Letter to Kate DiCamillo

Dear Ms. DiCamillo,

Thank you for your books. I have been reading them to my kids, and I couldn't have chosen a better author's work. We started with The Tale of Desperauex and followed it up with Because of Winn Dixie. Last night, we finished The Miraculous Adventure of Edward Tulane. We will soon be looking for your other works, and eagerly await a new book.

I loved Despereaux. It was a story that any age could appreciate, and I appreciated the way you introduced a few rare words and explained their meaning with both a definition and then an example in the story. You are not only making my kids smarter, you are making me smarter as well. Thank you.

A few days later, I was reading (alone) about Da Vinci, and the author described Da Vinci's dark/light contrasts as "Chiaroscuro". I found elsewhere that chiaroscuro can be used to produce depth and dimensions in light. To transpose those concepts from art to your story made so much more sense, and I have to tell you how impressed I am by the layers of your story. I am sure that if we reread the book again we will be pleasantly surprised with details and ideas that we missed before.

We went to the movies to see The Tale of Despereaux, and I was sorry to see how they changed your story. The kids were disappointed, too. I understand the need for small changes to translate a story from book to film, but I think they unnecessarily changed the most valuable aspects of your story to "dumb it down" for the movie-goer.

Winn Dixie was a great read, and the underlying values that can be learned are exactly what I want my kids to learn. Thank you!

It is rare for me to cry. Every once in a while, a movie can get to me. I can only think of one book that made me cry before reading about Edward Tulane. That other book was a biography of Carl Sagan, and I cried when he had to say good-bye to his kids before he died prematurely. Your book made me cry twice. I cried about Sarah Jean, and then I cried as Abilene and Edward meet again. Actually, I almost lost it while reading the Coda. My kids had never seen me cry, and they didn't quite understand it, but I think it was a good experience for them. Now they know I'm not as tough as I pretend to be.

More importantly, the lesson of Edward Tulane is of the most important lessons in life (top three lessons, for sure.) It is also the most difficult to put into words, and oftentimes our actions are not enough to teach this lesson. Unfortunately, many people must learn this lesson the hard, just like Edward.

The antique doll had a great many stories to tell, didn't she? With that much time on earth and that many cracks in her china, she must have a treasure trove to pull from when she needs to remind herself that she has been loved, that she has loved, and that life can be really good if your let it.

I can't help but wonder where Bryce went. I wonder what lesson Bryce can teach us? When he is forty years old, is a successful and generous man (a Jean Valjean) or a miserable and bitter drunk reliving his father's life?

Thank you again, Kate DiCamillo. They tell me that reading to my children will pay untold dividends. I am sure that those dividends are multiplied when I am reading your books to them. May your muse continue to inspire you with great tales, great values, and great wordsmithing.

Happiness

Of course, I want to teach my kids everything I know: especially the knowledge I gained the hard way. But what if you could only teach them one thing? [Don't focus on why you can only teach them one thing, just humor the exercise and isolate the most important thing you know.

I found this aphorism from Michel de Montaigne that captures the one thing I think my offspring need to know:

The man who is happy is not he who is believed to be so but he who believes he is so. (Geary's Guide to the World's Greatest Aphorisms by James Geary, page 128.)

If I had known this principle as a younger man, I could have wasted less time and focused more on lasting happiness. The quick-fix happiness I sought in booze, girls, games, food, TV, and many other trivial pursuits did not return anything over time.

Imagine your happiness is measurable. Your happiness starts at zero, and you have a beer to push it up to a "1". After six beers, are you at a happiness level of "6"? Maybe, but there is a law of diminishing returns that applies here. At some point, you have one too many beers. The hangover itself will sap your happiness level, and that is in addition to any errors of judgement you may have committed while intoxicated. No matter what, you always lose the happiness that each beer brought. Beer/Food/Drugs/etc do not leave a residual happiness, they wear off.

Reset your happiness meter and lets try another exaple. Starting at "0" you turn on TV and find a new episode of your favorite TV show. Happiness level soars to a "10" while the show is on, drops to a "5" immediately after, and then registers a zero once it has left your short-term memory. If you were supposed to be doing something else instead of watching TV at that time, then the drop off will be steeper and deeper. TV does not produce a residual happiness.

Now a better way, in my opinion: Do something for a relationship that you don't feel like doing. Give a back rub, cook something that you don't like but that person does, listen to a boring story enthusiastically, or let them control the TV remote tonight. The happiness meter starts at zero, plunges into negative numbers for a brief time, and then slowly climbs to about a "2". Two years later, you recall a time when you did this selfless act and find that it still provides a residual level "2" happiness. If you can amass an impressive history of selfless acts, you will notice two things. First, they add up to a higher level of residual happiness (which means they cause your happiness to sit at a constant level "10" or higher, even in the darkest of times. Second, the object of your selfless acts will probably reciprocate, which both spikes your happiness and raises the residual happiness level.

My young kids can't really learn it yet. They have a lot of living to do before they know how true this aphorism is. Therefore, the best way for me to teach them now is by my example. I hope they see me working on my happiness, and actively choosing happiness. I hope that they intuitively choose happiness, regardless of what their friends say or what conventional wisdom has decided. I hope that they see the difference between short-term happiness and long-term happiness.

2009 may be a really hard year. If it is, I think I am ready to be happy anyway. I am hoping that everyone is surprised by how well 2009 treats us, and that happiness comes easily. If not, I plan to keep investing in those long-term happiness builders that I find with my kids, wife, extended family, charity, and self-improvement.

I hope your 2009 is filled happiness! Thanks for reading my blog.

The Missing Link

Pardon my absence. I know it has been a long time. It has been an eventful time for me. I have been working like a dog, interviewing for a new employer (to include creating and delivering a presentation in front of my potential peers.) I have been working on my MBA, and both instructors had high demands and higher standards. All along, I have been unable to actually form opinions on the books I have read or ideas that I have processed. Something was missing. I thought of this blog often, but I did not want to write here while I still felt adrift.

Now I think I’ve got it. I have that missing link that will allow me to begin tieing together the loose ends of my thoughts.

First, the dilemma: how can we keep the best parts of capitalism (freedom, motivation, competition, market efficiency, etc) while correcting the worst parts (poverty, lay-offs, oppression, pollution, exploitation, unnecessary stress, etc…) Of course, Socialism, Communism, Isolationism, and various Theocracies address some of these points, but they always wipe out the most important and beautiful aspects of capitalism. I have yet to see a successfully implemented system that eliminates oppression.

The biggest problem I see with capitalism is that there is not a logical limit defined. Once you begin a capitalist venture, you can never arrive at a point and say “I have acquired enough, and now we can just coast.” The whole point of capitalism is to continue to grow indefinitely. A new company can grow their market share with innovative products and marketing. Once commercial can cause market share (and the holy grail of capitalism, profits) to jump in significant amounts. However, every market has a limited amount. Eventually, you can no longer make a large leap of profits by growing you market, because there isn’t enough undecided customers in the market to grab.

This would be a time to rest on your laurels and say, “We did it. We maximized our market share. We can just do what we do best and enjoy the ride.” However, the nature of Capitalism insists that you do something to continue to grow something, and ultimately increase your profits. If you do not, then you will either be sued by your investors or gobbled up by competitor. To stand still in Capitalism is to be run over.

Most companies punish people in order to grow profits, eventually. The easiest way to show growth in a stagnant market is to layoff employees. When you show a significant loss of salary and benefits on your financial statements, investors see growth. Unfortunately, you are laying off human being who have debts, families, and feelings. When someone gives a large portion of their life and immense effort to a company, and their reward is a pink slip, that experience can be dark and disgusting. I know from experience.

We like to demonize CEO’s during layoffs, and criticize them for making millions wile laying people off who make $40,000. It has been said that if a CEO would just forgo a few million for one year, he could save the jobs of hundreds, maybe thousands of employees. However, it is not completely a CEO’s fault. It is the nature of the system. If the CEO reaches the point where a layoff is necessary to fix the financial statement and he chooses to save those jobs out of kindness and a sense of responsibility, he is legally liable. He will immediately be sued, fired, and disgraced for not making the decision that capitalism demands: grow the profits and damn the labor.

If you cannot grow your current market and entering a new market is too expensive, then you must cut costs. Capitalism demands it. We must ship out factories overseas. We must layoff huge numbers, and then hire some of them back next quarter. We must force people to do the work of two employees, with less time and tools available. We must take away the free coffee and increase the health insurance premiums while cutting bonuses, overtime, and promotions. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.

There are two business authors who offer a new perspective on the problem and its solution. In both cases, the authors point out the folly of focusing on costs and instead demonstrate means of increasing productivity. In other words, work smarter rather than meaner.

The first author is Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt. His book The Goal is a parable for the business world, and lays out an argument for his Theory of Constraints. The parable describes a plant manager whose career is on the line. While his company wants to cut back, he slowly discovers a methodology to improve the productivity of his plant without cutting costs or adding expenses. The Theory of Constraints is the key: finding the parts of a business process that add expense, and then solving the problem using strategy, timing, or reordering.

