Bull City Mutterings

Why The Knee-Jerk Over Entertainment Tax Reform?

2010-09-02T16:28:00.001-04:00

It is as humorous as it is disturbing to watch some entertainment businesses knee-jerk about a tax reform proposal in the North Carolina General Assembly to eliminate a 3% gross receipts tax on admissions and substitute a regular sales tax instead.

Entertainment/Admission businesses like sports teams and theater owners/operators are an important segment in the tourism sector and I have many friends there (tourism is not an industry but a sector involving 6 or 7 different industries including entertainment.)

I know some who are cringing but in silence at this embarrassing public knee-jerk over something that will actually be to their advantage.

Entertainment/Admission businesses, by the way, have never been shy about proposing taxes on customers of other kinds of businesses to pay for their facilities.

But many are notorious for threatening seppuku (ritual suicide) if they themselves are asked to collect a “user” tax from the actual patrons who use their facilities.

Yes, that’s extremely hypocritical and some of these same folks stood by while others spread fear and misunderstanding among Durham restaurateurs a few years ago by purposely fueling the misperception that a proposed prepared food tax would be a gross receipts tax. Of course, it isn’t.

That makes it even more puzzling then that they are now insisting a tax that is in fact a gross receipts tax is preferable to a sales tax.

To my advantage, I was well schooled in the 1970s by business leaders in another city, where I learned that a gross receipts tax is one of the most damaging taxes to which any business can be subjected when one was levied to fund a short-term mega-project there.

Here is the difference between a gross receipts tax and a sales tax:

A gross receipts tax is a tax levied on the total gross revenues of a business, regardless of source. It is levied on the SELLER, not the buyer.

A sales tax is a consumption tax, not a tax on the business itself. It is charged at the point of purchase and merely collected from the buyer by the seller who remits it to the governing agency to fund services used by both.

Sales tax has been proven in studies to be associated with economic growth, gross receipts tax has been associated with cascading or pyramiding that isn’t good for growth (read links above.)

The move by the North Carolina General Assembly is a no-brainer and these businesses should stop whining and direct any influence to how the resulting revenues will be deployed. On second thought, if they think it the status quo is so great, maybe the State should just double and triple the “gross receipts” tax on the whiners! Couldn’t happen to be more worthy bunch!

7 Myths Driving Irrational US Immigration Policy!

2010-09-02T08:53:00.001-04:00

Below is a great column by Darrell M. West , a VP at The Brookings Institution, heading the part of the think tank analyzing government issues. In addition to the 7 myths below, he’s also published a great new 182 pager titled Brain-Gain, Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy (click here to read a sample.)

7 Myths That Have Clouded The Immigration Debate

By Darrell M. West

The United States is shockingly irrational in the way it handles immigration. Unlike other nations that strategically use immigration to pursue national goals, we lurch from concerns about border security to illegal immigrants to drugs and crime without considering our long-term political and economic priorities.

One of the chief sources of irrationality is the myths that have arisen about immigrants and immigration policy. Befitting a subject that is politically charged, here's where ordinary Americans and policymakers often get it wrong:

Myth No. 1 — Illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. They actually pay a variety of taxes. Because many undocumented workers hold jobs, a large number pay income, Social Security and Medicare taxes, as well as sales taxes when they purchase items in stores and property taxes when they rent or own homes. One study found that they pay $162 billion annually in federal, state and local taxes. Another project found that the average immigrant paid $1,800 more in taxes than government benefits received.

Myth No. 2 — The United States rarely deports illegal immigrants. In fact, the government deports 350,000 people annually. Since 1999, more than 2.2 million people have been deported from the United States, including visitors who overstayed their visas, lied on immigration forms, or committed serious crimes. State and federal officials regularly check the immigrant status of those who are arrested or serving time in prison.

Myth No. 3 — Economics and business drive U.S. immigration policy. Two-thirds of the 1 million official visas awarded each year are based on family unification. Conversely, only 15% of visas each year are awarded for employment purposes. Other nations devote a far higher percentage of visas to economic or employment-related reasons. Canada, for example, grants more than half of its visas for employment-related reasons.

Myth No. 4 — The United States makes a special effort to attract scientists, engineers and technological experts. Right now, we set aside only 65,000 of America's nearly 1 million visas each year for high-skilled workers. This is well below the 195,000 high-skilled visas that the U.S. allowed from 1999 to 2004. One study found that 25% of all the technology and engineering businesses launched in the USA from 1995 to 2005 had a foreign-born founder. In Silicon Valley, that number was 52.4%.

Myth No. 5 — The courts treat immigrants fairly. In immigration court deportation proceedings, those who have a lawyer win their cases 46% of the time, compared with 16% for those without a lawyer. Because these are civil courts, defendants have no Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and no guarantee of legal representation.

Myth No. 6 — Americans oppose allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the United States and become citizens. Polling data suggest there is public support for a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants currently in the country, subject to certain conditions. Results from a Pew Research Center survey show that 63% favor a "path to citizenship" if illegal immigrants pass a background check, pay fines and have a job.

Myth No. 7 — News stories about immigration are balanced. Studies of mainstream print and broadcast coverage in recent years have found, for instance, that news outlets are twice as likely to focus on the costs rather than benefits of immigration.

Given the importance of immigration to our economic growth, security and national identity, we need a new narrative. We should think about finding the next Albert Einstein, Sergey Brin, or Andrew Grove, future innovators who can start businesses and create high-paying jobs. An immigration policy based on an "Einstein Principle" would increase our odds for economic prosperity and enhance job creation and innovation.

How Travelers Use Smartphones!

2010-09-01T13:10:00.001-04:00

Peter Yesawich and I worked together for only about 40 minutes more than 20 years ago. We found ourselves immediately on the “same page” but unfortunately no one else in the room was. Peter and I are both information-driven though we didn’t realize that everyone else thought each participant was expected to only share their “opinions.”

Oh, how many times have I seen that scary movie?

