Breaking the Rules

I'm not allowed to blog about work anymore. However...

Happy New Year

The one and only art show that I've done this spring is over, and that frees up a lot of time to work on the backlog of projects piling up around here. As one of my co-workers put it, "Wow, the day after the show is like New Year's for you." An apt description.

So I got the studio cleaned up, mostly, and the show stuff put away, and most of the bookkeeping done, and I sat down at the drafting table. Gaby came in and asked what I was doing, and I said, "Just trying to figure out what to do next." He asked me what kinds of things I needed to be doing, and I started on the list. When I mentioned staining the tables for the living room, he said, "Ooh! Do that one!"

The tables in question are a trio of tables (an occasional table, a coffee table, and one of those tall skinny tables that goes in the entry or behind the couch) that I picked up at a garage sale last summer for $50. They have beautiful styling, but when I found them they were painted with a two tone finish, the paint on the tops of the tables was scratched, and they smelled like cat piss.

Last October, when my friend Ted was staying with us, he worked on stripping the tables and managed to get two of them done. After it got too cold to work outside, the project was put away. Ted got a job, his own place, and then moved to Oregon to escape his ankle-biting girlfriend, leaving us with doubts that he would finish this project.

Yesterday, I went to the Wally-world and got a can of dark walnut stain. My new framing table in the studio provided a lot of space to work, and I managed to get the occasional table coated twice, and the top of the coffee table coated once. The underside of the coffee table has one coat as of this morning, as well as a second coat on the top. They look good.

Staining furniture is a messy job.

I'm not sure when my next day off will be, but that's the day I'll be applying the polyeurethane, weather permitting. I'll give that a week to dry, and then we'll move them into the living room.

Advice from my Dad

While cleaning out my office today, I came across this list of rules for success in your career and thought it would be good to pass it your way.

Buckleys 18 Rules for Political Success

1. You need to exhibit good performance that pleases your supervisors.

2. You need to manage your career.

Be active in influencing decisions about yourself.

Pure effort is not always rewarded!

Don't rely on the kindness of strangers. Most individuals in an organization are concerned only with themselves.

3. Always take high visibility, high risk jobs.

If you fail, you will at least be recognized for your attempt.

If you succeed, you become the rising star of the organization.

4. Develop a sponsor within an organization.

Find a mentor. Find someone to help you navigate the waters of the organization -- someone with honesty, integrity and political savvy.

5. Nominate yourself for positions within the organization.

Modesty is never a virtue in the long run.

6. Always leave an organization on good terms.

Regardless of how bad it is, bite your tongue before you badmouth it.

7. Be aware of Politics.

You need to be aware of politics to be successful. Do politics well.

8. Realize your dependence on others and utilize it.

Nobody gets ahead alone.

Don’t forget those you depended on or those who depended on you.

9. Everybody has ethical dilemmas.

No research can show that dishonesty achieves goals faster.

Unethical decisions will always catch up with you.

10. Don’t gossip.

Don’t listen to it - don’t repeat it.

If you cant say something nice, don’t say anything.

11. Be persistent. Do not give up.

12. Failure occurs.

Everybody fails. You have to learn to live with it, and don’t let it destroy you.

13. Be Positive.

14. Do not engage in ingratiating tactics.

Don’t be an “ass-kisser”; its so transparent its resented.

15. Life is not always fair.

Don’t keep score.

Don’t feel like you are owed something.

18. Think before you speak.

If its worth saying, its worth thinking about.

17. Do not embarrass people.

Don’t use what you know to harm others; it only creates enemies.

18. Always wear a smile.

During my 48 years of working various jobs, I can say all these rules apply; regardless what kind of work it was.

I believe the most important element is rule #1, but in order to do that, you need to keep the other rules.

Reflecting back on all the jobs I had where I worked for someone else, the success came by supporting and making your boss look good. In all cases, the boss was more concerned about how he/she looked to his/her boss, and was less concerned about how the employee felt about it all (Rule 2). If there was someone in the organization that was a problem, they would find a way to get rid of the problem. As a manager, I had some experience with this. I lost track of the number of people I fired when I worked for AOL. I fired one while working for Honeywell.

Regardinging rule 3, while working for Honeywell, I took a job that my peers said they "would not touch with a 10 foot pole!" It was a new job and did not have any parameters set on how to do it. Therefore I was free to determine how the job was to be accomplished. I was successful in putting together a program and hiring a staff that resulted in recognition throughout corporate Honeywell. (That is why the SETH THOMAS ships clock hangs on my office wall. It was for OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE in this program.) But I had to get support from key people in Honeywell to make it happen (Rule 4).

When working with people, at all levels in an organization, make people feel good about themselves. They will want to keep you around! But don't forget to promote yourself (rule 5). And always wear a smile (rule 18).