The second author is Dr. Jac Fitz-Enz. His work The ROI of Human Capital: Measuring the Economic Value of Employee Performance points out that if we view our labor as having value just as our plant & equipment, cash and equivalents, and other assets have value, and if we look to appreciate those assets through investment and maintenance, then we will have more fulfilled employees. To paraphrase Dr. Fitz-Enz, no amount of compensation can restore the soul of a life spent in mindless toil…Fulfilling work is a reward for the individual and the enterprise…Providing fulfilling work will develop and retain the most productive workers and allow the firm to enjoy the most loyal customers.”

I don’t have it all figured out yet, I just have a piece of the puzzle that enables me to complete some nagging thoughts and take a new perspective on the problem. Capitalism can be saved and improved not by cutting costs, but my improving productivity and investing in people.

I will leave you with a final thought from Dr. Fitz-Enz that I found enlightening. He draws on work from Nobel-prize winning economist Theodore Schultz when he points out that in the industrial age, we moved materials through our business processes to create a marketable product. Now, in the information Age, we do not move materials. We move information which tells us when and how to move the materials. Perfect productivity can be viewed as a circle. When you gather the factors of productivity, you begin to close the circle by learning what data is needed, when, where, in what form, and to whom. The circle is completed when we transform data into information, and eventually into intelligence.

Fat, Forty, and Fired

Another random encounter has turned out well for me. While entering the local library one day, I glanced at the “Friends of the Library” bookstore that is in the lobby. For some reason, a certain title leapt out at me: “Fat, Forty, and Fired” by Nigel Marsh.

I have purchased hundreds of books and checked out hundreds (maybe thousands) from the library over the years. I have been given books that were hand-selected by intelligent and well-meaning people. I have had books assigned to me by well-educated and researched professionals who were sure that the assigned book was exactly right. Google, Amazon, Borders, and InformIT.com have spent billions on the technology to suggest the perfect book for me. What a waste of time, effort, and money by all of us.

I cannot understand why, but the most memorable, impressionable, and important books in my life have almost all been discovered by a random chance encounter. The predictability of this occurring is slightly higher for me than the average person because I am a bibliophile and spend so much time perusing book shelves.

I do not pretend to have any statistical skills, but I would guess that the chances of finding an important and memorable book purely by accident would be pretty rare—almost as rare as lightning-strikes and lottery-wins. I guess I am just a lucky guy. I sure hope a publisher stumbles on this and realizes I am an untapped goldmine (publishers can email me at lslobodzian [at-sign] gmail [dot] com.

When I purchased “Fat, Forty, and Fired” I expected it to start by describing a situation similar to my own and end by leading me to some needed wisdom and perhaps a roadmap for my future. However, it sat on my bookshelf for months, untouched. Graduate school, work, family, and laziness all conspired to allow dust to collect on the book (and the many others in my “to-read” pile”.) Finally, the timing was right. I had time to read, and I was open to receive Marsh’s message.

I reference many books a month, in addition to the email, articles, white papers, and pages of technical manuals I read on a daily basis. However, I rarely read a book cover-to-cover. If I make the effort to stick with a book, it is the highest praise I can pay the author. For my own sake, and I hope some of you as well, I should take the time now to highlight why I think this book was worth sticking through.

First, I must point out how dissimilar I am to the author. Nigel Marsh is an ad executive and CEO. He is well-traveled, has many influential and wealthy friends, and has made more money in a single year than I have in a decade, I am sure. He was born in England and lives now in Australia. In many ways, he lives in a world that I cannot relate to and suspect that he doesn’t truly know anything about the world I live in. Also, I am not quite forty yet.

On the other hand, he is quite down-to-earth and as I read him I felt like we were not that far apart. He wasn’t born rich and he has to work hard to maintain his lifestyle-it could all be taken from him quickly if he is not vigilante and a little lucky. He is realistic about money, and has faced the possibility of poverty or something near it.

Nigel Marsh strives at being a family man, strives to progress in his professional field, and he strives to make his life meaningful. In the end, that is where Nigel and I meet. He has an interest in Corporate Social Responsibiltiy (CSR), making the world a better place, and raising his kids to be meaningful and productive, as well as happy and healthy.

Nigel opens the book as a guy who wants to be a good family man. He ends up working too much, missing time with the family, and then being either emotionally distant or short-tempered with everyone. I, too, find myself on such a merry-go-round of feeling guilty while working late and missing my family till it hurts, and then getting home to yell and scream and then sit silently in front of a TV. Later, I feel guilty about over-reacting and making children cry and beat myself up inside. Perhaps I make it up to them for a day or two. Eventually, the demands of work initiate the vicious cycle all over again.

We are better Fathers than some men because we at least live with our kids, we make an effort to control and improve ourselves, and we genuinely care whether we are helping or harming our kids. However, good-intentions are not enough with parenting and we both know that. Part of this book is a journey to becoming a better parent.

Nigel is overweight. Pudgy. Out-of-shape. Me too. He has a life-long love of running and generally being active, and wished he were doing more for his health and appearance. Me too. Nigel finds that the time-demands and stresses of work and family make exercise almost impossible. Me too. Nigel’s book is partially a story of inspiration and how-to for the overweight has-beens who aren’t ready to give up yet.

Nigel is a goal-junkie. Me too. We both love to set goals and achieve them, big and small. In fact, goal-setting is our modus-operandi. We both have difficulty understanding how people can continue on for entire lifetimes with few, if any, goals set or achieved. Working on our goals gets us out of bed, gets us through hour after hour, and in our darkest moments prevents us from doing rash and regrettable things. Goals gives us a steady supply of hope, and we are keeping a tight lock on Pandora’s box.

The biggest surprise in the book is that Nigel is an Alcoholic. Me too. He doesn’t reveal this until the middle of the book, and I didn’t see it coming. His alcoholism is probably the greatest contributing factor to my reading the book all the way through, though it is only occasionally mentioned. His experience and struggles with sobriety were reaffirming for me. I will use his example and wisdom to continue to build my sobriety.

At page one, we find Nigel in the darkest days of his life: he has continuing issues in his family that are caused by him, his employer is closing the doors, he is overweight, getting too old to start over at anything (in some people’s minds,) and has an un-addressed drinking problem.

Marsh is apparently well-read, as he has sprinkled his book with quotes and concepts from all over the literary map. History, philosophy, science, theology, and general culture are all represented as he makes a point or draws a big picture. As an example, he quotes an idea from Steven Biddulph’s book Manhood where the argument is made that every man should be required to take his fortieth year off. This would force some reappraisals, rediscoveries, new discoveries, and perhaps change life for the better.

I love this idea. I have always loved the notion of the sabbatical. While I was growing up, I would hear of Priests and Teachers I knew taking a year-long sabbatical after ten years of work, and I have often fantasized about doing the same thing in my own career “someday”. Like many teachers and clergy, I would use that time primarily to further my education. I would also take a trip of a lifetime with the words “adventure” and “exotic” being the key concepts. And I would spend time developing a skill such as playing a musical instrument, painting, writing, or learning a language. Best of all, I would find as many opportunities as possible to include my family and friends in these activities to enrich the experience and the relationship.

Nigel gets laid-off and instead of job-hunting, he decides to take a year off to fix his personal life. He sells his large home and moves to a smaller one. He trims his expenditures and simplifies his life. He takes on responsibilities around the house that he had avoided, such as bathing the kids and taking them to school. He writes and draws. He admits to his alcoholism, quits for good, and attends AA. He learns a lot along the way, and makes it laugh-out-loud funny.

Another major connection I have to Nigel is his goal of a long swim, the Bondi-to-Bronte beach swim (akin to a nautical marathon) in Sydney, Australia where he lives. Nigel is not a strong swimmer or very experienced in the open sea, and as I mentioned before, he is waaaay out of shape. But he sets this goal and starts chipping away at it. At first he can barely swim the length of the pool, but he takes us through an inspiring story of tenacity and ignorance that pays off, but with an unexpected twist that I won’t spoil.

The connection is that I have set the goal of running a marathon this year. October 2008, the Waddell and Reed Kansas City Marathon. I have set the smaller goal of finishing a few 5k’s this summer. I was well on my way last November when I severely-sprained my ankle and was unable to train at all for a few months. Of course, there is the laziness, the overworked, the family-life, and the pain factors that have been excuses for a lack of training. As it stands, I can barely run 3 miles without stopping. But Nigel’s book has fueled my motivation and helped me visualize the attainment of my goal.

The most important tidbit that Nigel provided was how he would set out a running course, and he would walk when he couldn’t jog. He urged himself on by setting small goals along the way, such as, “Run from here to that tree, then walk.” I took away from that the revolutionary concept that it is okay to walk part of the course. In the Marine Corps, it was drilled into me that if I was going to walk instead of run, then I might as well hand over my undeserved male-genetalia and then find someplace to curl up and die. When you are 20 years-old, in fighting shape, and training for combat, that is probably true. When you are 34 with two kids, a stalled career, in the midst of a demanding Graduate program, and 50 pounds heavier than you were at 20 (some of that is additional muscle, right?) then it is okay to walk a little. The point is getting off my gluteus maximus and putting it in motion. After a few months of walk-jogs, Nigel was up to full runs like he used to do, and his body began to show results. I expect the same results. Walk-jog may be embarrassing and humbling, but it is better than sit-and-click (which always leads me to crunch-and-munch.),

Fat, Forty, and Fired is a raucously funny book. There are many times that I laughed out loud, and I rarely do that when I read even if the material is humorous. Marsh has that British humor that I love so much, though I can’t describe it well. He reminds me of Mil Millington, author of the internet classic “Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About”. The book is not only funny, it is inspiring on many levels—for fathers, for professionals, for men in general, for husbands, for fatso’s, for alcoholics, and for workaholics. To top it all off, there is a payoff for the business community as well.