Peter moved south to found Orlando-based Ypartnership and I came east and a bit south to jump-start and run the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. I was always disappointed another opportunity never came along to work with Peter before my retirement eight months ago after nearly 40 years in community marketing.

Peter and his team distribute one of the most useful eNews/blogs for Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) professionals. If as I am, you’re a big user of a Smartphone, then you’ll want to check out this blog. They aren’t as prevalent yet as those of us who use them think they are…but this research is an excellent peak into how they will be used when they become ubiquitous.

Click on the chart to enlarge but better yet click on the blog. And you’re well advised to either subscribe or add it to your Google blog reader.

Six Tips For Giving Great Elevator Pitches

2010-09-01T07:04:00.001-04:00

Getting community and business leaders to understand or care about complex things isn’t always easy. They are almost always smart enough, just not always good enough listeners or readers or maybe, like I’m often accused, they just don’t really listen or read all the way through!

Here are six excellent tips from the Brothers Heath on how to make complex messages simple:

SIX TIPS FOR GIVING A GREAT ELEVATOR PITCH

An elevator pitch is a mixture of an explanation and a sales pitch. It's intended to get people excited about your organization, your new product, or even you personally (in an interview situation). Here's how to give a good one:

1. Think short - no shorter than 30 seconds and no longer than 3 minutes. Time it.

2. If your topic is complex, use the "anchor & twist" format to orient your audience.

3. Don't wing it, script it. Once you've figured out how to explain something well, there is NO value in novelty. Tell it the same (effective) way every time.

4. 'Why' comes before 'What.' People will understand better what you're doing if they first know why you're doing it. Here's an example: "Most people invest some of their savings and give some of it away to charity. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do both at once -- get interest AND impact? That's why we invented the Calvert Community Investment Notes."

5. Mandatory: Include a story. For a product pitch, tell a customer's story. For a nonprofit pitch, talk about the people you help. For self-promotion, highlight a time when you nailed it.

6. Check out other pitches for inspiration. Here's one that we worked on for Peter Singer's great book, The Life You Can Save. And here's a great article about elevator pitches, starring Dave Yewman and Andy Craig, the masters of the craft.

Republished from Dan and Chip Heath

Glenn Beck And Re-Routing A Dream Ride

2010-08-31T14:02:00.005-04:00

Glenn Beck pontificating about American values got me thinking about re-routing my dream to one day ride my Harley-Davidson Cross Bones the 2,000+ miles across the United States from my home in Durham, North Carolina to visit my daughter in Salt Lake City, Utah.

This year seems particularly intriguing because it is the 100th anniversary of the death of author Mark Twain known to his friend, my great-great grandfather Thomas K. Messersmith as “Sam Clemens.” They were born a year apart in Missouri about 175 years ago.

When they were age 5 or so, (same as my youngest grandson is now) the governor of Missouri issued an “extermination” order on people like Glenn Beck.

“Extermination” sure puts Arizona in perspective, right Glenn?

Observers, including kids that age, would notice 10,000 people, stripped of their property, fleeing through the cold, rainy and snowy countryside across the frozen Mississippi River just north of Hannibal to the safe harbor and kindness of citizens of Quincy, Illinois.

Puts “Sanctuary City” in perspective, doesn’t it Glenn?

The people who had been ordered “exterminated” were close-knit Christians. But they were different. Missourians, then pro-slavery (an American value at the time, Glenn,) wanted to exterminate these people because they were mostly either immigrants and/or northern abolitionists.

Prior to the order to exterminate, they had already experienced mob violence such as tar and featherings, beatings, rapes, destruction of homes and barns and after the order, a massacre of 18 men, women and children.

It made no difference that many of these people marked for “extermination” came from families who had been Americans since the early 1600s and had fought and died for Independence. They were different and insular. They were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, nicknamed Mormons.

By the 1860 census, my great-great grandfather had left Missouri for Virginia City, Nevada as a 25 year old miner in the gold rush. Mark Twain joined him there as a partner, after stopping in Utah to visit those same Mormons who had eventually been forced to flee Illinois as well. Twain mentions my great-great grandfather in several letters home.

When they didn’t strike it rich, Thomas joined the Union Army and served in the cavalry 3rd California Volunteers during the Civil War under General Patrick O’Connor (saving the General’s life in one skirmish) guarding the Central Overland Mail Route and peacekeeping between settlers and Native American Tribes like the Shoshone. This is the route previously made famous for a brief time by the Pony Express but operating then as a Wells Fargo Stagecoach route on which another of my great grandfathers was later a driver and on which Twain had made his way to Nevada.

And Mark Twain, well he went on to be Mark Twain. I’m not sure he and Thomas stayed in touch. When the war ended, my great-great grandfather settled near Cedar Fort, Utah between Utah Lake and the Oquirrh (Oker) Mountains, 45 miles south of Salt Lake City. Like Glenn Beck, he became a member of the Mormon Church in agreement with his soon-to-be wife.

But different than the gregarious Twain, Thomas Messersmith (also called Tom Smith and Tom M. Smith both by Twain and in subsequent census) remained a loner much of his life, preferring to be out herding sheep, especially after his wife died. His youngest son Ralph was my mother’s maternal grandfather.

On my planned motorcycle trip west, I think I’ll skip Missouri and cut north along the Mississippi after crossing Kentucky, carving along the edge of Illinois and then following The Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail for the remainder of the trip across Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming.

I had three ancestors on the first or vanguard wagon train of 147 people and 72 wagons in 1846-47 that cut the trail more than 1,000 miles west so nearly 70,000 others could follow over a 20 year period.

Charles A. Harper, a carriage maker, served as a wheelwright and mechanic, keeping a journal of which I have a photocopy. Two others included Charles Shumway, a captain of ten and his son Andrew.

Still another ancestor, Sebert Shelton, along with 500 others, answered the call of their country and enlisted instead in the Mormon Battalion, heading south and west to serve in the war with Mexico. You can’t say these folks weren't loyal and resilient.

