CAPITOL HELL

The People Who Make Money Dividing Us Are Killing Our Country One Advertisement at a Time.

I guess I've spent so much time in NC lately that I forget what DC is really like. Don't get me wrong, I love the city--love the parks, the museums, bars, restaurants, art, architecture, etc., but some of the people make me quezy. I have really good friends there, and my former teammates on the Virginia Congressional Softball Team, Big Tobacco [formerly The Va. Hams] are great people. It's the smarmy political pimps that turn my stomach.

I was on Capitol Hill yesterday visiting some friends. It was a normal mid-summer DC day--hot, muggy, just rained buckets and the water was already evaporating. I asked one friend, (I won't disclose the person's name--all I will say is that he is a senior staffer in the office of a Republican Congressman from a state in the southern U.S.) what was new on the Hill. After a ten minute recap of the newspaper, The Hill's "Hottest on the Hill" list, he told me how the Republicans were reacting to the recent ads the Dems are running congratulating themselves on their accomplishments.

I'll paraphrase: They did this, so we're doing this. They want voters to believe this, so we're going to do a direct mail campaign to likely Republican voters on how they did this and that and more of this. "Off the record, we're using a new database to find disaffected voters and..." [Okay, I'll keep the content secret, but you get the idea.] Thirty minutes later I was shaking my head. I realize that with two parties heading into elections there will be competition, but this was a plan for war. In fact, it was a brutal assessment of how one side would dismember and destroy the other. To be fair, I called up a Dem. friend and solicited what he knew of his party's plans and, not surprisingly, they sounded just like the Republicans.

What I realized is that, while traveling around and working in NC, I see what American voters [and I would challenge my demographer/pollster friends to check this, but I believe the people I've met an ideal cross-section of American voters] think about their government and the political process. It ain't good. People have lost hope. I went online and these are the first legitimate poll numbers I came across. Here's what a recent AP poll found:

• Only 24 percent of those polled approve of the job the Congress is doing as a whole
  


• Poll respondents from both political parties say they're tired of the bickering between Congress and the White House, and they want the two branches of government to work together on such issues as education, health care and the Iraq war
  
  
• While public approval of Congress has dropped 11 points since May, the percentage of Democrats who are turning up their noses at Congress nearly doubled
  
  
• Approval among Democrats fell 21 points, down from 48 percent in May to 27 percent
  


• Approval of Republicans, at 20 percent, has not changed significantly in the past two months



• Only one-fourth of the people, or 26 percent, said the country is headed in the right direction

These numbers are pathetic! What would happen if a corporate executive got this "vote of confidence" from board members? He or she would be out the door tomorrow. What would a board of education do to a principal who received this kind of feedback from teachers and the community? Gone! And, the saddest part is that these numbers are normal. Sure, they go up and down a bit, but, for the most part, they are status quo. Am I supposed to tell my young cousin and little buddy, Graham Warren, this is what he should expect from his country? I refuse to do that. He deserves better--we all do.

So, what's being done about it? You have to ask yourself, if this isn't one of the major contributors to the sorry state of our culture. I certainly believe it plays a significant role. If we don't trust--can't trust--our elected leaders, what does that do to us? I've written before about the fact that most Americans claim they have no heroes. Is that any wonder when you consider that the guy getting ready to break a long-standing baseball record may be indicted for steroid use just after he hits number 756? Will slapping an asterisk on the number restore confidence in our national past-time? Will we never recover from the "depends of what the definition of 'is' is?" Have we finally fallen into the gray area of relativity and drowned in it?

I wondered if there a group within either political party working on reforming the party? Anyone turning over the tables or putting up barricades and lighting torches? So, I called my political consulting friends and even a woman I know who works for the RNC. Guess what? They don't believe there is anything in need of reform!! They like the way things [don't] work. Again, I used my contacts inside the Republicans,but I guarantee the DNC is the same. Same monster under a different bed.