If I was qualified to make such a remark, I would say that this is one of the most important business books ever written. Nigel has been the CEO of two different agencies. His insight on how to cope with work and life is an important issue to address.

Of course, work/life balance does show up on a 10K report, and it doesn’t result in the kinds of lawsuit and publicity that ethics and security garner lately. Therefore, it is rarely addressed. However, were it to be prioritized and more successfully approached, we could all predict the profits and cost-savings that we would reap from the higher morale and reductions in turnover, burnouts, and health-problems. For instance, any temporary losses in productivity from allowing an employee to coach a team or attend a kindergarten musical would be dwarfed by the cost-savings in health-insurance premiums over the long-term if we assume that family neglect leads to self neglect, resulting in cardio-vascular deterioration over a short career.

Marsh quotes Biddulph as saying: “Our marriages fail, our kids hate us, we die of stress, and on the way out we destroy the world.” At first glance that may seem over-exaggerated, but I don’t think it is far off the mark. Surely, there is a better way to conduct capitalism. I think that Nigel Marsh points us in the right direction.

Marsh quotes Daniel Petra, former CEO of Microsoft in Australia, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding the life of a CEO: “They have no friends other than work; they have no relationship with their spouse; their kids don’t care about them; they have no hobbies. They lead very insular, single-dimension lives and they don’t have the courage to admit it.” I’ll bet you could apply that on some level to many other professionals. It certainly helps to define the standard of a professional lifestyle to avoid.

Very little of the book offers insight in how to conduct business, but the few paragraphs that apply are absolutely timely and important. The most important lesson that Nigel Marsh teaches us, from his experience as a CEO, is that his position carries with it some responsibility to his employees. All too often, a CEO is overwhelmed by the responsibility to shareholders, analysts, regulators, and the press. Little thought is given to what their roles as senior employee and leader means to the people who make the company work. Marsh offers that a CEO’s primary role is “providing meaning.” He elaborates by saying, “I believe a CEO’s primary responsibility is providing meaningful employment. That doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t have to make the numbers or make difficult decisions. It means he or she has to provide a point for the employees.”

Early in the book, he made a similar point when he said, “I don’t care what they teach you at business school; I view the primary role of any CEO as providing meaningful employment, not taking it away. Any idiot can cut costs; it’s building something valuable (in all senses of the word) that’s the real challenge.” (Added emphasis is mine.) I have long held this belief, and I am glad to see a business leader say it. Finally, there is evidence of intelligent life at the top.

The business guru Jim Collins in Good to Great used the analogy of an organization as a bus. If someone is in the wrong seat on that bus and not contributing, you may consider having that person switch seats on the bus, rather than throwing them off the bus. Of course, discipline problems and ethical issues need to be thrown off the bus. However, if the issue is competency or motivation, you may discover that the employee was forced into that seat and would gladly perk up or contribute more meaningfully from a different seat.

To couple this concept with Nigel’s statement, I think that CEO’s are just playing a numbers game through quarterly lay-offs that is more expensive over the long-term (and more damaging to our economy, which the CEO and shareholders depend on to make a profit.) Rather than a lay-off, a corporation would be better served to redeploy the unproductive employees into a new endeavor (move their seat on the bus.)

The stock price takes a hit in this case, due to the continued expenditure of salaries and benefits. However, those layoffs usually result in a large severance payment to each employee that doesn’t return any value to the stock price, and if your business grows again in the future (as your shareholders expect it to) then you will incur the expense of hiring similar people whom you laid-off previously. In case of two local companies I know personally, the same employee is often hired twice or more over the years by the same company. Perhaps my math is off, but if we could avoid the expense of severance and rehiring, and simultaneously gain some profit or research by redeploying them, wouldn’t we beat our competition while boosting our image, satisfaction, and contribution to GDP/GNP?

Thank you, Nigel Marsh, for a funny, inspiring, and wise book. I discovered it by accident and purchased it second-hand for $6, but it has become one of the most valuable books I own and is added to the short list of great books to re-read.

Are you reaching, or just teaching?

Are you reaching your students, or just teaching them? That begs the question: can you teach your students without reaching them? I mean, if you are simply lecturing, assigning homework, and handing out letter grades without analyzing your methods and strategically reaching your students, do they actually learn?

You are a teacher, even if that is not in your job description. For instance, I am the most important teacher my kids have (along with my beautiful and intelligent wife.) Therefore, I need to be cognizant of that as a parent and try to reach my kids in ways that are relevant to them in order to achieve the educational objectives that are important to me. I can talk all day long and say many wise and valuable things, but if if my kids are not listening, then all I have done is made noise and wasted oxygen. I have to think about how I can reach them.

I am a teacher at work, as well. My customers are often my students when I try to sell them a new product/service or if I try to increase they satisfaction with something they already have. I also am a teacher to my coworkers and managers who look to me for information or process improvement. Am I effective? That all depends on my delivery. How can I improve my delivery? That is a question that I must consistently ask.

What got me thinking about all of this is a video that my professor shared in his class. It is geared toward traditional classroom teachers, but it is relevant and applicable to so many different roles, especially parents. It basically describes how students in school today have a completely different paradigm on how they view the world and gather information, and traditional methods are barely reaching (barely teaching) them. It them describes how we can improve our teaching methods to really reach, and teach, our students in profound ways through unorthodox methods. It is definitely worth the next few minutes of your life:

The link at the end is worth visiting to: http://t4.jordandistrict.org/t4/

A Word and an Aphorism: Ubiquity

While reading a white paper regarding the Microsoft operating system Windows, I ran accross a word I needed to look up. As it turns out, the word describes Windows well, and is a good word to use casually in conversation to make people scratch their heads:

Ubiquitous [adj.] existing everywhere; inescapable.
(The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary, 3rd ed.)

That got me wondering what I may find in my Geary's Guide to the World's Greatest Aphorists. Ubiquity, as luck would have it, was indexed to Seneca's thought:

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere." -Seneca (4 B.C. -65 A.D.) [via James Geary]

I am reading up on PC and server virtualization. I started by doing research for a case study due tomorrow night in an MBA class. However, PC virtualization is something I have been thinking about for several weeks as a means to branch out as an entreprenuer. Alternatively, it is a means by which my company could provide much more value to our clients. Unfortunately, it may be easier for me to start my own business and build it to profitability than it would be to convince my company to implement a good idea.

To put it in a nutshell, Virtualization in this case means that you do not have to buy a PC for every single person that needs one. You could buy a smaller, low-cost appliance, which would use the internet to act like a PC. Not only would you not lose anything in the process, you could gain so much in value, security, administration, application, and performance.

The white paper used the word ubiquitous to describe the current state of affairs in computing. If you wish to change anything about how people and businesses use computers, you have to deal with the fact that we expect Windows to be everywhere. If you want to make it cheaper through virtualization, you will have to virtualize the Windows environment because consumers will not adopt anything else.

I am glad I thought of looking up ubiquity in the Geary Aphorism Guide. Seneca's wisdom actually applies here in a big way: To be everywhere is to be nowhere. I think that could be a vision of the future: your computer today is a specific, tangible device that you can point to, open up, move with you , whether it is a desktop, a laptop, or a PDA. You may have two or three computers, each with their own data, purpose, look, software, etcetera. So, when you say your work PC is on your desk in your office, you are saying your PC is somewhere.

Through virtualization, there may be a day when you have an appliance at home, a laptop, a PDA-Cellphone, and an appliance at work. All three may access the exact same virtual PC that looks the same, has the same software and data, and can do the same things. In fact, it is the same, no matter what appliance you use to access it. The PC that you access exists on a server "somewhere", but you can access it from anywhere. In fact, you can access it from everywhere, thanks to wireless technologies. Therefore, as long as you have an appliance and internet access, you have your PC.

With PC virtualization, your PC is everywhere. However, you can never get your hands on where your PC's data physically resides. The server that holds your data would be a trusted source, of course, and great steps would be taken to ensure privacy and security. However, the server that you access to use the appliance may be anywhere in the world, or two places at once. Therefore, the server is somewhere, but you don't know where. Your PC is available everywhere, but if I asked you where it was, you could say it was nowhere.

Update, Blog, Book

I am up to my eyeballs here. My job is maxing out my day, and school is maxing out my night. I am working on my MBA, and adding a concentration in Information Technology; hence, I am taking two accelerated graduate courses right now, both of which have to cram an entire semester into 6 weeks. I have to read several hundred pages a week and write upto to twenty pages or so, not to mention research, write presentations, and try to ponder the lessons. Amazingly, I think I am actually absorbing most of the material. Ask me again in six weeks though.

I am not complaining or bragging, I am just explaining why I can't write regularly on this blog. I am taking a small break from graduate studies through April and May, but that is only because I have projects at work scheduled that take me out of town or late into the night.

As I have stated in the past, I do not want this to be a "me too" blog that says nothing and simply wastes electrons. Even if I am not a profound or skilled writier, I want to make it apparent that I am striving for excellence and this blog can serve as an example of better blogging--eventually. Since I have not achieved that end yet and will not in the near future, I wish to point to someone else's blog that does.