I was raised in and have a deep regard for that culture and its place in my heritage, even though it hasn’t been an active part of my life for nearly 40 years now. But I don’t agree with how far right wing many members of that faith seem today. Nor do I agree with most of Glenn Beck’s inflammatory and often hypocritical rhetoric.

To me both would do well to remember with humility those people of the same faith who endured that dark period in history and hopefully become much more tolerant and accepting of other people who are different.

Now, Glenn, that's an American value to which you really do need to return!

Toolkit Pioneered To Better Equip DMO Governing Boards

2010-08-31T09:11:00.001-04:00

Known nationwide for innovations, Durham’s official marketing agency, the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau (DCVB), has created an online toolkit on behalf of the Destination Marketing Association of North Carolina. The toolkit will help its other member Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) across the state provide more consistent and thorough orientations for governing board members.

The toolkit (click here or on the image to see four sample screens) can be guided or self-guided and provides governing boards (known as Tourism Development Authorities in North Carolina) an overview of not only the roles of a DMO in general but also the nature of tourism as demand-side economic development and the various types of organizations involved.

The toolkit also offers a consistent way to aid governing board members with an understanding of the responsibility to safeguard the North Carolina General Assembly’s legislative guidelines and restrictions when local option room occupancy and tourism development taxes are enabled to self-fund visitor centric economic and cultural development for cities, towns and counties.

The sample screen captures linked here are but a very few of the pieces of the toolkit which is being rolled out as one of many benefits to membership in DMANC. The toolkit, the latest DCVB collaboration on which ABC 11 WTVD provided voiceover, is destined to be just the the latest of the Bureau’s ever-expanding list of well more than 120 recognized innovations and best practices.

Congratulations to DCVB and DMANC!

Shouldn’t the 30% Mark Up For Paying Parking Tickets Online, Actually Be A Discount?

2010-08-30T08:02:00.001-04:00

Clancy Systems, a private company that manages street parking and fines here, is doing the City of Durham a disservice, it seems to me. In my experience Clancy does a good job of street parking enforcement, especially at the start of the day when people are having an early coffee.

But Clancy has it all wrong when it charges a 30% fee for online payment. The company actually saves money on handling by not having to have someone manually open envelopes, post payments and then deposit them in the bank and/or transfer payments to the City.

Ironically, Clancy doesn’t charge a handling fee at all when you pay by check, which does actually require handling. Not sure this current approach is doing the City or the person with the ticket or Clancy a service. This kind of thinking seems clearly basakwards!

If anything there should be a discount on the amount of the ticket for paying online, not a 30% mark up. There is a monthly fee for an online merchant account and a transaction fee but it doesn’t work out to the 30% mark up Clancy is using.

Most businesses and organizations absorb the fee or build into the cost of doing business overall because it is both a convenience and a cost savings in the end, just as they are doing by not charging extra for the handling required when payments are made the old fashioned way.

Clancy’s website prides itself on technology and “taking your parking agency to the next level. And the City already does a good job of taking payments via its own website for water bills etc.

The City needs to work with Clancy Systems on a much fairer system for online payment. Come to think of it, Clancy should make it so you can scan a bar code off the ticket and pay it on the spot with your smartphone.

The Future Is Bright and Green

2010-08-27T07:14:00.001-04:00

I confess to being a gadget guy but then I come from at least five generations of gadget folks. Favorite reads like Popular Science Magazine , Wired Magazine or gizmag make me very hopeful about the future.

For instance, I’ve read recently about roadway coatings that capture 45% of carbons from the air and solar panels built into roadways to feed the grid and lightweight solar panels the size of leaves that mimic wall-crawling ivy on homes and office buildings to generate power.

We’ve got really creative people and market forces focused on very promising solutions to these problems. And that’s very energizing, so to speak, pun intended:)

Author Dan Heath and I knew we had something in common the day we met a few years ago when we both happened to be visiting another city. We have Durham connections.

He is a senior fellow at Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship here and the DCVB where I worked at the time was about to honor several social entrepreneurs and innovators at Durham’s Annual Tribute Luncheon.

Dan and his brother Chip write often about the process of innovation and how it is often more about adapting ideas from one context and applying them to another. The solutions above are good examples of this type of innovation and why I believe the future is so hopeful.

“Unexpressed Anger Colonizes The Emotional Life” But Just Acting Angry Is No Substitute

2010-08-26T06:50:00.002-04:00

People who feel superior because they are suppressing anger should read an outstanding, jam-packed little paperback entitled The Forgiving Self, by renowned psychotherapist Dr. Robert Karen.

Almost lyrical, the book is so loaded with thought-provoking insight that I had to put it down and reflect after every few sentences. Here for instance are a handful of quotes on the importance of expressing anger found on 209, 210 and 211:

“If we're not free to be angry, if we don't allow ourselves our aggression, we are not free to be, and we're certainly not free to love.

Unexpressed anger colonizes the emotional life. Its like a cancer, sapping our vitality, aggravating our feelings of shame, weighing us down with depression and secreting a steady stream of bitterness throughout our being.

The hardest thing about anger is to have the freedom to feel and express it and still hold on to our caring.

People need to be fully expressed, in all their feeling, positive and negative, even if they go overboard at times. Somewhere in their rage is an important message that needs to be heard and made sense of, by themselves as well as others.

Anger, like any other form of protest, can be expressed with an openness to the other person's point of view, in combination with other feelings, in various intensities, with an acknowledgement of one's uncertainty.

It's possible to say I'm angry, without acting angry. The important thing is to be able to allow ourselves the full complexity of who we are."

But Karen isn’t writing so much about the kind of “anger” that is actually more a kind of “hostility,” the subject of several books by Durham author Dr. Redford Williams who heads behavioral medicine at Duke.

Nor is he talking about the “enacted” anger or hostility fueled if not spawned by co-called “reality television shows.” I can’t stand to watch them but in surfing on an occasion or two, I’ve noticed that the people who are showing so much rage are often shown moments later hugging. They are either hypocrites or their anger wasn’t that “real” after all.

