Group dynamics

I’m obviously being charged with high crimes and misdemeanors of the karmic kind. We had an all-day departmental offsite meeting yesterday, which was putatively meant to be a project-sharing exercise amongst seven product managers and two directors.

You know: "here's what I'm working on, and here's why it's going to Save Civilization as We Know It."

The part that wasn’t subsumed by the cleverness and condescension of the World's Greatest Expert simply highlighted how difficult it appears to be for even smallish corporate departments to communicate internally, put together a reality-based strategy and execute on cohesive tactics. We departed after eight hours of presentations and earnest discussions knowing more about what each other is working on, but without any real direction for how we're supposed to be real, you know, product managers in the greater organization.

Truly, I don’t know how Mormons or Methodists would manage in an environment like this; it’s just not possible to make it through the week without drinking.

Just dicking around

If you find yourself with a few minutes on your hands at work between announcements of layoffs & could use some amusement that doesn’t require you to mute the sound on your PC, try Dickipedia.

It’s obviously in a nascent state—I mean, there’s not even a category of Business dicks. How can you claim to be the ultimate compendium of dicks without John Thain (Merrill Lynch), Rick Waggoner (GM), John Stumpf (Wells Fargo), Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom), John Rigas (Adelphia), Kenny Lay (Enron)—well, maybe you have to still be putatively alive when your entry is made.

& those are just the CEOs. The American ones.

I mean, okay—they have Rupert Murdoch there; but he’s listed as a Media dick. Which is, of course, true; but he's definitely a crossover candidate. Like the Beckhams.

A couple more cavils:

The entry on Kim Jong-il doesn’t mention that he wears shoes with major lifts in them & allegedly throws marathon banquets. It does say he has the world’s worst haircut, which is incorrect, as I work with someone who takes that title; but I’ll concede that Kim has the worst haircut of any Stalinist dictator.

I did think the factoid about him being the largest consumer of Hennessey was interesting. It might explain a lot.

How can you have Dick Cheney but not George W. in the Political dicks category? Cheney may be the organ grinder & W. the monkey, but still.

& how can you have Steve Jobs but not Steve Ballmer? Or, for that matter, Larry Ellison? Jeez—I’m back to the question about why there’s not a business category…

Not sure I agree that Pope Benedict XVI looks like a combination of Elton John & Liberace—he may dress like them, but doesn’t have John’s flair for eyewear or Lee’s blinding smile. But I’m totally behind him being in the list, both on account of the office (which is basically focused on keeping humanity no further advanced than the Inquisition) & his own inclinations (he wasn't known as John Paul II's enforcer for nothing). As the Dick entry says, “Is it a coincidence that 14-year-old Joey Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth? No, it is not.”

Well, I could run on & on, but you should explore for yourself. God bless the Internet.

Absinthe makes the heart...

That wild and crazy guy, Richard Branson—he’s taken domestic flights to entirely new, erm, heights.

An email came through announcing that Virgin America, the US offshoot of his Virgin empire, is now offering absinthe as an in-flight drink choice. “Le Tourment Vert” authentic French absinthe”, to be precise; le tourment vert meaning “green torment.”

Absinthe is a relative of wormwood, which has been the death of many an artist or artist manqué. It’s an herbal liquor, tasting like anise, and has been banned by the US and many European countries for some time. Since the 1990s it's made a return to the marketplace.

Now here’s the thing: absinthe isn’t actually a jolly sort of spirit. Painters of the 19th and 20th centuries have given us these depictions of absinthe fans:

Degas’ “Absinthe Drinkers” aren’t really anyone you want to be sitting between on a trans-continental flight.

You could blame the visual distortion on Picasso’s Blue Period style; but you’ll notice that his “Absinthe Drinker” is as intent on her drink as Degas’ pair.

The “Absinthe and Carafe of Water” by van Gogh is the most innocuous presentation. Ironic, given that van Gogh was a heavy user of the substance.

And, lest you think that we of the 21st Century are beyond all that torment, I give you this from the Czech Republic:

Mildly amusing at a trendy club. Not something I want to see even a few rows behind me 35,000 feet over Omaha.

Virgin America evidently has many cocktail suggestions, including the “Mile High”—absinthe, lemon-lime soda and lemons, “shaken and served over ice”.

And that’s just inviting someone to puke on his seatmates.

Well—Branson’s done well so far, so maybe this’ll work out, too. But air travel these days is already torment enough; I don't see why we need to add to it.

¡Viva el pueblo!

We’re coming up on Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated more widely in the US than in México. In my native California, the celebrations will have been going on for days, involving fiestas, mariachis & copious amounts of tequila y cerveza.