Guy Kawasaki has a cool name. Anyone with a cool name can get my endorsement, unless they abuse children or are fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. Guy Kawasaki is more than a cool name, he is a great blogger. He is original, inspirational, and full of positive energy. I am reading his archive right now and loving every minute of it. The title says it all: How to Change the World.

Finally, the greatest book ever: I love to read and have an extensive library. I would be considered "well-read" by most people, I think. However, over the last few years I have had little choice about what I read due to school and work. Therefore, when I read for fun it has to be short and sweet, and either richly entertaining (belly-laughter) or deeply profound. While browsing for a book that I will need at work, I accidentally ran into the world's greatest book.

[sound of screeching tires...] Allow me to digress for a quick second. Why is it that all of my favorite books were stumbled onto accidentally? You will remember recently that I was floored by the philosophies of The Secret and Thank You Power, both of which I stumbled onto accidentally. One of my favorite novels is The Confessions of Max Tivoli which I stumbled onto by accident at the library while looking for something by Hemingway. "Max Tivoli" was written by Andrew Sean Greer, and "G" is near "H", and the word "Confessions" lept out at me.

Come to think of it, I have no idea how I stumbled on Guy Kawasaki's blog and it has become my favorite thing to read online. The lesson I take away is that despite my best efforts, the best things in my life are accidents. What do I do with this lesson? I have no idea, but perhaps my wife and I should review our birth control method.

[gravel flys, and this short-bus is back on the road...] Anyhow, I accidentally discovered a great book. Then, I accidentally carried it to the register, accidentally dropped my debit card on the counter with my Borders Reward card, and was forced to take it home with me. The book is Geary's Guide To The World's Greatest Aphorists by James Geary. It is educational, biographical, deeply profound, and occasionally so funny that my laughter endangers the book.

If all you have time for is 30 seconds to read and ponder, you can pick up this book, flip to any page, and be assured to find a sentence or two that speaks to you. You can re-read a page many times and, as your mood and experience changes, you will find a different sentence pops out. Conversely, the same pithy quote may take on a different meaning each time you return to it. This is the book that keeps on giving.

Perhaps I will share a little nugget occasionally when I need to blog and don't have time to really dig in. Here are two aphorisms from the book that I like:

"The course of every intellectual, if he pursue his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred." -Alduos Huxley

"Laziness is just the habit of resting before you get tired" -Jules Renard

Unharvested

I am not a huge poetry fan, but there are a few poems and a few poets who I enjoy. Like most people, I have drawn inspiration from Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". However, few people know how much inspiration and wisdom, as well as enjoyment, can be drawn from a compilation of his life's work. While flipping through a compilation edited by Edward Connery Lathern, I found a poem that I had previously ignored. I'd like to share it with you:

UNHARVESTED

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what has made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

I like this poem mostly because Frost leaves its interpretation so open. This makes its usefullness almost limitless. I had several applications occur to me at once.

First, I have always been intrigued with Hemingway's idea about writing. He said he tried to write for a specified time each day and leave a little left unwritten. That would be like taking some apples from your tree and leaving some unharvested. When I write, I feel like I have to empty myself. If I leave something unwritten, I either lose the thought or lose the motivation; therefore, I write until I am void of feeling and ideas. Obviously, Hemingway knew more about writing than I did so I have always been intrigued by that idea of leaving something left in the tank. Frost's poem reminded me of that idea, and helps me ponder the value.

This poem also makes me think of the Old Testament concept of gleaning. Basically, my understanding is that as a farmer, you are to only make one pass over your fields for the harvest. Whatever is left after that first pass either belongs to the poor for their sustenance or will become part of the soil again. It was considered greedy and cruel to go through your crops and harvest every single grain or fruit. We now know that it is also a good agricultural practice to return more of your crops to the soil.

I am reminded of a friend's front yard when I was a teen. There were three apple trees, but only two residents. After eating all the raw apples that they could, making apple pie and apple sauce, and giving away shopping bags full to everyone they could, the trees would still make a ring of red. As fall wore on, the rotting apples would give off a pleasant odor. A week later, that front yard would smell like feet--apple cider vinegar anyone? That is when we would pick up the apples and, being teenagers, throw them at eachother. Then we would stink like vinegar and laugh like idiots. Maybe I looked forward to that week every year? At this point in my life, I would break the arm of anyone chucking rotting apples at me, but back then I guess I was more tolerant of stupidity.

I wondered what other people had thought about this poem so I Googled it and found another interpretation that I agree with. On her blog, Loren Webster mentions the fact that we humans are terrible at controlling nature. I agree; we have much better results when we leave ecosystems alone rather than trying to control or improve them. Perhaps Loren's last sentence catches the essence of Frosts meaning best, "Still, left alone, nature can usually heal even man’s worst insults, given enough time."

Chicago Girls

My maternal grandmother was a teenager during World War II, living in an Irish neighborhood in Chicago. Her brother was in the Army, stationed in England and made the D-day landing at Normandy. My grandma later married a former sailor who coincidentally drove one of the landing boats on D-day.

When my grandfather and uncle realized they were at the same place on the same day during the war, my uncle remarked, "You were one of the bastards who kept taking us to that damn beach!" I don't know if he knew then that my grandfather carried shrapnel in his leg from that day till the day he died.

My uncle was stationed with a geologically diverse group of men (this was, of course, before the racial integration of the armed forces.) Many of the guys around him thought that everyone in Chicago was a gangster, since Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was still fresh in everyone's memory. My uncle was at first baffled by such stereotype. He then decided to have a little fun.

Below is a photo that he wrote home and asked to have staged. My grandma is on the left with dark hair. I forgot where she said she got the revolvers from, but I assure you that it was rare for for my grandma to have a gun in the same house. The whiskey was her father's; she never was a drinker and didn't like to be around "hard liquor". It appears that they may be playing Stud Poker, but I know she was more of a Pinnocle player.

Once this photo arrived, my uncle was able to convince every gullible hick in his unit that girls in Chicago were not to be messed with. I wonder how many men were influenced by this photo and believed their whole life that Chicago women were heat-packing, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing thugs. Perhaps one of these guys met a woman later who admitted that she was from Chicago, and a hysterical (or sad) reaction occured.

President Bill Clinton: Lessons for 2008

I hope that you did not see the title of this post and roll your eye's. I would have if this was on someone else's blog. I am already sick of the primaries, and they have barely begun to gather steam. However, I am a citizen of a Democracy; I am morally obligated to inform myself of the issues and vote with my intellect, heart, and conscience.

You are also morally obligated to do the same, by the way. If you are one of the majority of Americans who votes rarely and ignorantly, then shame on you. Americans who do not make an effort to analyze the issues and candidates, and vote on a regular basis, are more responsible for our society's problems than the corrupt and inept politicians we point our fingers at. Whether you hate G.W. Bush or Hillary and Teddy, you can place the blame of their re-elections solely on the fact that most Americans are not informed and/or do not vote regularly.

Okay, I'll promise to quit preaching if you promise to read and vote prior to the elections this year. Deal? I am off my soapbox.

Why I am already sick of the Presidential Primaries: I am sick of the mudslinging. I am sick of the lack of information and the overabundance of hot air. I am sick of real issues being ignored in favor of safer topics, dumbed-down for public consumption. I am really sick of sound-bites and long for one person to speak clearly, earnestly, and intelligently on a regular basis. I detest anything that appears fake or misleading, and that is the feel I get from every candidate in every election. Of course I am over-cynical; but I blame that on the system.

Even so, I have to pick through the B.S. and make some decisions. "None of the above" is not a ballot option, and would not improve our democracy. So I wince, I pinch my nose, and I make an effort to trudge into the mire of 2008 candidates to find one that can do the least damage at least. I hope I will be pleasantly surprised and find someone who I passionately believe will lead our nation to prosperity, freedom, and peace without compromising our strength, integrity, values, or history.

This morning, I was researching a topic for my MBA class and stumbled on an interesting concept called Baumol's Disease. This is not a medical term but an economic term. Dr. William Baumol (PhD) is an NYU economist who, in 1966, defined Baumol's Disease as the fact that labor-intensive industries do not benefit from technological advances. This is important to point out because we expect that as technology advances, we will become more productive and our costs will go down. We see this in manufacturing the most: robots, engineering, and statistical analysis allows up to build more widgets for less cost.

However, as Dr. Baumol pointed out, some industries and professions cannot benefit from technological advances. No matter what media you use, it will always take the same amount of time to play a piece of music. For my research, the author (Bobby Newbell, M.D.) was pointing out that regardless of technology, it still takes the same amount of time for a Family Physician to examine you. There are computers, tools, books, theories, and various devices to assist a doctor today that did not exist 50 years ago; however, the doctor is still limited by one pair of eyes and one pair of hands. In the same vein, as Dr. Newbell points out, it still takes a nurse the same amount of time to change a dressing as it did 50 years ago. The dressing material and chemicals used may be more advanced, but you still have the same nurse cutting, pealing, wiping, and tying.

Baumol's Disease should be kept in mind when we analyze any issue preceded by a dollar sign. Not all costs can be reduced by technology. Dr. Newbell touched on, and Dr. Baumol wrote at length on, the effects of Baumol's Disease on health care costs. They have to rise because we live in an inflationary economy. Doctors and Nurses require more money every year to treat you in order for them to afford the rising costs around them. Health Care can increase the quality of their care through technology, and may be able to reduce administrative costs by using more databases and less clerks. However, it is not possible to reduce the labor costs of health care professionals with our current technology.