Is it just me or is “enacted” anger becoming epidemic in real life now? I’m not just referring to the fight at the end of a night of wedding anniversary celebration in which 8 were shot and 4 killed including the groom as recently happened in Buffalo, NY.

I’m talking about the young lady I witnessed acting out her anger with lots of body language when as she was turning out of Sam’s Club, she had to suddenly stop when an elderly gentleman almost pulled into traffic from the area where he had had been refueling his car.

It was though she had to go on and on and really put on a show.

Or the panhandler at Geer and Roxboro one day who, after I had politely guided her to a shelter instead, spun away in a huff and almost walked right into the car that had pulled into the left turn lane beside me. She let loose on the driver and then the driver who, also a female, had to get out of her car and make a big show of body language that she might chase the panhandler down in anger.

I know this artificially fueled strutting and chest thumping and “you can’t disrespect me” B.S. is making its way down into pre-schools across the country.

Maybe reality TV shows and even news reports of this behavior should include points illustrated by the bullets above from Dr. Karen’s book as “warnings.” Of course, this would include reality TV commentary like Boehner, Rush or Beck, no?

Two of My Goals Are Up In The Air This Fall

2010-08-25T06:30:00.001-04:00

Okay, its been week now that I’ve been “smelling” and “feeling” the coming of the Fall season. Temps are still in the 90s in Durham, North Carolina but the angle of the sun, the smell of organic matter, the slight tinge of crispness in the air all tell me my favorite season is imminent.

I have two primary goals this year during what has always been the best time of the year in my opinion. One is to get my sports pilot license and the other to take a take a ride with Carolina Barnstormers.

From mid-September through mid-June, Mike Ratty flies people over Durham in his very cool WACO biplane taking off and landing from a grass air strip here called Lake Ridge.

Originally WACOs (pronounced Wah-co, not Way-co) were manufactured from 1919 and 1947 and used as trainers for WWII but you can still buy new versions today. My favorite from that era is the simpler Stearman (kind of a Ford, Chevy thing.) But neither airplane is in my sights.

I do plan to learn to fly a tail-dragger and hope to learn in today’s update of the famed Piper Cub now manufactured by Cubcrafters. But I’m very partial to the very cool little amphibian in this link. So watch out Sis, this may be how I arrive at the lake next summer:-)

Oh no, I’m not giving up riding the Cross Bones. That’s how I get back and forth to the airfield (although I did recently switch to a seat with a backrest that makes all the difference for longer rides.)

Durham’s Big Surprise For First Year University Students

2010-08-24T08:12:00.002-04:00

Several years ago, when I was with DCVB, we worked through Dr. Mitch Javidi at NANOPHRADES and Dr. Larry Moneta VP of Student Affairs to conduct a series of focus groups with Duke First Year Students (appears freshmen is no longer PC.)

The feedback helped pinpoint sources of many misimpressions or misinformation and most importantly unwrap what would help first year students experience more of Durham during their brief four-year tenure (and hopefully longer if Durham continues to “brain-gain”.)

I’ll never forget how one group indicated that the biggest problem they had with getting out and doing more in the community is that everything seemed like a “silo”, e.g. Duke, Downtown, Northgate, Southpoint, RTP etc.

Sometimes they weren’t even sure what locations were in Durham vs. surrounding communities.

Remember, students aren’t permitted to have cars during their first year and they must live on campus, specifically, Duke East Campus, one of three arching around Downtown.

Results from that experience tell me that one of the greatest gifts for the new class of 2014 which just settling in today, will be the Bull City Connector. Everyone, including students, can just hop on or off one of the BCC coaches fare-free, every 15 minutes M-F from 7 am to 6 p.m., then every 20 minutes from 6 p.m. to Midnight. Saturday and Sunday, the buses run 7 a.m. to Midnight, every 20 minutes.

First year students will have easy access now to eight different dining, entertainment and shopping districts (click on the image above to open the interactive map) including the two that bracket the campus - Ninth Street District and Brightleaf District, not to mention the majority of Durham’s nationally recognized festivals and more than a dozen performing arts and sports venues.

Students from North Carolina Central University connect fare-free via a bus route from that campus to the Durham Transportation Center.

No more silos! Welcome to Durham – Where Great Things Happen!

Three Practical Reasons For Pervasive Child and Afterschool Care

2010-08-24T07:28:00.002-04:00

I have always appreciated the challenges that single-parents face but that was from a workplace perspective. From that vantage point, I was always impressed over the years as I observed how several single-parents who were working with me raised children on their own from birth or pre-school all the way into college.

I was pleased when DCVB, for whom I was chief executive for 20+ years was recognized nationally for being family friendly and workplace flexible.

But a recent, more up close and personal experience, has given me an even deeper empathy, particularly about the need for high quality, affordable childcare and extended afterschool care.

Childcare alone takes more than 26% of “living income standard (LIS,)” an estimate of the various expenses for a family of four in Durham. This is a much thorough analysis than the outmoded Federal Poverty Level and worth a read.

To put the 26% for childcare in Durham in perspective, that’s more than housing and healthcare or transportation expenses combined. Of the poor families in Durham, nearly 50% work and 32% own their own homes and I don’t have it at my fingertips but I’m certain a disproportionate share are single-parent households.

Now before you go getting all judgmental on me and thinking to yourself, “here goes another bleeding heart,” or “didn’t these people bring this on themselves,” or that “you shouldn’t have to pay for it.”

Just think this through with me. I don’t think this is time to be judgmental or “holier than thou.” Here are just three of many pragmatic reasons why I believe the need for universal childcare/after-school care, especially for single-parent households is about much more than just household expenses:

It is pivotal to productivity in the workplace. Working parents must be assured their children are in good hands in order to flex with the demands of the workplace and the workplace needs single-parents.

It is vital to mental and emotional well-being. Single-parents in particular rarely have the backstop care-givers and that they need as respite so they can function both as a good parent and in the workplace.