The fewer people vote, the less work they must do. They spend less reaching smaller and smaller groups. The fewer people the more that can rely on micro-targeting to differentiate and market to those people. As Harvey Kronberg,editor of the Quorum Report, notes in a recent article, "Karl Rove ran the 2004 presidential campaign on the premise the political center had evaporated and the country was sharply divided into right and left. In his book, Applebee Nation, former Bush pollster Matthew Dowd explained their campaign didn't try to win converts. Instead, it used a technique called micro-targeting to find and turn out likely Republican voters in otherwise Democratic strongholds."

Guess what, people like Karl Rove are responsible for dividing the nation into right and left--rich and poor--white and black and brown--for or against the war. They want us divided so they can prey upon our fears. They incite anger over an issue then provide the opponent. They want us divided just so they can herd us to the polling place to cast a vote. They don't care about the long-term consequence of that division. Instead of relating through what we share: a common American culture, national language, desire to see our children healthy and prosperous, belief in an "inalienable" right "endowed by our Creator" to personal freedom...we're left divided by our position on abortion or the Iraq war or stem cell research or amnesty for illegal aliens or "tastes great, less filling."

Once they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars dividing us through constant media images, they collect their paychecks, their candidates become elected representatives and we [the governed] get screwed. Now we're all riled up over some issue, expect these people to solve that problem and we're sorely disappointed when they can't do it. We dislike the people they've convinced us are the people creating the problem and we're ready to fight. This cycle happens over and over from the local town council to our U.S. reps. that we come to beleive that there is no solution. There are no solutions. So we quit. We quit voting and even worse, we quit caring. We tune out of those issues and tune into American Idol or CSI or Paris Hilton [God forbid!!]

The people we elect get hit too, because they KNOW they cannot solve the problem [which may or may not actually exist] and end up with only 20 percent of the American people liking them.

20 percent!!! Look at it this way, you're at a cabin in the woods with 10 other people. Only two of them like you--the other eight think you're a tool and want you to leave. How would that feel?

We must change this! We have to stop taking it from the political consultants and fight back for decency. Question everything and refuse to stop until we get real answers. Hold people accountable for what they promise. Fight for a reformed process where the political parties [preferably more than two] stand for a non-moving set of principles and the process works to attract more voters instead of locking out those people. Demand that the people we elect STOP PLAYING POLITICS and GOVERN...and GOVERN WELL.

If we refuse to eat the pabulum, someone...SOMEONE PLEASE...will step up and lead us into a better, more unifying process. If not, we're doomed and we can't blame the damn dirty apes.

FISH TACOS AND FAST COMPANIES

“A great part of courage is the courage of having done the things before.”

I overheard a business conversation last week at a little oceanfront, locals-only, surfer hangout at Wrightsville Beach that got me thinking. I've been involved with management and leadership for the past 20 years and am always interested in learning more and better ways of doing things. I believe being a leader is an organic process that begins when you decide it begins and ends when you die. You read, experience, question, challenge, fail, get up, and continue to move forward. Being humble enough to accept you’ll never know everything and living as a constant student is not easy, but it’s a wonderful way to live. Each time I visit my friend Jeff Scheffer, CEO of Stanley Furniture, I peek at the stack of books on his desk he’s reading and digesting. So, I perked up when the women began discussing their company, of which one was an SVP or C-level.

I was semi-quietly munching on a fish taco (hard shell, not soft and dumbly covered in Sriracha so I was also trying to stop the burning) and overheard a woman in a gray, chalk-stripe business suit (closer to my age than the 20-something crowd also having fish tacos) tell her companion the following [paraphrased because I could only hear some of the conversation over the crunching of the taco shells, nursing my burnt tongue, and The Connell's wailing from the speakers: "I want to make [company name] a place where we are constantly challenging the way we do things. A place where we consistently innovate and do something new. But, I'm worried about how we achieve that. How do we continue to focus on our customers and the process at the same time?"