Beyond Left and Right: It's About Reality

...For far too long, the public has suffered under the tyranny of dueling narratives served up by one or another interest group seeking self-serving shortcuts around nuanced truths, all the while shortchanging the clarity of important debates about the biggest issues of the day -- from health care reform to defense policy to education. Journalists have too often perpetuated the false notion that seemingly any issue can be cleanly divided into right and left, conservative and liberal, because these labels make our work simpler, supplying us with a handy structure we can impose at will on typically uncooperative facts.

Journalists so frequently deal in the false liberal-conservative dichotomy because it generates the sort of tension that feeds narrative, and narrative makes for more accessible stories. Simply dividing up the interests into two neatly-differentiated competing camps enables lazy beat reporters to claim to have painted all of reality with but two phone calls. Why venture outside and talk to ordinary people -- whose experiences and views almost always challenge the traditional labels -- when we can simply sit at our desks and dial up a D and then an R and gather a pair of quotes that supposedly cover the whole spectrum of the American take on anything?

Political hacks trade in the labels of right and left because it allows them to manipulate the public with shortcut phrases that demonize those in the other camp, making it easier to derail whatever initiative needs killing at the moment. Banking reform is neatly pilloried as a leftist assault on free enterprise by financial institutions intent on perpetuating corporate welfare policies. Organized labor too sweepingly dismisses expanded trade -- even foreign purchases of U.S. companies that create jobs for U.S. workers -- while decrying the trend as part of a an assault from the right.

Time and again, we see how these sorts of divisions function as a divide-and-rule strategy, nearly always choreographed by one special interest or another, usually in the service of some piece of legislation that is really just an employment bill for lobbyists or a means of raising campaign cash for incumbents. These crude labels reinforce a sense of division that cuts off the great majority of Americans from their own non-special interests -- the desire to work at a job that affords a decent living; to live in a decent home and secure health care; to educate their children, take a vacation every now and again, and eventually retire. What we need now is an active journalism engaged in figuring out how to restore those basic middle-class aspirations, without getting sidetracked into tendentious debates about right versus left and which side is winning.

What do these labels really mean, anyway, and who gets to assign them, and for what aim? Does anyone not paid to traffic in such labels really subscribe to the notion that we are so easily divided? Take, for example, the need to create jobs. Who is the loser in this undertaking? Labor unions -- a supposedly liberal concern, and certainly a key source of campaign cash for Democrats -- obviously benefit, but so do businesses both big and small, a slice of America that is supposedly part of the conservative core. When more people are earning paychecks and walking around with money to spend, that is good for retailers, for car dealers, for insurance companies, lawyers, short-order cooks and banks.

Who really wants businesses to suffer, as the anti-business label that gets thrown at self-identified progressives directly implies? Advocating that Wall Street banking giants ought to be reined in against risks that can trash the economy is not anti-business. Indeed, it is really pro-business, so long as we are not letting the financial lobby frame the terms of the argument. It is about making sure money flows to start-up companies whose new ideas can power the economy and create jobs. Who is for more bailouts of the financial system? Not liberals, who deride the socialization of losses while private hands keep the profits; not conservatives or libertarians, who tend to champion a smaller role for government in the private sector.

Who loses if we launch a serious effort to build out U.S. infrastructure? This is a way to create jobs, to create orders for factory-made machinery, to spur innovation by modernizing schools, upgrading research laboratories, easing transportation via high-speed rail and more efficient roads and ports. Who is among the constituency that would lose out in the face of the additional economic growth that would emerge if we embrace infrastructure building?

To which one might be tempted to consider the debate over the federal budget deficit, because the refrain goes: We cannot afford infrastructure. Here is the classic right-left divide in which Keynesian progressives argue for more spending now and supposedly callous conservatives focus on simply slashing spending to balance the books. There are divisions here, genuine ideological disagreements about how to approach so many of these problems, and only a naif would dismiss that. But journalism that simply elucidates those differences and effectively perpetuates them with crude labels rather than helping find the way to good policy is failing to offer a vital public service.

No liberal with any integrity would argue that we can simply ignore the deficit and need not fear the potential consequences -- higher interest rates, inflation, a debased dollar -- if we merely carry on. No conservative engaged in the genuine pursuit of enlightened policy would claim that we can simply slash away at discretionary spending, make speeches about living within our means, and thereby solve our problems. For journalists, getting beyond left and right means not allowing the agenda to be set by interest groups that are clearly stumping for votes and air time on cable television at the expense of reality. It means airing out the constructive arguments and helping get us somewhere useful -- a place in which the economy is growing and producing jobs, while we are credibly planning to pay off our burgeoning debts. It means not worrying so much about balancing up our stories with equal quotes from the dubious camps that frame our stories and putting the spotlight instead on basic truths.