Most important, it is absolutely critical to “closing” the achievement or student performance gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children, something crucial both for humanitarian and economic reasons.

Those of us who have studied “apples to apples” breakdowns of achievement weren’t surprised at all by the recent Durham Herald-Sun analysis indicating that things have begun to slip in Durham after years of hard fought gains. Personally, I think we took our “eye off the objective” as a community.

We allowed the intensity and focus DPS had underway for several years to be traded for quieter, more civil school board meetings. Frankly, we need to get back to what former superintendent Ann Denlinger meant by keeping the “main thing, the main thing.” If that means we need to deal with less than civil elements during school board meetings then so be it.

And we need to challenge those who don’t want to pay for better childcare and afterschool care because they are all hung up on some moralistic, down their nose judgment. “But for the grace of God…”

We can either stay preoccupied with judging and stereotyping people we don’t know and circumstances of which we know nothing about or we can make things more productive at work, in the home, in school and in society.

We’re already paying for it in societal costs anyway, we just as well pay for it on the front-end to make society better and more productive.

Are You With Us, Or Against Us?

2010-08-23T07:51:00.001-04:00

Karl Albrecht wrote a great post a couple of days ago entitled the “Tyranny of Two.” It reminded me of when a former Mayor and friend of mine explained why it always seemed that no matter how hard we tried, we could never get the head of another community organization to be on the same page.

“With that guy,” he said, “you’re either on his team or you’re not.” Or a guy I know who calls to whine if a source ever tries to give balanced feedback to a reporter’s questions but is only partially quoted. He believes news reports about his interests must be exclusively Pollyanna.

Karl’s review of current brain research indicates we don’t always have to be what he terms “dichotomous thinkers.” He also uses another term, “polarized thinkers,” which is an apt description it seems to me for what one former Republican congressman noted in an interview Saturday discussing how these days the Republican Party is deriding anything proposed by another party but purposely refusing to put any ideas on the table.

They are able, I surmise, to pull this off because unfortunately, as Karl points out in his blog, “bipolarized conflict is the very essence of most of the news” these days, making “dichotomizing their religion.”

And as the authors of the book The Big Sort note, one of the reasons people all over the country are sorting into places populated with “people just like them” is to avoid having to hear any information with which they disagree and polarization is a convenient way to be able to dismiss anything else. Karl refers to it in his blog as “option fatigue.” They just don’t “want” to hear any other sides to an issue.

Noting near the end of his blog, that if “we’re predisposed to polarize…And not all polarization is dysfunctional…"How can we improve our thinking and reacting, so as to liberate ourselves from the extremes…” Karl gives 7 mental tricks to keep dichotomization from sapping our creativity.

I chuckled both to and at myself as I read them because not one of the 7 comes naturally to me. Most I had to learn the hard way over the years.

In Durham, At Duke!

2010-08-22T08:21:00.002-04:00

People are justifiably very envious of Durham, North Carolina as the home of Duke University. Time and again people in surrounding communities have tried to either appropriate Duke’s identity or insinuate that the university should somehow be “above” Durham. “Bless their hearts” as we say in the Southeast when people are being ridiculous.

But fortunately, Duke’s leadership hasn’t fallen for that crap although there may be commuters from these other communities who work there and reportedly try to perpetuate it.

Duke Performances’ Director Aaron Greenwald is one of many including Coaches Krzyzewski and Cutcliffe who set a great example of how to leverage both the identity of a great university and its hometown.

Duke Performances’ slogan for its series is an example of how easily and smoothly it can be to link community and university, “In Durham, At Duke, A Nation Made New!”

It is one thing to be home to a world renowned university but what makes Duke University unique is that it has always understood that it takes a great community to make a great university.

By the way, Duke Performances are made accessible to every part of the Durham community as its tickets are offered as much as 30% below the cost of comparable events elsewhere and click here for ways to help ensure it can continue to do that.

63 Other Families Deserve To Have This WWII Era Image

2010-08-21T10:57:00.001-04:00

When my Dad was going through basic at Camp Roberts in the latter years of World War II, they took a graduation photograph (click on the image to enlarge) culminating 17 weeks of training. Fortunately, on the back of my copy, someone took time to write the last names row by row of all 64 people in the photo including officers (click second image below to read the names.)

It even looks like the handwriting of my Mom, who moved from Idaho to Paso Robles CA to be as close as she could to Dad until he shipped out for Europe. When he could, a soldier identified on photographs as Andy gave Dad a lift into town to see my Mom.

Unfortunately, the unit ID isn’t fully captured in the photo. I’ve searched and searched but can’t find the numbers that do show on that pennant anywhere in the units that went through Camp Roberts but then again, Dad was only one of more than 400,000 soldiers trained there as U.S. Army Infantry replacements during World War II.

I hope by just posting this, I can make it available somehow to some of the people pictured who, unlike my Dad, may still be alive and probably in their early to mid 80s. But mostly I hope someone(s) searching the Internet can help me get these images to their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who may not be as fortunate as I am to have this photo with the names handwritten on the back.

Seeing Wildlife Still Makes My Heart Go “Boom, Boom!”

2010-08-20T07:39:00.002-04:00

Even growing up in Idaho, I was never much into hunting. My Dad had given it up after WWII before I was really of age. So on the few times I went with friends, I was much more likely to be shooting with my camera than my inherited twice, hand-me-down 1892 .32 Winchester Saddle Ring Carbine.

Viewing the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter , as I turned 30, I found myself identifying both with Robert De Niro’s character “Michael” who deliberately misses shooting an Elk near the three minute mark in this clip and Christopher Walken’s character “Nick” who was always “more into the trees.”

If you haven’t seen the film, it is a classic (AFI’s 53rd on its 100 greatest) set both in a small Western Pennsylvania mill town (‘66-‘74) before, during and after some friends serve in Vietnam. Although the spectacular mountain hunting scenes were actually filmed in the North Cascades National Park in Washington State (shown below.)