Dr. Baumol's professional opinion based on his research (as I understand it from my limited reading) is that the increase of health care costs is inevitable. As long as we insist on humane and scientific treatment of our health, we will have to expect our health care costs to rise. Of course, how we pay for these rising costs is just as confounding as how we may decrease the costs.

This election cycle has brought up the issue of health care again. If you hear a politician promise to lower health-care costs, you can now automatically assume that they are lying based on your understanding of Baumol's Disease. More often, we are hearing talk from the candidates on how we may health care for those who are not provided insurance through their employer. Too many Americans are forced to suffer with ailments that are easily treated but cost too much to afford without insurance. This is especially true due to the fact that most people without insurance are too poor to afford anything, especially medical treatment and medicine.

Perhaps you are callous enough to write off working-age adults without health insurance, and say that if they want to be treated then they can get off their butt and get a job like everyone else. However, many of those without insurance also have children who are uninsured. Are you callous enough to say that such children should suffer without the same fundamental medical treatment that your own children receive? If you say yes, then be prepared for a future of defective Americans.

Children who did not get their broken arms set properly, their cavities treated, anti-biotic for common infections, and their cavities filled will become adults who are less-than 100%. Be prepared that they will tend to work less and be sick more. They may also be more prone to acts of passive-aggression, blatant aggression, crime, and other anti-social activities. Never mind the potential they may have have held given the chance to grow up healthy and educated.

I was looking deeper into Baumol's disease to ensure I understood it well, and perhaps gain an additional perspective of the issue. In doing so, I stumbled on an old article that introduced another interesting concept and provided a prophetic message to the candidates of 2008. The article was published in the 6/20/94 issue of U.S. News and World Report by Michael Barone, and addressed Bill Clinton's 1994 budget, in light of his budget in 1993.

Barone introduces the concept of Norquist's Law. Norquist's Law was developed by Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist and stipulates that a healthy government budget should hold not increase spending faster than the rate of inflation. In this manner, Norquist demonstrates that the government would reduce the amount of the economy that they take in taxes every year.

What? Less taxes? Less spending? Fiscal responsibility and an ear to the voter's desire? Reducing the burden that we pay to the government for them to waste on pork and ineffective programs? Enabling us to spend more of our own money on our own interests? That's crazy talk!

Seriously, the first politician to mention anything close to Norquist's law has my vote. This is the prophetic message that I mentioned. The political candidates are having difficulty distinguishing themselves or finding a hot-button topic that fires up the grass-roots support. Here it is. A proven method for politicians to follow that will improve our government and our economy simultaneously: reduced government spending will bolster corporate and consumer spending while it forces our politicians to seek more effective programs and less wasteful spending.

The only way this Law could be effective, however, is if we also balance our budget. Norquist's Law would automatically balance the budget in the future theoretically: Assuming that we increase our spending at a lower rate than inflation and that revenues rise at historical rates, those line would have to cross at some point in the future, resulting in revenues exceeding expenditures.

In other words, if both of those assumptions hold firm, we could guarantee a budget surplus in the future, reducing our national debt. Reducing our debt would reduce our national expenses, further increasing our surplus. Long-term, we could pay off our debt and either drop our tax burden to a minuscule level or free up budget money for all the crazy schemes that our current politicians cook up.

I haven't done the math and I am not a trained economist, so I may be off base here. Having said that, I believe that we cannot assume that our revenues will rise or that we can contain our government's costs enough to remain under the rate of inflation if we do not find a way to balance the budget first. If our deficit continues to grow, the cost of maintaining a government will continue to skyrocket. If the institutions and nations that loan us money every lose faith in our ability to repay, they are going to make it very expensive and miserable to be an American. That point was inconceivable twenty years ago, today it is a fact that is not to distant if we do not make changes drastically and soon.

Several years ago, it was speculated that Hillary may run for President and in so doing would amass a powerful force of supporters just based on her gender. Now that she is a candidate, we do find some people who are supporting her based on gender, but not enough to turn the tide.

Obama is the first Black candidate who is not considered an extremist like Alan Keyes, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton (don't those names look out of place in the same sentence?) However, race has not been enough for Obama to separate himself from the pack. In fact, you would have thought that Oprah's support would have drawn enough of Hillary's voters over to make the difference, but such is not the case yet.

Here we are with a war that is not exactly as popular as World War II. We have a president who has alienated many conservatives with his decisions on budgets, staff, and ethics. We have China eating our lunch, Russia is light on debt while heavy on cash and marketable commodities, the Muslim world continues to be a dangerous tinderbox, and atrocities continue daily in places like Burma and Darfur. At home, we could use some good news, economically. How hard can it be to get people fired up in this kind of environment?

I have always voted Republican; I cannot think of a single Democrat on any ballot I have had an opportunity to hold that I supported. That is not to say that there have not been Democrat's in other districts or time periods that I supported, I just couldn't vote for them. I am willing to vote for a Democrat, but it is less likely that I would vote for a Democrat than I would for a third-party candidate.

People who know this about me have asked me who I like for the Republican primary. I honestly do not know. I am a registered Independent (I'll write about that some other time) so perhaps the point is moot. I cannot say that any Republican gets me fired up to open up my checkbook, or to place a yard sign, or to even acknowledge public support. I could live with any of them, I guess. I could live with any of the Democrats, frankly. As long as Theresa Heinz-Kerry is not involved in the decision, I am fine with whatever will be.

If you are a presidential candidate reading this (hey, it could happen), then let me tell you this: if you make your primary promise to me that you will fight to the death for a balanced budget and something like Norquist's Law, you have my vote. I have charitable contribution to make for 2008's tax deductions: you will receive the entire amount. I am looking to start volunteering on some weekends; I will spend as much time as possible at your local campaign headquarters doing whatever it takes to get you elected. I will place a sign in my yard, wear your buttons on my shirt, stick your bumper sticker on my cars, and mention you on a daily basis in my sphere of influence. I will dedicate the rest of the election season on this blog to daily posts about you. I will tattoo your name on my forehead if it would help.

Seriously, we have a lot of problems to face. If you are a liberal, you have one perspective on our nation's problems. If you are conservative, you have another. There are also the perspectives of libertarians and others. The fact of the matter is that regardless of your perspective, you will have to agree with me on one thing if you look at the matter sincerely and do the math: every act of our government is is useless without a sustainable financial policy.

What effect did the word "sustainable" have on you as you read it? That is how I can tell your current political affiliation. If if made you perk up and read a little closer, then you are leaning left and Democratic. If it made you roll your eyes and think of Al Gore in a sickening way, then you are a right-leaning Republican. If you had to look it up in a dictionary, then you are not paying attention.

"Sustainable" is a part of a global discussion taking place, mostly concerning environmentalism or Third World economics. It refers to the ability of a system to continue without outside intervention. Sustainable models can reduce dependence on foreign aid, reduce damaging practices, and and raise the quality of life and standard of living from everyone involved. In addition, sustainability can reduce political instability, terrorism, and crime. Sustainability is, unfortunately, a buzz-word used to drum-up political support, acquire grants, and shout down opposing ideas.

I wish to point out that, like so many other things, sustainability begins at home. To be succinct, it begins with out financial policy. We cannot sustain our current budgetary system indefinitely; eventually this system will implode under the weight of debt. Believe me, I have been there personally. If you have a mortgage, car, student loan, and a high standard of living, you will find it quickly becomes uncomfortable if you lose your source of income, even if temporarily. What is true at the micro-economic level is usually true at the macro-level.

Our nation has a lot of debt and expenses. We also have a trade deficit, a war, and a recession. What would it take to cut-off the flow of money into our country? Now much, apparently. When foreign investors began to perceive that Americans would be less likely to payoff their mortgages, they made less Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to our mortgage industry. Suddenly, there was less cash to give. Couple that with other economic factors such as stalled-job growth and adjustable-rate mortgages coming due, and you have the making for a "Sub-prime loan fiasco."

That was just a warning shot. China has more cash in the bank than any other nation, and they have more money flowing into their country through exports than any other nation. They control their currency, keeping it artificially weak so that their exports are more affordable while imports to China are cost-prohibitive to the Chinese consumer. America's affluence is due in large part to FDI; foreigners expected that they would get a larger rate of return with less risk and volatility if they invested in various American industries.

Nowadays, that expectation is reduced. Russian commodities are proving highly lucrative and Chinese manufacturing is both stable and rewarding. With less money from outside, we will have to foot the bill for more of our luxuries from internal sources. Alternatively, we may consider doing without luxuries that we take for granted today, like interstates, parks, bridges, jobs, research, arts, and utilities.

What every American, and especially our policy makers, should do more of is to view our nation through the eyes of a Foreign Investor. This is a flat world, and we need to receive as much or more than we give in order to sustain our standard of living. Currently, we spend more on imports than we make off our exports. That means we pay more money to foreign nations than we make. If you added up the money possessed by every American citizen and every American corporation, that sum would be our economy. That sum is a smaller number every year; we send money out more money to buy stuff than we receive by selling our stuff to other nations.