Great question (and great fish taco--best I've had since my days working in San Diego.) For some reason, perhaps due to an email I received from him last week, I thought of my friend Paul Harris. Paul is a partner in a boutique law firm in D.C. where he migrated from Raytheon and before that the Bush Admin's first term as Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General. When I met him, though, he was a young lawyer in Charlottesville, Va. running for Virginia's House of Delegates. I jumped in to help. We sat on my front porch each evening with cigars and Bourbon discussing big issues, planning the campaign and deciding to try a new strategy: Paul would never mention his opponent's name and he wouldn't say even one negative thing during the entire campaign--which included negative ads that the Richmond consultants were already warning us we “had” to do or we’d lose.

One thing I quickly noticed about Paul as journalists pounced on him and his opponent got his shots in at debates and joint appearances. Instead of the larger issue, broader questions we’d discussed on my front porch, they were tossing out obscure and micro-subject questions: How Chinese apple imports were affecting growers in Rockingham Co., or a new connector parkway cutting through the countryside of the city and county. Paul amazed me (and the electorate) with his answers. Instead of acting like he knew anything about the apple growers in Rockingham, he stripped that away and went straight to the principle of the issue. Should we protect American products from cheap foreign imports? Time and again he got to the root—the principle—of the issue and gave his response based on his stand on the principle. It was a breath of fresh air and it showed in the results: he won the primary against a ferret-like opponent with 73 percent of the vote and the general election by 66 percent. Paul became the first black Republican elected to Virginia’s General Assembly since Reconstruction. I think it was the conviction with which he answered questioned that made the difference.

I wanted to put down my fish taco (but I just could not because it was soooo good) and tell the woman behind me that perhaps that was the way she could consistently challenge the status quo and maintain her foundation at the same time. She could balance her objectives by continuously innovating, changing, adapting, moving forward AND remain true to her company’s ethos by keeping their principles at the front of every choice she made. Stripping away the superfluous details and using the principle to guide you as you kick down walls and go into the unknown.

She could take the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “A great part of courage is the courage of having done the things before.”

I wanted to stick around and maybe talk with them--perhaps share my supreme knowledge and professional advice--but I'd licked the sun and had to run away like a baby to find something to quench the fire. Oh, in case you try this, Corona--very cold Corona--works best;-)

WHY NOT ME?

You Can Be or Do Anything---ANYTHING!
Suck It Up, Princess and Get Busy Making It Happen!

I've just gotten back from an annual guy's weekend in mountains of extreme western North Carolina. For 23 years we've been getting together in some form to golf, hike, eat, drink, laugh and attend the Gathering of the Clans and Scottish Games on Grandfather Mt.

We had a wonderful time playing golf (shot a good round despite the strained back muscles--*never accept last minute swing tips from your scratch golfer friend), relaxing and drinking on the deck of a restaurant looking out over 40 miles of mountains and deep, curving valleys, and hiking up to Table Rock (despite the five-foot-long Rattlesnake in the path on the way down that caused Pat Houghton to wet his shorts.) But, it was on the long, lonely drive down there that I experienced a great "Fred Selfe moment."

Somewhere along the way I picked up the mobile phone and returned a call from Dr. Charles Sydnor. He's been a mentor since college and I always enjoy the chance to talk with him--about Nazis (a subject on which he is an expert) or football or business or just to catch up on life. Dr. Syndor (he KEEPS asking me call him Charlie, but I simply cannot do it, just as I cannot call my friend Virgil Goode anything other than "Congressman Goode") recently retired as CEO of Central Va. Educational Television and is back helping Emory and Henry and the new president, Dr. Reichard, with major development projects like Fred Selfe Stadium and the Center for the Arts. We talked so intently about the college's new sports complex and raising money for the $5 million project that I almost missed the first chapter of a new book on CD I'd purchased for the trip--Donny Deutsch's Often Wrong, Never in Doubt.