Years ago, while living in Alaska, I saw a painting by a Native Sugpiaq or Alutiiq artist Alvin Eli Amason who is my age, and the irony for me wasn’t lost.

It is the one (shown above) of a huge bear’s head and the words below it, “My Heart Went Boom, Boom, Boom.” And that describes the exhilaration I still feel whenever I see wildlife as I often do these days during motorcycle rides.

Earlier this month (August) I was riding slowly down through a tree canopied Durham residential neighborhood backing up to the Eno River to drop off a friend after an incredible morning Harley ride through North Durham countryside. Suddenly, but like it was in slow motion, a harem of 7 or 8 deer, led by a doe and a 6 or 8 point Buck bound across the road right in front of the bike, while another four or five froze in a yard.

That’s one of many reasons why I want to mount a GoPro camera on the Cross Bones. The deer are common here, some think overpopulated, but seeing that many all at once and so close is unusual. They had probably been lunching on a “salad bar” someone had carefully planted as a garden or landscape.

Just family artifacts now, the Carbine is permanently mounted on my wall resting across two sets of points from Mule deer antlers, not far from where half of an incredible 10 point Elk rack rests tilted in a corner.

The antlers aren’t trophies, just souvenirs the animals had shed prior to me discovering them on forested Rocky Mountain hillsides during those long ago hunts in my youth. They will pass down to my grandsons if they are interested in family history.

I frequently see roadway signs cautioning that deer might cross the roadway just like the ones I used to see for moose on streets in Anchorage.

No matter how often I see wildlife, my heart still goes “boom, boom, boom!”

Finding Your Spirituality

2010-08-19T06:47:00.002-04:00

I grew up on a ranch in Idaho, like three generations before me but my Grandpa took me to New York City and the Opera every Saturday afternoon. I realize now, those matinees via radio grounded me in my own spirituality far more than any scripture or hymn or sermon or place of worship.

I was in my mid 20s when it dawned on me that places of worship actually distract me from my spirituality. So I turned back to Opera. There has always been something in an Aria like Puccini’s soaring Nessun Dorma (Turandot, his last) that gets right to my core (click to to see if it is the same for you.)

And for decades now, every Sunday morning possible, probably well over 1,000 now, I turn up the volume and listen to five favorite Opera Arias to feed my spirituality and my faith. They strike deeply into my soul and renew me and literally bring me a tearful sense of perspective.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really into full Operas or the even the modern equivalent, Broadway Musicals. Just Arias and just Sunday mornings. The rest of the week I pretty much listen to country or country folk or country rock or blues or Americana.

Ernest “Mel” Bowman gave me a lot of gifts, as you can imagine a grandpa might, being the only son of a rancher who was also an only son, and in that world, where things patriarchal are a little over the top, you know I was a most “Fortunate Son.”

But maybe his greatest gift was sharing the weekly Texaco-Metropolitan Opera broadcasts and quietly teaching me there is more than one place you can worship.

It Only Took 48 Years To Learn The True Story

2010-08-18T06:38:00.004-04:00

It is probably just as well that I didn’t learn the truth for 48 years. I was doing the dishes with my Mom after a mid-90’s Thanksgiving Dinner at her house, surrounded by my daughter, niece, nephews, sisters and brothers-in-law and repeating a story I’d told a zillion times.

That story is even more poignant today because the events took place back when I was between the ages my grandsons are now and they so love dogs.

The version of the story I believed for 48 years goes like this.

My grandparents gave me my first dog, probably a Border Collie/English Sheep Dog mix, picked from a litter belonging to some old Basque sheepherders who grazed a flock near the ranch each year.

I named him Mickey. Soon after coming to me, he began to shake more and more and soon he went deaf, then blind. It didn’t dawn on me at that age that this wasn’t just part of his nature or that he was suffering.

In those days, we only used large animal vets on the ranch and never for pets.

Mickey was a very loyal and enthusiastic companion and in retrospect taught me a lot about resilience.

I learned to clap as I came out the door and he would come running from wherever he was. He learned other commands which always involved varied claps of the hands. Then one day I found him laying dead on the path leading from the horse barn to a stream we crossed to go up over a hill and down into the meadows.

My Dad, who didn’t seem at all sentimental to me then, explained while hugging away my tears that Mickey had been hit by a car going down the road past the gate and had crawled to the barn to die. We took Mickey’s body up the hill to an old cellar dug into the earth and buried him in the soft dirt and sand that was the roof.

My Dad and I sat together next to the grave for what seemed like a long time. He told me that when he was my age his family had a wonderful German Shepherd that they trained to herd cattle.

One day the dog came across a carcass that had fallen from a tree where it had been hung to poison magpies, ate it and died.

That day, over the kitchen sink, my Mom, who was no longer married to my Dad, listened intently to the story she had heard many times and then said in the way she often sheds startling new information, “You know, your Dad shot that dog.”

Through the shock, it all suddenly made more sense. You see, Mickey had probably come down with distemper shortly after he came to me which would cause the shaking and the blindness. He probably got it from coming into contact with wolf or coyote feces. We were always wandering the ranch and often came home after having encountered a skunk or porcupine.

My Dad loved animals but couldn’t stand to see them suffer. So you can imagine how much he loved me, knowing how much I loved that dog and the dog loved me for him to postpone the inevitable. He was also probably still carrying the torment his family had over what happened to their beloved Shepherd when he was a boy.

At that time we were preparing to move to another place, half way through my 8th year, which is another story. But Dad obviously knew we couldn’t take Mickey and did what he did to put him out of his misery.

I probably happened to come along before the job was done or the story might have been that Mickey had run off and met another fate.

Either way, 48 years later, I was better able to realize my Dad was courageous to do what he did. He was also much softer hearted than I ever realized growing up. And it’s probably best we don’t know the full story about some things, even if it takes 48 years.