Left versus right: These are overly-simplified labels that perpetuate division, and we ought not cater to them, because that amounts to lazy journalism. That is about who won the week, and who controls the conversation, as opposed to the much more difficult, nuanced and crucial questions that remain operative irrespective of phony ideological labels: How will we make the economy function again for the vast majority of Americans, for whom the last quarter-century has delivered downward mobility? How will we get our fiscal house in order while adding quality paychecks and making health care affordable? These are concerns that are common to nearly every household, regardless of ideology, and these are questions that must be pursued at face value, with good information, critical scrutiny and the pursuit of pragmatic policy.

But -- and here comes a major but -- ditching the bogus left-right frame is not about moving reflexively to the center. It is rather a rejection of the very concept that left, right and center are a good way to map the crucial debates of the day.

In the sort of journalism I am interested in practicing here, I want my reporters to reject the false idea that you simply poll people at both extremes of any issue, then paint a line down the middle and point to it as reality. We have to reject the tired notion that objectivity means the reader can get all the way to the bottom of the story and not know what to think. We do have to be objective in our journalism, but this does not mean we are empty vessels with no ideas of our own, and with no prior experiences that influence what we ultimately deliver: That is a fantasy, and an unhelpful one at that, because every time the reader discovers that personal values have indeed "intruded" into the copy, they experience another "gotcha" moment that undermines the credibility of serious journalism.

Rather, objectivity means that we conduct a fully open-minded inquiry. We do not begin our reporting with a fully-formed position. We do not adhere to the contentions of one think tank or political party or government organ as truth. We don't write to please our friends or sources or interest groups. Rather, we do our own reporting, our own independent thinking, our own scrutinizing. But at the end of that process, we offer a conclusion, and transparently so, with whatever caveats are in order. We do not concern ourselves with how others may describe our place on the ideological spectrum, and we do not hold back when we know something, or lard up our journalism with disingenuous counter-quotes to cover ourselves against the charge that we staked out a position. As long as our process is pure, so is the work.

...The point is that no ideological position can be counted on to deliver the facts, and any journalism that loses track of this ultimately reduces itself to a version of propaganda. Verifiable truth is our master, the one element that does not change when a new party takes over in Washington, when a new fashion sweeps the country, or a fresh approach prevails on university campuses. We work for no one but the reader, and we are advocates only for pragmatic solutions to real problems. We pursue our reporting through the lens of actual human experience -- a messy, internally-contradictory frame of reference that simply cannot be described by hackneyed labels like left and right. We are concerned with the real-life experiences of actual people, and these are things that simply refuse to be divided into false dichotomies.

Left and right are the props of the cynical class who use them to convey a sense of sophistication in place of the messy, difficult work of finding things out, uncovering truths and reckoning with social problems in their fullest human dimensions. We need to aim for better.

Peter S. Goodman

Original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/beyond-left-and-right-its-about-reality_n_821582.html

Without Representation

July 16 2010

Dear Mr. Savage:

Thank you for your recent correspondence. As your voice in Washington, I appreciate being made aware of your views.

Your thoughts regarding S. 424, Uniting American Families Act of 2009, were informative. This bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Should it come to the Senate floor for a vote, I will keep your views in mind.

Even though I return to the state almost every weekend, I do not always have the opportunity to listen to everyone's ideas. These ideas are important, as they are the building blocks of Oklahoma's representation here in Washington. When you share these ideas with me, you are sharing them with Congress and, in turn, the nation.

Again, thank you for your comments. Please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Sincerely, James M. Inhofe United States Senator

__________________________________________________________

July 19, 2010

Mr. Ronald Steve Savage
Edmond, OK

Dear Ronald:

Thank you for contacting me about the H.R. 1024, the Uniting American Families Act. Understanding your ideas and concerns is important to me, as it helps me to better represent you and the Fifth District of Oklahoma.

If enacted, H.R. 1024 would allow permanent same-sex partners of United States citizens and residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status in the same manner as spouses of citizens and permanent residents.

Marriage is, and shall remain, a union between one man and one woman, unless and until the people decide otherwise. I oppose efforts to redefine marriage, an institution that has endured and worked for thousands of years and am committed to working with members of Congress to continue promoting Oklahoma values.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your ideas and concerns. As the 111th Congress addresses the many challenges facing our nation, I hope you will continue to share your thoughts and views with me. However, due to increased security measures, mail delivery may be delayed. Accordingly, I encourage you to visit my website at www.fallin.house.gov to contact me via email as well as find useful information about Oklahoma's Fifth Congressional District.