I've been watching Donny's show, The Big Idea (weeknights 10pm CNBC), for a few months now and really enjoy it. Could be Donny's style: refreshing, open, caution-to-the-wind, friendly and relaxed. Or perhaps it's the jeans, blazer and open collar dress shirt look, or the tough Queens, NY dialect, or the way he easily goes from politics to economics to pop culture that makes the show attractive to me. Whatever it is made me pick up the book on CD and now I had to go back and start it again. And I'm glad I did.

The "Fred Selfe moment" came when Donny described his life philosophy that took him from Van Buren High School to his multi-million dollar advertising agency and the CNBC show. He calls it: "Why not me?" It is the process of being driven by looking around at what you want, then converting that passive "wanting" into a true sense of ownership of the "want." Hey that guy has a successful business and I'm smarter, cooler, a better salesman, a better leader, possess a bigger set of cajones--why not me? The answer has to be I CAN! Ninety-nine percent of people are not born "great"--they work at it. They pull themselves up from the coalfields of Virginia or out of the streets of Brooklyn with the mindset that they can be or do anything. If you dream of being the CEO of a major company, take the steps to get there. If you want to be president of the U.S. know--really KNOW--that you CAN be that and get to work making it happen.

Once you own the "WHY NOT ME?"--change your thinking to I CAN BE/DO ANYTHING anyone else can be/do, you just have to figure out how to go about it. Simple.

That's really what The Big Idea is all about about probably why I like it so much. One night it's Bill Gates, the next night it's a mom, Alicia Shaffer, who turned her need for a better, more fashionable way to carry her baby into a million dollar product, the Peanut Shell sling.

If your sitting there with a big idea, or just looking at your mediocre company and wondering why a competitor is getting all the business or media attention, ask yourself "Why not me?" --I can do that--then taking the steps to make it happen. The only thing separating you from that success is the decision to BE that thing.

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Happy Fourth of July!

Enjoy the day with family and friends, but remember those who came before us and those who serve us now--our troops and their families.

Okay, one rant because I just cannot resist: I was watching the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest (this is the start of the problem) live from Coney Island and overheard the emcee call the line of very odd men and women sitting in front of piles meat and buns, "athletes." Are you kidding? As someone who has been around real athletes I am appalled they call a guy dressed in a giant coonskin hat or a skinny Japanese guy with yellow hair who stuffs things into their mouths "athletes."

It's another fine example of how we tear things down--standards or titles--because the majority of people cannot reach them. Instead of raising people up to higher standards, we simply pull down the standard so anyone who can eat something quickly can be called an athlete. How would it look to see some slob covered in hot dog parts on the cover of Sports Illustrated alongside Venus Williams, Lance Armstrong, LeBron James, Peyton Manning, or Clinton "Ramgage" Jackson.We keep denigrating rare things until they no longer have meaning. And our culture shows it...so few have meaning.

Same thing goes for "video game athletes." These people sit on their backsides and press buttons. THEY ARE NON-ATHLETES! Get outside and skateboard for yourself. You are not Tony Hawk bacause you play his video game. To be Tony Hawk you have to skateboard--outside on a REAL skateboard with your own body. In fact, you have to master skateboarding and that cannot be done by flicking buttons sitting on a sofa. Instead of sitting around your living room in your nasty pajamas and thumbing your way to John Madden NFL glory, get outside and play the game. throw a ball; catch or kick one. Then, call yourself an athlete. Heck, call yourself John Madden for all I care, but if you don't play the game, don't take on a title you don't deserve.

On Paula Abdul's new reality show, Hey Paula!, her very odd stylist tells her people are trying to tear her down and she replies, "But I'm a warrior." A warrior? Is she kidding? She fights to stay sane or to find a new job or get to the Grammys on time, but she is NOT a warrior. The Marine (Maj. Doug Zembiec) in the post below is a warrior. My cousin Maj. Andrew Warren is a warrior. Paula Abdul is a quasi-entertainer.