Newest Collaboration - Updated Downtown Durham Guide & Walking Tour

2010-08-17T10:37:00.002-04:00

First published nearly 20 years ago with nearly 1 million copies in distribution, the newest annual update of DCVB’s Downtown Durham Guide & Walking Tour is also the newest collaboration with Downtown Durham Inc. (DDI) a private, non-profit, advocacy group partially funded by the City and County.

Along with many other improvements, the update includes a route map of just-launched Bull City Connector, a fare-free bus route running from Duke University to Golden Belt, which was also created by DCVB in another collaboration with the City of Durham and the Durham Area Transit Authority.

One of many reasons DCVB stands out in the minds and hearts of Durham residents as benchmarked in scientific public opinion polls is because it has always worked hard to leverage its mission with partnerships and collaborations.

Like other editions, DCVB’s in-house graphics designed and produced the updated Downtown Durham Guide & Walking Tour, as it did helping DATA and the City of Durham with marketing the new Connector . DCVB will also include 65,000 copies of the new Downtown Guide and a flyer about the Bull City Connector in bi-weekly distributions of its other literature to more than 100 outlets including all hotels, shopping malls, healthcare and transportation centers.

As an aside, for those interested in how an “overarching community brand” works, notice both the overall Durham brand signature and the Downtown neighborhood signature on the cover of the Walking Tour. Individual logos for the two sponsoring organizations are on the back.

An even clearer “best practice” use of a community’s “overarching” brand is the way the City of Durham and the Durham Area Transit Authority deployed the Durham brand signature, “Durham-Where Great Things Happen, on the website, literature and transit coaches (click to enlarge image above) for the Bull City Connector.

The term “overarching” means the brand is an umbrella that stretches over or encompasses all individual brands in the community including businesses, non-profits, universities, agencies, neighborhoods, faith communities etc. The signature is just an element distilled from the community’s distinct core values and personality traits.

Naturally DCVB, as Durham’s marketing agency, is the facilitator for the community’s overarching brand, which in a few short year is now showcased by nearly a thousand other Durham organizations in tens of thousands of applications.

Recognition For Durham Wait Staff Rock Stars

2010-08-16T10:19:00.003-04:00

In the just-out August/September issue of Durham Magazine, editor Matt Dees made a brilliant decision in recognizing several of the stalwarts of Durham’s nationally recognized foodie scene.

Few careers are more difficult than those in restaurants and none are more critical to the success of Durham’s celebrated restaurants than rock star wait staffs.

In an excellent article by freelance writer, author and DM contributor Emily Matchar with excellent photography by Briana Brough, I was delighted to see three people recognized with whom I’ve struck up friendships over the years.

Graham and Brad Weddington at Nana’s, just down the hill from where I live, are both friends with whom I visit several times a week. And for years now, I’ve been friends with Alison Martliew during her time at several restaurants in Durham including now both at Pop’s old and new locations.

One of the obvious perks of my former position as CEO of Durham’s official marketing agency, was becoming colleagues as well as good friends with many in Durham’s colony of nationally recognized chefs.

But equally pivotal to bringing Durham its foodie reputation are the many individuals and “first responders” represented by the folks in this excellent article.

Kudos to Durham Magazine, now in its third year, and publisher Dan Shannon who previously founded Chapel Hill Magazine. Tough to launch in a downturn but it is a testament to Dan’s commitment and determination.

Like most “city” magazines, Durham Magazine, as noted on its website, is very narrowly cast every other month, to 15,000 upscale households and businesses. Subscriptions and sales through selected newsstands and grocery stories bring the total bi-monthly distribution to 40,000. Hopefully, in time, it will be much more broadly distributed.

I receive mine at home through paid subscription.

Will Today’s “Ideological Road Rage” End as Tragically!

2010-08-16T07:12:00.003-04:00

Those of us raised by “The Greatest Generation” came up during a brief respite of bi-partisanship. Experts mark the period from the end of WWII until 1964 as a truly unique period in this country’s ideological history. Many of us who came up during that period mistakenly thought it had always been that way and we’re fogging our view of today thinking it still “should” be.

Maybe as some experts believe, “The Greatest Generation” valued bi-partisanship, having been tested like none other first by the Great Depression and then while facing down the unfathomable inhumanity of extremist ideologies.

More than any before or since, that generation’s value for bi-partisanship came closer to embodying what many Founding Fathers hoped for the political process in this Country.

But almost immediately elected officials fell into what some term “boarding house” silos as witnessed by Thomas Jefferson when he bemoaned a Congress that failed to grasp even then “the necessity of accommodation and mutual sacrifice of opinion for conducting a numerous assembly.”

As widely noted, and well documented by this recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the rancor and rhetoric and partisan gridlock was with us almost from the beginning and obviously reached its extreme some 60 years later with the tragic Civil War.

I’m persuaded that today’s partisanship is “bottom up” not “top down” as it is vogue today for some to intimate by demonizing others as Washington “insiders.” Our current divide is evidenced by a dramatic decline in the number of “moderates” elected to Congress, dropping from 45-53% in 1949 to less than 10% today and many of those cowered into block voting with the extremes. We the “electorate” have made it hard to be a moderate and hard to compromise.

Fueling today’s divide is the compressive, effect of insatiable 24/7 news which offers little additional insight while hardening any dissent into a fight to the death while demanding absurdly simplistic solutions to very complex problems.

Unlike that 1860’s War Between The States, the country today isn’t divided up by section of the country. It is much more complicated and to me more dangerous. Salt and peppered around the country are more and more counties and some entire states that are dominated by majorities, eager to cower any other thinking with more and more extreme ideology.

This is best exemplified by the current, block voting-incalcitrance within a Republican Party, where it seems once moderate politicians are now in the “closet,” so to speak. Historians have documented that Its growing extremism took root in 1965 and deepened throughout the 1970’s and since.

Predictable and increasingly extremist statements now by that party’s leaders after every vote in Congress is nothing more than a reflection of an increasingly inflexible and extreme electorate back home.

Today’s civil war of words, like the violent Civil War of the 1860s, is again about culture and economics. On one side are descendants of the era of “social gospel” believing in acceptance of differences and a salvation anchored by creating a better, more tolerant society.

