers cookbook with teaching me to love fish. As awful as it sounds now, my Mom used to prepare a buttermilk sauce for Sole that was out of this world.

As a teen and young adult, I had no need for Weight Watchers or any other diet plan. I ate what I wanted and burned the calories off with Ponce de Leon-like ease.

Soon after my wedding, however, I noticed that somehow, my sides were bulging in odd ways. It was as if breast implants had failed and slid down and to the sides.

"Love handles," were what they were affectionately called. (Affectionately is a euphemism for "said by family members who can get away with saying anything.").

In 24 years of marriage, I've been weight watching in the traditional sense. That is to say, watching my weight go up and up and up. 180 and athletic became 220 and pathetic.

So I'm on the wagon now. Watching the points and trying to get active. Muscle mass is "use it or lose it;" so I'm working out a few more minutes each day.

Truth is, after so many years of resisting this type of reform, I'm enjoying it. Meals and work outs are spent conferring with my wife and this only adds to the things that we enjoy together.

I'm feeling better and now that I have to track my points and read labels, I'm somewhat abashed at the amount of calories and fat that I used to consume at one sitting.

Today was my third Weight Watchers weekly gathering and as I heard people tell the stories about how the choices they made affected their physical well being; how exercise and diet helped diabetes and other chronic ailments, it occurred to me that the whole national health care debate is missing an important component - lifestyle choices.

This is not to say that the topic has been totally forgotten. Anti-smoking forces have been saying for years that increased cigarette taxes were only fair since the non-smoking population shouldn't be required to pay for the increased burden on the health care system caused by the personal choices of the smokers.

How then, is that any different than the increased burden placed on the health care system by the lifestyle choices of overeaters or couch potatoes? How about drug users or fast drivers?

When is it appropriate for the citizenry to put constraints on the lifestyle choices others make as a prerequisite for the health care that they are willing to pay for?

In anticipation of that debate, I'm going to have a 1-point fudgsicle.

Phew! I was sweating that one

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 May 2007 03:19:00 +0000

Wanderlust Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:57:00 +0000

I recently returned from India where I spent 10 days on a business trip to Bangalore. This city was an incredible experience at every level. Having never been to India, I wasn't sure what to expect, but every day brought new insights and I am eager to return soon.

Personal - The Indians I met brought new meaning to the word hospitality. Before this trip I thought the Arabs were the most gracious hosts; but the Indians were as generous and thoughtful as the Lebanese, Palestinians and Jordanians I know -- and then some. Not an hour went by that someone wasn't wondering if I was: comfortable, hungry, tired, bored, thirsty, lonesome, overwhelmed, etcetera. At the end of every day we would start to plan out the next day and they would ask me when I wanted to start our meetings. When I would say "whenever it's convenient for you," they looked at me as if I was speaking Swahili. They didn't have any ego or pretense in their corporate hierarchies. When we went to visit fab shops or engineering firms, CEOs took time out of their day to lead the tours. No task was too menial, no kindness was overlooked. If you are looking to go somewhere with a "personal touch," I recommend this area of India highly. One anecdote: We were producing a prototype that required powder coating (a process for painting metal parts) and one of the parts wouldn't be ready until 30 minutes after the powder coating shop closed. The owner of the shop was telling our chief engineer that he would need to close up and go home since we were already late. I pulled our engineer to the side and told him to offer the man double the price of the entire coating job to stay open the extra 30 minutes. He looked at me in an almost hurt way and said "In India, the most important thing is not always the money. A personal touch is always the best thing." He told the man that I wanted to go out and have a glass of tea with them while we waited for the last part. The man was very happy that we invited him and kept his shop open for us. I felt like such a crass American.

Cultural - I only took one day to tour and was able to visit the palace at Mysore, a wetlands sanctuary, a Hindu temple and a Christian church. There are only about 25 million Christians in India (about 2% of the population) but they are heavily concentrated in Southern India and so Bangalore and Mysore have many churches. I saw a dozen or so large churches and cathedrals in the course of my normal travels. The Indian Orthodox Christian church is not Protestant or Catholic. It was established around AD 48 by St. Thomas who visited Kerala (adjoining state to Karnatka - Bangalore's state) and as such is more like the Greek Orthodox church in it's history and organization. The firm that hosted my visit has several hundred employees who are split about 40% Christian, 40% Hindu and 20% Muslim. My driver was Hindu but had a crucifix dangling from his mirror while one of the Christian executives had Hindu idols in the pockets of the car doors. Bangalore also has significant Muslim neighborhoods in which Christians and Hindus shop and work.