Today, we can sustain this trade deficit. However, we cannot expect to do so indefinetly; eventually, we will not have enough money to spend on stuff because we did not replenish our resources. This is an implosion because we will not be able to afford to maintain the export business at that point, eliminating future revenue. You go from living in the lap of luxury to catastrophic depression almost overnight.

A similar principle applies to our federal net-worth. Currently, we owe over 9 trillion dollars. Trillion, with a "t". Yeah.

But we are fabulously wealthy, right? We can pay for that debt because we innovative, ingenuitive, well-invested, well-connected, and in control of so many resources...right? Sure, we have sustained a sick amount of debt for decades now. If that was our only problem, we would be okay. We can make the payment on $9 trillion.

The thing is, we are spending more money than we take in. Every year, we have to borrow money to remain in business as a nation. Therefore, next year we will owe more, not less. That raises the minimum payment on the national debt. We can afford a $9 trillion dollar debt load, but can we afford $10 trillion? How about $15 trillion?

The fact of the matter is that eventually the final bill arrives. If you, personally, continue to aquire new credit cards to pay for the existing credit cards, at some time your minumum monthly payment will be too large to borrow. At that point, you will find that you cannot even borrow money from the check-cashing place. Vinny the loan-shark would even touch you. Congratulations, you are no longer solvent. You can file for bankruptcy and start all over again.

Nations cannot file bankruptcy. When they scare off investors and lenders, they cause panic. Businesses shutdown, roads crumble, corruption spreads, crime runs rampant, self-abuse and neglect replace health-care. That can't happen to America? Tell that to the Roman Empire. Tell that to the Incan Empire. Tell that to any predator that has eaten its prey faster than it could multiply.

I agree, it seems unlikely that we couldn't prevent total insolvency as a nation. However, it is a possibility. The more likely occurrence is a generation-long recession. Or worse, a financial and cultural recession measured in centuries. Ask the Chinese about that, or just look it up on Wikipedia. Today, the Chinese are a fearsome economic power. In the 1930's, they were dominated by a tiny little island named Japan. You have to go pretty far back to locate the last time that China enjoyed this level of power and prosperity.

I would like to spend my retirement years in comfort and peace. I would like to know that my grandchildren can enjoy the same or greater nation that I have enjoyed. I would like to live longer than my ancestors, and get more out of my final years; by this, I mean that I want to enjoy cutting-edge health-care that keeps me alive and active as long as possible.

The labor costs of health care are only going to go up, according to Baumol's disease. At what point will those costs become prohibitive? Well, that depends on how much money Americans have available to them to spend on health care. Our available money is dependent on the national economy. If our taxes are at 50% in order to afford our national debt, which may be over twenty trillion dollars, and our local businesses are less prosperous, then influenza-exposure at 80 years old may not be a survivable experience.

That is why I am making a pledge of support to any politician who can convince me that they can and will do something about our financial sustainability. I am not looking for sound-bytes among your other "issues"; I am looking for someone who truly realizes that our national policy of financial irresponsiblity is our greatest threat to our future, and will make that their primary focus.

You can argue that Iraq has something to do with our future. Whether you think that we need to finish the fight to get out of Iraq, you would have have to agree that your reasons are moot in the future if we cannot pay our bills. Winning the Global War on Terrorism is meaningless if it contributes to our insolvency; withdrawing from Iraq will not do any good if the returning vets settle into a life that leads to higher taxes, less prosperity, and a national decline.

You can argue about the importance of health care, especially for children near or below the poverty line. I would say that whatever good intentions you have will cause bounced checks an unmet expectations in the near future if we do not fix our financial irresponsibility. In fact, the same can be said of any social program you mention: it all costs money that we did not have yesterday, do not have today, and surely will not be able to borrow in the future.

You can complain about China and India, and scream about tarrifs and the trade deficit all you want. The fact is, even if those jobs were being sent here and we enjoyed a trade surplus, we would still face a catastrophe in the future based on the current irresponsibility of the people who we have entrusted with spending our taxes. If we had more coming in, we would have more going out. In fact, it may be even worse.

Establish financial sustainability as a policy. Balance the budget. Reduce the national debt. Control government spending, and do not increase it faster than the rate of inflation. See what happens.

Spoiler alert! If you follow the simple steps outlined in the paragraph above, or at least operate the federal budget in a manner similiar to financially successful citizens and companies, the other problems will become more manageable. Many problems will take care of themselves.

Economics is all about psychology. Think about it: what makes that green piece of paper valuable to other people? You could write anything you want on that piece of paper in any color you want with watermarks and embedded technologies unheard of, but it will never have value until the other person is convinced of its value. We have all agreed that the dollar can be exchanged for goods; that is what makes the dollar valuable. Cultivating that thought is the fact that we know so many other people find it valuable. We know that we can use our dollar am millions of places all over the world to buiy whatever our heart desires. If we believed otherwise, that same piece of paper would become worthless, without changing form.

We need to cultivate a belief in the value of the dollar. We can do that by making our nation financially sustainable, like China and Russia and so many other nations who we once looked down on as economic-midgets. By righting our ship, we will be forced to pay a fee right now in the form of inconvenience. Believe me when I say this: that fee has to paid sometime, and it compunds over time. If you leave it for your children to pay, you have committed a fomr of child abuse that is beyond evil. It is horrible to abuse your own children, but to abuse all future generations with one policy is beyond evil.

Clinton and Greenspan demonstrated the effects of balanced budgets and solvency on American prosperity. If you look back on the 90's, you can see how balanced budgets and news of surpluses affected the markets. When we bailed out Mexico, it not only prevented a catastrophe and generated a trunaround in their nation, we too saw increases in market activity. When Clinton reduced spending and deficits in his budget, Greenspan at the Fed with statements and moves in the interest rates. Greenspan's actions make the financial markets turn backflips of joy. And when the financial markets are happy, almost everybody is happy. Even the poorest Americans can benefit during a bull market in most cases.

I didn't like Bill Clinton, personally. As a Marine, I was forced to salute him but I disagreed with many policies and philosophies that he held. However, I miss the days where someone challenged congress over their pork-barrell spending. I miss the days when a President earnestly sought for balanced-budgets and reduced debt. I wuoldn't say that Clinton had the right idea about how to trim the budget, but at least he tried. Most of all, though, I liked how cocky and secure our financial markets felt when Clinton and Greenspan were working together to lay the fundamentals for a healthy economy.

Wow, I didn't know I had that much to say on the subject of Baumol's Disease and Norquist's Law (which is what lead me to start this post.)

Every Presidential Candidate right now is spinning their tires. I don't see anyone really striking a chorus. Try this: focus on the root of the problem. Focus on the heart of the matter. Don't pull on my heart-strings, pull on wallet: at the end of the day, that's what will fire me up. Everthing else is just a subcategory; money is what makes the world go 'round.

Here are a few articles you can look up in EbscoHost or Proquest (head to your local library for assistance if you are unfamiliar with these databases--they are a fantastic way to find exactly what you need to know without leaving your desk):

-Baumol WJ. Do health care costs matter? New Republic. Nov. 22, 1993:16-18.

-Bobby J. Newbell, MD, November/December 2007, www.aafp.org/fpm, FAMILY PRACTICE MANAGEMENT, pg. 11.

-Jackson JR. Is technology displacing the art of medicine? Physician Exec. March/April 2004:46-50.

-Government gets a shrink. By: Barone, Michael, U.S. News & World Report, 00415537, 6/20/94, Vol. 116, Issue 24.

Corporal Jason L. Dunham, USMC

Back in 2004, my dad clipped an article out of the Wall Street Journal that he thought I would find interesting. It was the story of a Marine who had a theory: there may be a way to jump on a grenade and not only save other Marine's lives but also perhaps retain your own life. That Marine was then presented with an opportunity to test his theory in combat with lives on the line.

Normally, a grenade explodes and sprays metal (shrapnel) in every direction, effectively killing everything within 15 meters. If you are inside of that 15-meter kill zone, you may have your life saved if you wear body armor made of Kevlar or can take cover behind something armored.

It is well established that if a human body lays on the grenade at detonation, that body will absorb most of the blast and contain, deflect, or retard the lethality of the shrapnel. This action is the ultimate sacrifice: knowing that you will die to save your fellow Marines (or sailors, soldiers, police officers, etc...) This action usually results in a post-humous award of the Medal of Honor (MOH) when engaged in battle.

There are many medals and ribbons you can earn in the military. None of them rank as high as the MOH. Normally, enlisted personnel with the rank of Private through Sergeant Major do not rate a sulte from anybody; that is an honor reserved for Officers who are warranted or commissioned. However, anyone who wears the MOH rates a salute according to tradition. According to this tradition, if the lowest ranking private wearing an MOH were to be approached by the highest ranking General, they would salute each other out of mutual respect.

Some medals and ribbons have a reputation of being given away easily, more for political reasons than heroism. The MOH has never been accused of such. Most people who are awarded the MOH had to die in the process; the act of sacrificing one's life to save many others is a hallmark of MOH awards. In addition, refusing medical treatment while continuing the fight, or performing superhuman acts that turn the tide of battle, are common on MOH citations.