On the other side of this civil war of words is an increasingly extreme and inflexible, sometimes violent group believing everything is a war of good and evil in the fight for individual souls, making every text book, social safety net, court ruling and every “requirement” for the commonweal, an all-out, angry battle.

The two sides, increasingly, only read what reinforces hardened opinions, only speak to those who fully agree, only live around “people just like them.” The vitriol of some talk show hosts and easily angered movements, is what Big Sort authors Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing might term a type of “ideological road rage.”

I sense in extremists today, the same incalcitrance that led to this nation’s tragic Civil War over slavery and other cultural and economic issues a little more than 60 years after its founding.

Ironically, that one was triggered by the election of a Republican President vowing change just as today’s civil war of words and vitriol, in my view, has been triggered by the election of our nation’s first African-American President because it symbolizes a public acceptance that “ideological road ragers” apparently can’t accept because it means other divides can be overcome.

I so hope I’m wrong. Maybe a new generation coming up will repopulate our Congress with moderates who will again be unafraid of bi-partisan dialogue and accommodation and compromise and rescue us from what we know from experience is the result of unchecked “ideological road rage.”

I’m an optimist by nature so maybe it is an alarm that comes with age but I must admit I don’t have a good feeling about this one. God Bless America and I, oh, so hope I’m wrong.

Note: Some of the ideas expressed above evolved or emerged from my recent reading and re-reading of The Big Sort, a must read for anyone who cares about the future of this Country, Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal (or Moderate,) passionate or dispassionate, young or old…

Techno-Curmudgeons!

2010-08-14T17:39:00.002-04:00

I jokingly refer to people as “techno-curmudgeons,” who use the Internet but complain, it seems incessantly that they “feel overloaded” with information. In my definition, these are people who ostensibly use the Internet but complain about having to use it or keep up with it.

In the workplace, you’d think these folks make up a significant share of the population, both because they complain a lot and because they are typically the people who also don’t read.

But an updated snapshot by the United States Travel Associations of Internet users and those who travel at least 50 miles one way on trips includes some secondary research. It sheds some light on how large this group really is.

Approximately 168 million adults use the Internet now or about 74% as of November 2009. Of these, 72% or 122 million also take trips of 50 miles or more one way from home for purposes other than school or work. Clicking on the image above to enlarge it reveals that 16% of these people (1 and 1/2 people out of every 10) who both travel and go online, complain about feeling overloaded with information.

That’s not many for the fuss they make and the cost they run up in lost productivity because others must continually circle back to make sure they took in something that was circulated or to get them up to speed. In particular they slow the work of governing boards to a crawl.

And then if one of them happens to be a politician, well, all I can say is, oh boy!

Of course, who is to say the 46 million people who are online but don’t travel might not also be techno-curmudgeons or that the quarter of all adults who don’t access the Internet at all might not be techno-curmudgeons.

My guess though based on the size of this sample is that the 16% holds true for those groups as well. My philosophy is we need to stop coddling these people. Life is full of challenges and the least of our problems is “too” much information.

In today’s world, eagerness to access information should be a “must have” requirement to be elected to office or serve on governing boards of any type.

14 Sweet Facts About Sugar

2010-08-13T11:18:00.004-04:00

I learned just as I turned 20 that I couldn't really metabolize sugar. I was diagnosed with "reactive" hypoglycemia or low blood sugar. Over time, I learned just how little sugar it took to trigger a very unpleasant chain reaction and how to avoid it. High protein/low carb became a way of life and I've never looked at ice cream the same way again.

I love graphics like the one below and non-readers must be almost totally reliant on them. If they think reading takes "too long" I can imagine that getting something as communicative as this chart verbally would be prohibitative.

Via: Medical Coding

Where The Tetons Lean “Left!”

2010-08-13T07:35:00.005-04:00

A hero of mine is Emanuel J. “Mutt” Evans. He was Jewish and elected Mayor of my adopted home of Durham North Carolina from 1951 – 1963, guiding the community through desegregation.

My favorite story about Mayor Evans is when a Judge ordered him to segregate seating at his downtown lunch counter, he just took out all of the seats, letting people comingle. He was obviously very “Durham.”

But you’ll never guess which State was first to elect a Jewish Governor? Pivotal word is “elect” (earlier a Jewish person had become Governor of Georgia through resignation.)

Yup, my birth state of Idaho. As it it is today, from well before statehood, Idaho has always seemed very “Republican” politically, maybe in allegiance to President Abraham Lincoln, under whom it first became a territory.

It is ironic then that the State has produced a number of famous Progressive/Liberal politicians on both sides of the aisle, such as Republican William Borah and Democrat Frank Church. And shortly after statehood in 1890, Boise, the capitol elected a Jewish mayor, Moses Alexander (he had already served two terms as a mayor of a town in Missouri.)

In 1915, elected as a Progressive Democrat, Governor Alexander was seated in the first of two terms as Governor of the State of Idaho, a decade or so after my family homesteaded a ranch and farm over in the Teton-Yellowstone corner.

By the way, you can always tell the “Idaho” side of the Tetons because they curve “left,” I’m sure, just to remind the Gem state that some of its greatest elected leaders have leaned in that direction.

The Future of Urban Forestry Is Far Prettier Than Mulch

2010-08-12T08:49:00.002-04:00

Coincidence I’m sure that the morning after I drove by some great street trees that had been chopped down along Hillandale for several blocks, I came across an article in the New York Times about two guys in Seattle, Seth Meyer and John Wells, who harvest urban trees like these and turn them into furniture.

I don’t mean just ordinary furniture and they have nine employees and do about $1 million a year in revenues. They also have commissions from Starbucks and the University of Seattle.

The business is named Meyer Wells.

Very cool! This business doesn’t just just harvest street trees like those I saw cut down to widen the roadway which I suspect will ultimately become mulch. They also use trees cut down during developments etc.

Very cool indeed!