Economy - Demographers predict that India will overtake China some time in the next couple of decades in terms of population. In terms of education, I think India is probably ahead already. If Bangalore is any indication of what's going on in the rest of the country (and it's probably not, Bangalore leads rather than follows the nation in terms of high-tech) India will surpass the Chinese sooner in engineering and software design. Notwithstanding what I just wrote about the wide variety of cultures in India, the clear national religion is education. Every family strives to send their children to the best schools, institutes and universities. The colleges may exist in a sea of poverty, but their campuses are pristine islands of learning and achievement. Every Indian I spoke with told me of either a) their educational pedigree or b) the educational achievements of their children. In India education is wealth. Money is not nearly as important in the culture as education.

One day we needed to go shopping for some timing belts and bearing assemblies. The streets were lined with book vendors who had hundreds of titles stacked 6 feet in the air. A few were novels, some more were business non-fiction; but 80% were science, software and engineering titles like "Fluid Dynamics," "Mechanical Devices," "Programming in Perl," etcetera. Chemistry, Physics, Software, Electronics were all subjects about which you can buy scores of texts from a hundred Bangalore street vendors. The neighborhood where we were building our prototype was filled with hundreds of machine shops with lathes, casts, drills, punches, presses, brakes, etcetera. Interspersed with these shops are offices with engineers working on the most advanced CAD/CAM/CAE packages turning out elegant solutions for customers around the world. Outside, the streets are dirt, the sewers are open and barefoot children and livestock share the roads with trucks, scooters, motorcycles and bicycles. 100 yards away, HP is building a 2.5 million square foot state of the art software center. Progress is coming to India in this way. Dirt roads take educated engineers to cottage industry offices where they design and manufacture software and hard goods for GE Healthcare, IBM, Microsoft, John Deere, Catepillar, HP and a host of other multi-national companies.

One company we visited had 10 advanced CNC machine tools making parts for Canadian and US customers. In my conversation with the CEO of the company he told me that he had started his business in a small shed (garage) 6 years ago and now has 180 employees in three facilities. (The funny part of that conversation was that he was showing me a part coming off the line and told me that it was made for a company that he was visiting next month in WV. Turns out the company is right up the road from my farm.)

India does not see itself as a low-cost producer. The firm I was visiting has architects on contract to do renderings in the Phillipines and Chile where they believe the quality is higher and the wages equal or lower. They are looking to Bolivia and Vietnam for accounting and to other countries besides China for manufacturing. They recognize that their political infrastructure makes it hard to compete with China in manufacturing and would like to establish themselves as a knowledge-based economy.

Political - I didn't get to spend too much time on politics while I was there except to note that one day we were warned not to go to a certain area of town because of a riot happening there. There was a march of Muslim "students" protesting the killing of Sadaam Hussein. This protest turned into a riot with shops sacked and cars burned. Bangalore is in the stable South of the country. This sort of thing is pretty rare. While I was there, several people were kidnapped and killed in the north of the country where Muslim/Hindu tensions are much more pronounced. We don't hear much about this in the US, but it is a serious and ongoing conflict. Likewise, the Indo-Pakistani conflict is as serious a threat to regional stability as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to Middle East peace.

There are not many countries that I feel compelled to return to immediately, but India is definitely such a place.

Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 23:00:00 +0000

As the year comes to a close, I saw a couple of quotes on gratitude that I thought were eloquent and worthy of repetition:

"Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy." - Jacques Maritain

"My country gave me schooling, independence of action and opportunity for service. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay." - Herbert Hoover

I was taught that the power of a thank you is in the description of that for which one is grateful and the reasons why.

Children are wont to throw a quick "thank you" or an even quicker "thanks" as they grab a gift or treat and run off to enjoy it. Far fewer are the times when we hear someone express their gratitude properly and fully.

I've told my children that a proper thank you is like a book report - it has to express to the listener the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of the thanks.

Grandson opens the birthday card and sees the iTunes gift certificate for $15 and says:

Scenario 1: "Oh great! iTunes!!! Thanks Grandad."

Scenario 2: "Thank you Granddad for the iTunes gift card. I use my iPod all the time and I haven't had enough money to get the new Rascal Flatts songs that I like. Now I'll be able to buy those and some other new songs to listen to while I'm riding the bus to school. I was hoping to get one of these."

I'll admit that it's hard to remember to thank someone properly and even more difficult to get one's children to do so as well. But after a while it can become second nature.

Anyway, thanks for reading this blog...........