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Corporal Jason L. Dunham was a squad leader with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines in 2004. He extended his enlistment contract in order to make his second deployment to Iraq with his unit, demonstrating his devotion to his fellow Marines. On April 14, 2004, Cpl. Dunham's squad was engaged in operations in Iraq. While enroute to support his battalion commander's convoy, which had been ambushed, he came upon a group of Iraqi vehicles. He and his squad began to stop and search the vehicles. One of the insurgents rolled a grenade nonchalantly, to avoid it being noticed. Cpl. Dunham saw it and, thinking quickly, threw his helmet and himself on the grenade to shield the balst from two nearby Marines.

Cpl. Dunham was issued his helmet to protect him from shrapnel and other projectiles. I wore a similiar helmet and held similiar conversations regarding its usefulness when I served back in the early 1990's. Luckily, my peers and I never had to test any of our theories. We knew that it was not bullet-proof; we also knew that projectiles do funny things when they detonate and it is impossible to predict what trajectory a projectile may take.

There is a common story of a Marine who was shot while wearing a kevlar helmet: the bullet entered one side, followed the interior of the helmet for some reason, and exited on the other side. You can try to explain it with nano-physics or you can blame it on guardian angels. The fact is that any effort you can take to contain or deflect a projectile is worth the effort.

There was no reason to believe that his helmet would contain the blast and save his life--or anyone else's life. One tiny projectile could find an opening or soft-spot and prove to be fatal. When Cpl. Dunham threw his helmet and himself on the grenade, I am sure that the only thing important to him was to save his squad members. I did not know Cpl. Dunham, but I have known men like him. They may be rare to find in the civilian world but they are fairly common among Marines.

This act of bravery was simply the final and most heroic act in a short but accomplished life. He was respected and loved for many character traits and accomplishments. Therefore, though this act was his final one, it was not out of character. According to everyone who knew him, Jason Dunham was not the kind of guy who stepped up occasionally when people were watching; he lived a life of service, heroism, and accomplishment every day.

We lost more than a Marine when we lost Jason Dunham; we lost potential. America's future, bright though it may be, is a little poorer without Jason Dunham. Who knows what else Jason had to offer this world. On the other hand, his example and the spirit he left behind will inspire many in current and future generations.

Cpl. Dunham's family and friends have established a memorial in his honor, to include a Scholarship fund. I believe in this scholarship fund, which is awarded to Marines and FMF Corpsman who "...demonstrate the core values of leadership, service, sacrifice, and a sense of other(s) that were the characteristics of Corporal Jason L. Dunham." (Quoted from the scholarship website.) I believe that this scholarship will encourage other men and women in our armed forces to act with integrity and honor, courage and conviction. For those of us who are donors rather than applicants, it is a reminder to us of what makes a person rise above the common character and inspire others to give more than they receive. The scholarship promotes the traits that make our nation great, and it elevates the people who aspire to such greatness.

I am not really known for quoting the bible, but I believe that there is a verse that applies here and means more than words can fully describe: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-14 NIV) There is also a great quote that speaks volumes from one of Cpl. Dunham's leaders, on the Memorial website: "All that we have, has been given to us. What we do with what has been given is how we honor those who gave." (Kilo 3 Bravo Gunnery Sergeant Adam Walker)

It is difficult to argue with the importance of education, and how giving money to a scholarship fund is an investment in the future of our society. There are many worthy scholarships and other charities, but today I want to highlight The Jason L. Dunham Memorial Scholarship Foundation. They are still in the process of earning 501(c)3 status, so a donation is not yet eligible for IRS deductions. I am taking a chance that any money I donate this year will be eligible for deduction by the end of the year. Failing that, the cause outweighs my need for a deduction. What I really need is a nation full of Jason Dunham's, or at least more people who aspire to his example of leadership, service, sacrifice, and a sense of others.

If you can fit it into your giving budget, please consider sending a donation to establish The Corporal Jason L. Dunham Scholarship Foundation.

Checks payable to: CPL Jason L. Dunham Scholarship Mailing address: Corporal Jason L. Dunham Memorial Scholarship Foundation Inc. 187 Pinehurst Avenue Suite 1-B New York, New York 10033

Here are a few interesting links for more information:

Corporal Dunham's Memorial and information on his scholarship.

Corporal Jason L.Dunham's Medal Of Honor Citation.

A fantastic short film from MarineTV that describes who Jason Dunham was, in the words of the people who knew him:

A video of President Bush Awarding Cpl. Jason Dunham's family with the Medal Of Honor:

Watch D.O.G.S.

I have been looking for an opportunity to donate some of my time, in addition to donating money like I talked about last time. Of course, finding a place to donate your time is easier than finding a job. However, I have found it twice as hard to find an opportunity that matches my skills, passion, and time.

Recently, I found an opportunity that was a perfect match. At my daughter's school, they have a program called Watch D.O.G.S., which stands for Dads Of Great Students. The idea is to have a dad, grandfather, uncle, or stepfather spend a day at the school, and their presence both adds to the educational experience and increases the security of the school. According to the official website:

WATCH D.O.G.S.® is the safe school initiative of the National Center for Fathering that was founded by Jim Moore, a concerned father who chose to take action in response to a 1998 middle-school shooting in Jonesboro, AR.

My day as a Watchdog Dad was fantastic, and I will be doing it again soon. Let me just say now that if you have any kind of fatherly influence on a middle school child, you should look into joining or starting a Watch D.O.G.S. group. Every man who participates will have more fun than they could imagine, the kids have a great time and receive a new perspective, and the teachers and administrators benefit from the extra eyes, ears, mouth, and hands to both educate the kids and keep them safe.

I began my day by receiving an official vest that identified my role. I was then asked to stand out in the parking lot to observe the kids arriving. I have been a parent dropping off and felt the frustration of having to queue and move slower than I'd like. I have also wished there were more adults, preferably police, present at the beginning and end of the day when kids are most likely to be shot, run-over, or kidnapped. It was gratifying to be a part of the safety net that keeps the kids safe.

After morning announcements, my daughter and I had our picture taken for the WatchD.O.G.S. board, and the girl got to wear a T-shirt all day to identify her as the kid of a Watchdog Dad. She then went about her day and I was given an itinerary to follow.

My first stop of the day was in a kindergarten classroom. The teacher was previously my daughter's teacher, so we knew each other. She sent the kids with me one at a time to the hall where they read a little book to me. It was interesting to me to see who had the book memorized, including the teacher's voice inflections and gestures. Some of the kids could sound out the words that they were unsure of. The best was one child who would recite the memorized sentence in the book and then offer her own commentary on the story. I was laughing, which only encouraged her embellishment. I can't wait to read her first novel.

Most of the kids were a little standoff-ish because I was a stranger, but they warmed up a little and read the book. However, there were two kids that were unwilling to read to me. They didn't look at me, and they either did not respond to my questions or they mumbled an answer. I wondered if they have more anxiety with strangers than most people do, or if they are used to dangerous and abusive men. It was difficult to see kids with so much to deal with at such a young age. I can't imagine how teachers who see that thing everyday are able to deal with the sadness and frustration that these kids made me feel.

And that reminds me of the kids I saw coming in after the first bell. A teacher was stationed at the front door to sternly announce to each tardy child that they were late and they needed to hurry to their classroom. The oldest kids coming in were in sixth grade and the youngest were kindergartners. I like the idea of teaching kids to be responsible and punctual, but I wonder how much responsibility a sixth-grader can take for their transportation to school, let alone a kindergartner.

More than one of the kids coming in were crying, and many of them looked unkempt or disheveled, indicating to me that the parents have issues of their own. I wondered if making these kids feel bad about their tardiness was productive, but I also see the value in making the tardiness an undesirable condition to be avoided. It is too bad the school can't do more to punish parents for tardy children, and hold parents responsible for more of their child's education.

Teaching my children to read, write, add, subtract, and act with morality and responsibility is a no-brainer for me and my better-half. Unfortunately, my wife and I find that many of our child's peers have been left without any training or worse, they have learned about sex and violence at a young age without learning how to spell their name, hold a pencil, or count to ten. A few of the children are left with not only a lack of fundamental skills but also a lack of English. They arrive in school with only as much English as they can learn from T.V., which makes the teacher's job that much harder.

My daughter was ready to read in kindergarten, but her teacher was prevented from spending time cultivating that skill because she was still teaching the alphabet to kids who apparently received more than enough calories at home, but not enough Sesame Street or parental tutoring. They could recite the lyrics to Snoop-Dogg compositions, but couldn't remember what came after t-u-v in the alphabet. I understand that there are all kinds of issues out there and I have experienced a few of them. However, I can't imagine how having kids wouldn't cause you to find a way to rise above your issues and give them a better future than you had.

After a long, hard day, I had an hour or two that I could spend with my daughter and a book. On the other hand, the teacher had my daughter for several hours (she also had the education and experience to more effectively teach reading skills.) I know that she would have loved to help the best students go farther, but she was limited by the weakest link in the chain. I certainly wouldn't want any child to be seperated as "slow" or "dumb" at such a young age, but I also can't help but wonder how much farther along my daughter would be if she had been challenged more, rather than waiting for the other kids to catch up.

Just to be clear, I don't want to paint my daughter as the star pupil. There were several students like her who had the skills and willingness to do more than was asked of them. A clear divide existed between the students who had been worked with, and those who had been left without instruction. Perhaps we need to increase access to quality pre-school, or just start slapping sense into some parents. I know, the former idea is more acceptable but the second option would be more satisfying.