Mr. Conspicuous Consumption, Arnold Schwarzenenegger calls himself an environmentalist because he has a hybrid Hummer? Or Al Gore whose carbon footprint on his five or six homes is greater than Honduras? We've used the word "revolution" to describe everything from razors to diet drugs to cat litter. What are we going to call an armed insurrection if we have one? Did I just answer my own question? Okay, what about the word "Czar"? Comes from the Latin "Caesar" and has been used as a title to describe the supreme ruler of Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia since the 900s. Now we have drug czars, war czars, energy czars, cupcake czars. When does the insanity end?

Drug dealers are not "alternative pharmacists."

Al Sharpton is not a "Reverend."

Bloggers are not "journalists."

Dr. Love is not a "Doctor." Come to think of it, neither is Dr. Hook. Oh, and hate to break your heart, but the Captain, of Capt. and Tennille fame, is not a "Captain."

Paris Hilton is not a ... well, Paris Hilton is nothing really.

Competitive eaters are not athletes. They are people who stuff foods into their bodies. Let's stop tearing down high standards and rare titles. Gives us all something for which to shoot. So the American guy, Joey Chestnut, who just beat the reigning champ, Takeru Kobayashi, by downing 66 hot dogs in 12 mins. should wake this morning and call himself a competitive eater or food stuffer, but not an athlete. Oh, and hot dogs are not really dogs, so maybe we should also rethink that.

WEAR IT, DECLARE IT, SHARE IT!

New Clothing Line Raises Awareness of Men and Women Serving in Our Military

My three nieces Kirsten (16), Connor (10) and Kaycie (8) sparked an idea that may make a big difference in our society. We were discussing our cousin Drew's service in Iraq and Afghanistan and what his family goes through while he is away for so many months. My three little girls had plenty to say about what it would be like if their fathers had to be away for that long. What it would be like not to have them kiss them goodnight, or read a bedtime story, or let them curl up in their lap watching TV.

One of my nieces blurted out that she didn't like war and the other two quickly agreed. According to them war is "yucky," "dirty" and "hurts good people." I seconded (fourthed?) their dislike of war and--in typical avuncular style--started into the theory of a "just war."

Big mistake. I knew I'd gone to far when little eyes glazed over and gum-filled mouths slowed and slacked as I waxed about the thoughts of Cicero, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. "Uncle Dale," one of my nieces interrupted, "Are they your friends?" "Another asked, "Are they soldiers?"

Hmmm...I had fallen into the uncle trap. They were smart, but as I got into theory and philosophy I'd gone from cool guy to teacher in a flash. Instead of bore them any more, I decided to turn the conversation to what had sparked the conversation in the first place: the people in uniform serving in time of a war that has no boundaries and no definitive end point. I shifted the conversation to our cousin Ryan McGlothlin, a 26-year-old Marine 2Lt. killed in Iraq in 2005. Ryan was on a full ride fellowship to Stanford's doctoral program when he joined the Marines. After Sept. 11, he felt he needed to give back. He told his father, “Dad, I’ve been born into privilege, why should I ride on the backs of others?” He wrote to his family, “I know this war is not the most popular one back home, “but people must understand that to pull out before the Iraqi army is fully ready to assume responsibility for the security of their own country is not only irresponsible of us but would ensure the persistence of terrorism. If you walk through these cities and see how terrified Iraqi citizens are of the terrorists and how thankful they are that we finally came to their cities, you could not possibly consider doing this job incompletely.”

My nieces were riveted and I felt my heart slow and tears welling up as I recounted the story. Like most rural families, the McGlothins are close. We scratched out an existence in the hollows of Russell, Tazewell and Buchanan counties in far off fields and coal mines of southwestern Virginia. Ryan's death had affected all of us and I remembered the call from my dad when it happened. I sat back from my desk overlooking Conn. Ave in DC, then asked my assistant to hold my calls and meetings and walked around Dupont Circle for hours in a fog. I queried the girls: Did they know that about their cousin Ryan? That he'd given up his studies at Stanford to serve? Did they know that young people, men and women just a few years older than my oldest niece, were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did they know that sometimes those young people who were doing their jobs because we ask them to, were wounded and killed? Silence fell over their little faces as they thought and thought about my questions.