You may not know that Cinco de Mayo is basically a regional holiday in México, marking the defeat by forces under Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín of the invading French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. The victory didn’t stop the French, intent on an imperial adventure come what may. Not until 1867, when the US woke up from our own civil war & started reminding the French of the Monroe Doctrine, & adding that, gee, we have this whole army hanging around, trained, equipped & everything…did the French withdraw.

They left behind their ersatz "emperor of México", Maximilian, who had the misfortune to be an unemployed Hapsburg archduke (& possible relative of that popinjay Napoleon III), at a time when France needed a figurehead to legitimize their invasion of México. He was shot on the orders of Benito Juárez on 19 June 1867.

Sic semper imperis.

Cinco de Mayo isn’t actually México’s independence day—that’s 16 September, when a criollo priest rallied the Mexicans to drive the Spaniards out in 1810. It’s kind of like the Fourth of July in the US—there wasn’t a major military victory, but the very act of declaring that enough is enough is the point at which a nation grows out of a colony.

Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla inspired his countrymen with “el grito de Dolores” (“Cry of Dolores). This was something along the lines of, “Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe, death to bad government & death to the Spaniards!” The Battle of Guanjuato followed a few days later, the war was on & the Spanish didn’t actually acknowledge México’s independence until 1821.

But back to the celebration at hand. It’s really a occasion to revel in the heritage of the Mexican immigrants to this country. I don’t remember it as a kid in LA, but by the 80s it was big time.

Eric Felten has written about an alternative to margaritas for the holiday. I have to say that the Michelada sounds like a ruination of beer. Notwithstanding the fact that I have yet to have a margarita in Metro Seattle that hasn’t been utterly vile, I’m definitely not trying the Michelada.

I might go for just one shot of reposado, to drink to the death to bad government. That’s always something worthy of toasting.

¡Viva la Revolución!

Vox populi

A couple of weeks ago Citigroup held its annual meeting. Last year their security people banned shareholders from bringing in fruit for fear they’d chuck it at execs and; board members. This April—forget the customary metal detector, the ban extended to all food and water bottles.

So stockholders were limited to slinging words, which they did vigorously and at length.

Well—Citi’s stock value has dropped 85%, and stockholders have had a good seven years of experience vilifying corporate boards since Enron paved the way for excess, chicanery and arrogance.

Citi’s board members were so shamed or fearful that they refused to identify themselves to the people they allegedly represent within the corporation. Jellyweases™ in $6K suits. (A Jellywease is someone with the ethics of a weasel on the spine of a jellyfish.)

The four departing board members were ushered out to the roar of, “Thank God they’re gone!” Shareholders did approve the four Citi-nominated replacements as well as re-electing the rest of the directors.

There’s a proposal afoot that would require the company to nominate two candidates for each director’s slot since, as one shareholder pointed out, “It’s a non-election, basically. We know who’s going to win.”

This same person pointed out that it’s ludicrous that a board full of CEOs past and present determine the corporation’s executive compensation, while the stockholders don’t.

And there’s the rub: that whole incestuous inbreeding of the same stock again and again, all serving on each other’s boards and approving whatever executive management proposes. This has gone on for decades and resulted in our current morass.

Citi’s CEO, Vikram Pandit (one of the highest-paid CEOs in America--$38.2M in 2008, while the company reported a $32.1B loss), assured the assembly that the corporation plans on paying back federal bailout funds.

Well, yeah—those funds come with restrictions on executive pay. Can’t have that, now, can we?

It remains to be seen whether this public rage venting will become a trend, but we can hope.

I’m still behind my proposal to revive public stoning for corporate executives and their political panderers. Saves fruit, releases fury, clears out the corporate gene pool. Totally win-win.

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation

Today is May Day, International Workers’ Day. Back in the bad old days, we’d be treated to massive, mandatory displays of Soviet military might, all those legions of Red Army soldiers goose-stepping through Red Square before Lenin’s Tomb, followed by tanks & mobile rocket launchers.

We’re talking macho central in a grim, socialist kind of way. But reliable, something you could count on long after Santa had disappointed you in that matter of the Wilson Hammer 6 that never showed up under the tree.

Celebrating the value of the work force has been going on for a while. It’s a strong enough statement that both Adolf Hitler & Pius XII took steps to co-opt it. In the 30s Hitler staged Nazi parades that out-glitzed the workers’. When his thugs weren’t beating them with clubs & truncheons.

& to counteract the godless communists, the Pope cooked up a saint’s day in 1955: Saint Joseph the Worker. (That would be Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary the mother of Jesus.)

This is also the Celtic celebration of Beltane—the welcoming in of Summer. (It’s the calendar opposition to Samhain, the basis for Halloween.)

& there’s a bunch of stuff about maypoles, drinking & fertility bits, although I haven’t seen much of that lately.

Whatever—whether you’re into maypoles, missiles or mead, take the occasion to think kindly about workers of all sorts.

Unless they’re employees of hedge funds or investment banks.