Anyhow, back to the story: After kindergarten, I headed to fourth-grade where I was read to again. The kids were bigger and more skilled at reading, and the books were much more interesting. I could ask the kids about the books they were reading to test their comprehension, and I could explain concepts and definitions to help them comprehend more. It was very interesting to experience the contrast and see how much a kid learns in just a few years.

Throughout the day, I was greeted warmly and enthusiastically by many kids and adults, which is a great change from my usual day. In my career, I usually meet people who expect me to either fix sopmething or try to sell them something, and usually both. I work in an industry full of gruff, bitter, and burned-out people. Needless-to-say, it was a fantastic change to have everyone happy to greet me without any expectations.

After fourth-grade, I spent 30 minutes observing a kid use a computer to enhance his learning. This was a child who was obviously below his age-group's reading level and was working on phonics. I do not know if anyone is to blame for his difficulties, and it is none of my business. I am just glad that his condition was diagnosed and that he is receiving the extra attention he needs. In other school districts he may have slipped through the cracks, but here he is taken out of the class and brought up to speed with special attention by literacy specialists. Even better is the use of techonology; with a moderately-priced computer and internet access, these kids are getting opportunities that were previously unavailable. Using computers to take the place of instructors, you can get more attention and instruction to more kids who need it.

I got to go out for recess for the first time since I was in grade-school. It is still awesome to run free on a muddy field and play football with the boys, even when it is 30 degrees. I think more adults should experience recess again and be reminded of how exhilerating and liberating it can feel. If we could incorporate recess into our work day, like Spain incorporates the siesta, we would have more productivity and less heart-attacks I am sure. Rush-hour would be less tense everyday as well; we would be too tired and happy to honk or flip eachother off.

I got to eat lunch with my daughter and her friends, and that was waaaaaaay better than eating lunch with my friends. I was grossed-out just as often, but the topics of conversation were much more fun and uplifting. When you are in grade-school, everything is fun, funny, or new. Burps are great, trading carrots for a cookie is the bomb, and no one cares who Hillary Clinton is or whether gas prices will break $3. I wish I could eat at her school everyday; I am sure it would make my life more satisfying and I may squeeze a little more productivity into my afternoon.

When I drop-off or pick-up my kids from school, I will be more patient now that I have seen how hard it is to control the chaos. I have been critical of teachers in the past; now that I have seen a full day and all the issues that need to be addressed, I will be unable to criticize these heros. It is too bad that our society does not value our teachers more; we have no idea what we could get out of them if we spent more time encouraging and enabling our teachers, rather than criticizing and cost-cutting. Shame on us.

Originally, Watch D.O.G.S. was started to increase safety in our schools. As a Marine, I can confidently report that my presence made the school safer that day; luckily, that safety was not tested. Perhaps, just knowing that there is a dad at school everyday will prevent many unsafe thoughts from occurring to desperate minds. Failing that, it is good to know that there will be more eyes, ears, and muscle to prevent bad situations from being worse.

This is a program that everyone should be aware of. If you are a fatherly figure, you really should get involved. If you know a fatherly figure, please pass on this program. If the school does not already have a Watch D.O.G.S. program, it can be easily started-up by clicking here. This is a fantastic opportunity to give back to your community, spend more time with your kid, and have as much fun as a grade-schooler. If nothing else, it gets you out of work for a day, and that is always a good thing!

Selfish Charity

How has your 2008 been so far? Mine has been busy. Not the good kind of busy, but the kind of busy that makes you wonder if 2008 is going to be worth the effort. The kind of busy that makes you wish it was 2009 already. Several other people I know have had the same complaint. Isn't the recession and the political primary season enough pain, do I really have to work hard on top of all that?

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Today I would like to discuss charity. This is something that I have been considering for a while, and I have found an interesting way to give that you should be aware of. Charity is our way of improving our community. It not only makes the world a little better, it makes you better as well. By giving money away, you help mold a generous spirit within you that others will find attractive. Charity also communicates to the universe that you can be trusted with money, and that you are ready for more.

I was once a stingy person. I felt that I was already giving enough through my taxes, and that I didn't need to be charitable when I was just a few paychecks away from poverty. If I was really creative, I would rationalize that instead of being charitable, I can invest in myself and ensure that I have more to give in the future. I was selfish; I was only looking to benefit myself. I still am, but I have found I can benefit myself through charity.

Many lessons and examples along the way have lead me away from stingy thinking. Of course, I have more money today than I did a few years ago. However, I am nowhere near any of my financial goals. Every penny I give away today is money that could have sent my kids to school, helped me get through retirement, or at least paid off my mortgage. It is also money that I have worked hard to earn and have every right to spend on a vacation or a new car.

I am happy to be charitable. By pooling my money with others, I am improving the world around me and raising the standard of living for people less fortunate than me. The key to my transformation from stingy to charity was the acceptance that I am fortunate. I may not be as fortunate as some people I run into, but I do not have to travel far to find people with less love, opportunity, and possessions than myself. Realizing my fortune has allowed me to share it with those around me.

Even though I am grateful for my good fortune, I am still a selfish person. I can't help. Maybe I am less selfish than I was, but I cannot stop looking our for number one. That's okay, though. There is such a thing as Selfish Charity.

Charity also allows me to share my passion, interests, and personality--like this blog. I think that most of us enjoy anything that strokes our ego. When someone asks you about your job, kids, or hobby and seem interested in your answer, that can be like a drug. Expressing your personal interests through bumper-stickers, t-shirts, email-signatures, and well-placed comments in conversation are as natural as breathing. With charity, you express your passion with your most valued object: your money. Giving to a cause that supports your passion feels great; it feels even better when it gives you an opportunity to talk to someone about why you give and why you feel passionate about the subject.

I am passionate about education. I can see that missing educational opportunities has affected me personally and financially. I can also see how my studies have both expanded the quality of my life and my earning potential. When I look around me, I see the same principal at work in the lives of those around me. Therefore, I think that any charity that raises the quality of education or increases educational opportunities for people is worthy of my money.

I am also passionate about children. If you want to prevent a societal ill, you start with children. If you want to improve the potential of a society, you start with children. If you want to laugh or feel energized, spend some time with kids. If you want a fresh perspective on an issue, ask a child. Therefore, almost any opportunity that will benefit children is a worthy cause.

This has led me to be charitable to my local library. The library has provided me with a collection of jazz CDs to import to my iTunes, it had provided me with a collection of audiobooks for my long drives throughout the midwest, and it has answered every question I ever posed there. Moreover, it is a constant source of education and entertainment for my kids through borrowed books and videos. Charitable giving to my library can be seen as a very selfish act since I get so much use from the library.

However, it is not entirely selfish. My local library branch is always full of people who I would not normally run into: people too poor to afford a computer so they go to the library to get online. There are also people taking classes ESL and GED classes to improve their earning potential--and their internal lives. There are programs for children in every age-group and demographic. The library doesn't just make people smarter, it makes them feel better and provides tangible benefits.

I get frustrated when I try to communicate with someone in Kansas who cannot speak English. The library not only improves that person's earning potential and quality-of-life, it lowers my potential for communication breakdown. The library raises the earning potential of those around me, which directly improves the economy, lowers crime, and makes for a more pleasant society. The library teaches people to use computers, which means I will have more computers, servers, and routers to sell, install, and support over time. The library also teaches people to help themselves, to seek information, and to indulge curiosity--those benefits may be intangible, but they improve society all the same.

I have also given to Hospice in memory of people who passed away. Some may think that Hospice is the least likely source of selfish-charity. I once thought that it was tacky to beg for Hospice donations during a funeral. "Don't give flowers, give money to Hospice." I wish I could remember who it was that changed my perspective, but it was so simple: they made me realize that I may need Hospice some day. Or, God forbid, someone I really love.

In that event, I will want Hospice to be well-funded and able to meet every need. When I thought about how I could benefit from Hospice, I realized how important it really is. Now, I feel good giving to Hospice knowing that it helps a family transition during the most painful time of their life. I also know that if I should ever need it, Hospice will be there for me, too.

Charitable giving to political campaigns and committees is more transparently selfish, but it is important nonetheless. It is not enough to vote nowadays, unfortunately. Campaigns are media-driven and very expensive. If you believe in a cause, you can improve its chances of being heard, presented intelligently, and being accepted if you provide funding. It doesn't matter how rational your cause is or how much evidence you have to support it; if your cause is underfunded it will be drowned out by ignorant causes run by evil people with more money. That is a fact, whether you are a Democrat or Republican. By the way, is there a charitable cause that brings the two parties closer together? I will pledge my vacation fund for that cause.

Ayn Rand tried to teach us that there is nothing wrong with being selfish; in fact, it is unavoidable. Perhaps her philosophy went too far and ignored many important factors, but the essence is true: Being selfish is not inherently evil and can make the world a better place.

There is an episode of the TV show "Friends" where the hippy-ish character Phoebe tries to prove that unselfish acts exist. She found that everytime she tried to be unselfish, she benefitted in some way--despite her best efforts to avoid personal benefits. It is hard to develop a character over 30 minutes once a week, with commercial breaks, but I inferred that she embraced her selfish charity and used her selfishness to improve the lives of others.

If you are already charitable, then I thank you. Moreover, I encourage you to pimp your favorite charitable cause in the comments below! If you are not already charitable, I hope that you begin to consider ways that you can benefit yourself through charity. If nothing else, do it to lower your taxes.