Size Does Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:57:00 +0000

I spent last weekend camping out with my son's Boy Scout Troop aboard the USS New Jersey. This masterpiece of naval architecture is the , fastest, strongest, longest and most decorated battleship in the world. She was born during WWII and was taken out of and put back into service a record 5 times. After serving off of Beirut in the 80's she was finally mothballed and then retired in Camden, NJ where she now patiently entertains thousands of fans and former colleaugues.

We learned how the big 16" 50 caliber guns (6 forward and 3 aft) accurately placed rounds the weight of a VW bug on target 26 miles away. We saw the batteries of dual 5" guns that only throw projectiles 10 miles away or 36,000 feet skyward (anti-aircraft), the Phalanx anti-missile / anti-aircraft systems and the quad batteries of Tomohawk Cruise Missiles.

Unfortunately, we weren't on board long enough to properly tend to the 6 on board museums, but I am sure we'll allocate time when we return; and we certainly will return.

The Battleship New Jersey accepts families, scout groups and other organizations for overnight encampments. They provide dinner, breakfast, a guilded tour and time in a flight simulator. Th docents were knowledgeable and pleasant and bunking in the Navy racks gave the kids something that they won't experience at Disneyland. I highly recommend it.

http://battleshipnewjersey.org 1-866-877-6262 extension 203

Lucky Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 03:58:00 +0000

I'm a lucky dog. Came out of that one clean.

No need to worry, I'm fully recovered now.

Please don't make a fuss. The surgery was a complete success.

Yes, it was a serious infection.

Yes, many people have died from it.

Yes, it could have been fatal.

But I'm fine. Really!

What did I have?

A Periapical infection and a root canal.

You see it is only by virtue of the fact that I was born in the US in 1958 that I'm alive. Had I been born 150 years ago or 150 miles south of the the border, it's quite possible that the infection would have gone untreated and I would quite possible have died.

Althouth the pain of the infection was excruciating (the root canal was a piece of cake by comparison), I never feared for my life. I knew that once I made the decision, I would have my pick of hundreds of trained medical practitioners who would operate on me and within a couple of days I would be back to normal.

How different the fate for so many people in so many far away places and times.

As I was recuperating I began to list the number of times that I was saved by the fortune of my birth place and time.

Well there's the fact that I was a 3.5 pound baby born 6 weeks premature. That's almost certainly curtains for most of the history and geography of the world.

Then there's the childhood bleeding disease that the doctors at first thought was hemophelia but later successfully treated with cortizone therapy.

Then there's the time I had infected tonsils and the time I fell off the cliff and the time in college when I had meningitis. Oh yeah and don't forget last year's dance with thyroid cancer.

Let's see, that's six times in my life where in other times and places I most certainly would have been that many feet under.

Perhaps I'm not a lucky dog. Perhaps I'm of the feline persuasion and I've got three more lives left to burn.

Gone But Not Forgotten

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 07:49:00 +0000

On a recent trip to Budapest, our family stopped at the Communist Statue Park (graveyard). My children were raised on a steady diet of anti-communism, so it was interesting for them at an intellectual level.

But standing before these icons of an oppressive era thankfully gone by, I was struck by a tremendous sense of what I could only identify as nostalgia mixed with de ja vu.

Nostalgia:
Growing up in the 60's we learned to duck under our desks during the mock air raid drills. We cheered on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacemen as they sought to best the Cosmonauts. We heard the body counts on the radio as young men came back from Vietnam in bags in the fight against Communist North Vietnam. We saw Communism spread across the globe from Peru to Nicaragua in our hemisphere to places like Ethiopia and Burma half a world away.

De Ja Vu:
I remember that there was a sense of invincibility about Communism in general and about the Soviet Union in particular. Nobody really thought you could beat the Soviet Union - they were too big, too committed AND they were everywhere. The Communists were pressing us everywhere. The only continent that seemed safe was Antarctica. The best we could hope to do is to appease and contain them.

Amazingly enough, we hear the same things today about Radical Islam.

They're too big.

Too committed.

And besides, they're everywhere. Muslims in Africa. Muslims in Asia. Muslims taking over Europe.

The best we can do is appease and contain them.

One day, my children will take my grandchildren to the new World Trade Center. They'll tell them how when they were growing up nobody thought that we'd be able to defeat Radical Islam. How they bombed us and killed our innocents. How we fought great wars to free enslaved peoples in their countries.

I'm sure at an intellectual level, my grandchildren will be interested.

But the sight won't stir their souls like it will for my children.

Just like it did for me when I saw this statue.