One of the nieces finally broke the silence, "My friends don't know anything about Ryan. They don't think about anything but clothes and movies and the beach. Why don't we care more about good people like Ryan and Drew who serve in the army for us?" I didn't have an answer. "Uncle Dale, we should do something to get people to care about the boys and girls like Ryan and Drew who are in the war." The other two girls agreed. "We should make something so that people will remember them." Great idea! But what could we do?

That question consumed me for weeks. One morning as I was searching through U.K. coverage of the war, it hit me. It was right there in front of me--had been for years! The red poppy! Since I was a kid riding around our hometown with my grandfather I'd seen the VFW selling little plastic lapel poppies on street corners around Veterans Day, but as their numbers decline I've seen them less and less. In the U.K. and Canada, however, the poppy was everywhere. That was it! We could create a new look for the red poppy and create a line of clothing so that people could wear it to show they remember and appreciate the men and women in our military.

After a month or two of hard work we did it! Our line of tees, hooded sweatshirts and hats are now out and ready to roll. My nieces are so proud of them and are modeling the clothing for our website (which we hope to have up soon.) They are learning about costing, marketing, production, and design and the clothing will keep those marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen in people's minds and hearts.

We hope our new "rememberthem" logo really takes off and begins to appear everywhere. One of the girls suggested we give back too. So, for each item we sell, we're giving a percentage to the Fisher House--a nonprofit that provides a place to stay for family members of injured military personnel so they can be with them as they receive medical attention. Come on, wear "the power of the flower" and put on a Red Poppy to show you care about the men and women in uniform. This is not about whether you agree or disagree with the politics of war--it's about the sacrifice, dedication and service of people like Ryan and Drew. Yes, war is "yucky" and "dirty" and "hurts good people." But, the people who serve in our Armed Forces are our brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles, friends, neighbors, coworkers and even total strangers to whom we owe a debt. We must remember them. Above the din of anger and accusation and political rhetoric Remember Them!

HE EARNED IT!

I'd give this guy a buck

For creativity and his show of cajone-ness--I might even give him a fiver.

Priceless!

THE LION OF FALLUJAH

Remembering All Our Young Lions

I had dinner with my cousin Maj. Andrew (Drew) Warren and his lovely/lively wife Alice last night. I mentioned that just that morning I was in Barnes and Noble and happened upon a new book, Warlords, by 2LT Ilario Pantano, a Marine you may remember from the trial over his accusal of murder of two insurgents in the combat zone. Pantano had served under my cousin while awaiting trial and I found his acknowledgement in the first pages of the book: "To Maj. Warren for teaching us to 'be the hunter instead of the hunted.'"

We talked about Pantano for a bit then Drew asked if I'd heard of Maj. Doug Zembiec? I read and watch plenty of network and cable news, yet the name didn't ring a bell. He said he'd just returned from Zembiec's funeral in DC and wondered aloud why the media didn't make a big deal about the death of a man like Maj. Zembiec with whom he'd served in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Zembiec was the commander of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. He has become known as the Lion of Fallujah, after a comment he made to the press after a fierce battle that his Marines "fought like lions..." but he was also given the name for his own personal tenacity and toughness.

I know Drew pretty well and when he (like most Marines) is impressed by someones character that person must be one heck of a leader. I found some stories about Maj. Zembiec and added them here so my readers will have a chance to know Maj. Zembiec and remember him for his service and sacrifice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602860.html

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=112375

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-soldier0514,0,3270173.story?coll=bal-local-arundel

Rest in Peace, Maj. Zembiec. Thank you for your service and sacrifice,
Wear a red poppy in remembrance of this lion and the others who serve for us.