Sincerely,

MaryFallin

Member of Congress

_______________________________________________________

September 1, 2010

Mr. Ron Savage
Edmond, Oklahoma

Dear Mr. Savage,
Thank you for writing to express your support for S.424, the Uniting American Families Act of 2009. I am glad that you wrote, and I apologize for the delay in my response.
The Uniting American Families Act, also known as UAFA, is currently pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Two related bills are in the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. As you know, this proposal would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to place a "permanent partner" on equal status with that of a legal marriage partner. The act defines "permanent partners" as individuals, age 18 or older, who are "in a committed, intimate relationship" and "intend a lifelong commitment."
I understand your desire to provide immigration options for same-gender couples, but I cannot support the proposal for two important reasons. First, it would create a new federal definition of marriage, and second, it does not provide adequate safeguards against immigration fraud.

This act would grant immigration status based on a relationship that is not recognized by federal law and that is expressly prohibited by most states. In fact, the Defense of Marriage Act, overwhelmingly approved by Congress in 1996, specifically defined marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife," and the word "spouse" as only "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife." If Congress were to recognize same-gender relationships through this Act, it would contradict federal law and the laws of 90 percent of our states.

The risk of fraud resulting from enactment of this legislation is also extremely high, because consulate offices will have no legal documents with which to verify the relationships of applicants. The only available options for verification would be self-reporting and statements from friends and family. The act requires the "partners" to be "financially interdependent," but they will have no joint income tax returns or any other federally recognized documentation of shared assets. Without adequate documentation, preventing fraud would be virtually impossible.

While individuals involved in same-sex relationships are eligible to apply for immigration under the same conditions as any other individual from their home country, I cannot support giving their applications the same urgency as those of legally married spouses.

I am sorry that we disagree on this issue, but I am glad that you wrote. I certainly encourage you to write again with any further thoughts. Best wishes!

Sincerely,

Tom A. Coburn, M.D.
United States Senator

Yikes!

This was a comment on one of Paul Krugman's blog posts (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/the-wisconsin-effect/):

As an independent I try to look at both sides of the picture and what I am seeing on the republican side frightens me. I cannot believe that there are so many ignorant, gullible people out there who believe everything fed to them by republican congressmen/congresswomen, and pundits.
I was on active duty when George W. Bush was running for president. As you may or may not know the military has a majority of republican-leaning members and I was being told how wonderful George was and how he was going to turn the country around. Being an educated woman I decided to do some research and found that he had bankrupted a baseball team, an oil company and Texas was in financial trouble. I knew he was not going to be good and told everyone they needed to pull their retirement and put it in a safe place if he became prez. They laughed at me and told me I didn't know what I was talking about. Six months after he became president their retirement accounts failed and they lost not only what the gov't matched but it dipped into what they had contributed. They lamented and cried about what are we going to do now, and I explained I was still in the boat that had not capsized because I had moved my money, and had they listened and not laughed at me they would not be underwater. They were right George did turn the country around! Record losses and he took fed gov't from a surplus to a deficit.
Now we listen to repubs saying we need to drill more but what they are not telling you is that the US gov't pays subsidies to and gives tax breaks to companies drilling on our property. That oil does not come to us but is property of OPEC, and the US must buy their own oil at the going rate. The only thing drilling more will do is increase our deficit. You don't believe me ask the oil companies making record profits in the Billions of dollars.
Repubs say they need to give corporations tax breaks at the expense of our poor, middle class and elderly to promote job growth. How well has that worked? The tax breaks for the wealthy started under GW Bush and job growth for his 8 years in office is at about a million jobs. Tell me why would corporations hire more people when that would cut into their profits? If you can do more with less and make more money and the gov't is going to pay you more as incentive and you can keep getting that without hiring more people WHY HIRE? They can use some of the tax breaks to buy more republican congressmen/women to do their bidding.
The repubs can now spend unlimited amounts of money on ads (thanks supreme court) to brainwash you into believing they care about you when that is the last thing they care about.
Now that the repubs have control of many state congresses they can accomplish their mission at the state level. Have you ever taken the time to figure out what they are up to? Their mission is not targeting only democrats but republicans and independents alike. If they get rid of the unions ability to collectively bargain YOU may be working >40 hour work weeks without the benefit of overtime, and minimum wage will be gone. You will be working longer hours for less money, and the middle class will be gone. There will only be the very rich and the very poor.
They are defunding education. Have you asked WHY? Well if you cannot afford a higher education you will ever be qualified for the jobs that pay the higher wages. This is a way to keep a lower wage workforce and increase their profits.

Wake up America!!! The life as you know it is being taken away from you. Even though I can see what is happening, I am but one person. Do not let them brainwash you into believing they have your best interest at heart. THEY DO NOT!!!

I want one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuIJRsAuCHQ&feature=popt02us03