Marketing manipulations

In case you’re at home, hunched over the latest World Health Organization report on the swine flu pandemic, I offer up something to lighten your day a bit.

Ref: item 1, it’s a bit ironic that Rudolph survived and Montgomery Ward died.

Item 2: can anyone be in doubt that that abomination was devised to sell canned food-like substances? They specify the brands of the cream of mushroom soup, fried onion rings and green beans.

(As an aside, I never had that casserole until my then-partner and I went to his family’s for Thanksgiving and his mother, a Russified Armenian from Tehran, served it up. I was appalled. On the other hand, my own mother wasn’t an advocate of the fresh food movement. I was an adult before I ever tasted a green bean that didn’t come out of a can.)

Item 3: I love the part about De Beers encouraging surprise proposals because a man will spend more money on an engagement ring if he’s not accompanied by his fiancée.

Item 4 doesn’t address that whole flower aspect of exploiting Saint Valentine’s Day. That’s got to represent even more industrial romance revenue than chocolates. Trust me: the price of a flower arrangement doubles or triples if you’re having it delivered on 14 February as opposed to any other day in the calendar.

Except for Mother’s Day.

Item 5: that 96% of couples registering doesn’t count all the people (mostly women) who register at stores ranging from Tiffany to Target if the get engaged or divorced, move to a new city or apartment, turn 40 (or 30, or 50) or just feel entitled.

Anyhow—you’ll now have something to chat about after you’re allowed to go back to work or attend cocktail parties.

Don't tell PETA

The other day it so happened that I had half a small order of Wendy’s fries left over from lunch. I thought I’d take it home to feed to the birds—didn’t know if it constituted bird abuse, but I just didn’t want to waste food.

I broke them up and tossed them on a tree-slab table in the side yard. Within 30 minutes, two crows showed up.

Now, I expected them to probably scarf down the fries, but I’d envisioned them pecking them one by one (or two) and chucking them down their gullets right there.

Instead what happened was they’d scoop up about five or six fries at a time, fly off somewhere for about 40 seconds & then return to scoop up another four or five. The yellow fries sticking out either side of their black beaks just cracked me up.

The potatoes were gone inside of five minutes, and I was laughing for some time thereafter. Don't know if they were taking the food to a family or just going off to gorge in secret.

I tried to balance this out by cutting up an apple and setting it in the same place. The pieces stayed there for more than 24 hours, although they eventually did disappear. (By contrast, I’d put out a rice-based salad from PCC Markets that stayed there for several days. Not even the squirrels would touch it & they pretty much eat everything. I finally had to brush it all up & put it in the trash.)

I don’t know whether birds suffer from cholesterol ailments, but I’m planning on getting a whole (small) order of fries just for my feathered friends. I hope I don’t start an epidemic of corvid obesity.

Pandemics & politics

This current quasi-pandemic of swine flu is a prime example of George Santayana’s dictum that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

A mere 90 years ago, the “Spanish influenza” pandemic of 1918-19 killed more than 40 million people world wide. That’s more than were killed in four years of total war across Europe.

In the US Woodrow Wilson was afraid of his administration appearing weak, so despite medical and public health professionals frantically trying to get governments to order people to stay inside, avoid assembling in public places, cancel concerts, close schools, etc.—Wilson actually encouraged the populace to “carry on as usual.”

The butcher’s bill for that policy was a death toll of more than 500,000 Americans.

The thing about the flu was that it struck the young and healthy—they dropped like flies while the elderly or youngsters carried on. It made no sense, and epidemiologists still haven’t quite got it figured out. In some respects it was like the Black Death of the 14th Century: you could wake up healthy in the morning and end the day dead.

Now while governments are taking action—in Mexico they’ve banned all public meetings, gracias a Dios—the fact of the matter is that we’re still wrong-footed. There have been outbreaks in several US states, and now Europe. We don’t have a vaccine developed for this particular strain, and supplies of treatment drugs are limited (and the pharmaceutical companies will therefore charge through the nose for them).

You can expect to find a brisk black market in bogus Tamiflu and Relenza shortly.

Apparently the news has sent the stock market into a spin. Quelle surprise.

“But, Bas Bleu,” you ask, “where’s the connection to Santayana?”

Ah, mes chers enfants—it’s that Obama had included $900M in pandemic preparedness funds in the economic stimulus bill only a couple of months ago. And the Republicans in Congress (a group notorious for denying and therefore reliving history) whacked that out with liberal (if I may use that term) amounts of outrage and umbrage.

In the context of $13.4B going to GM, which is about to enter bankruptcy, and $700B going to banks that lent themselves into bankruptcy, $900M hardly seems extravagant to, you know, save lives.

That’s not quite $2 per death from the 1918-19 pandemic here in the States.

Now, of course, even if this money had been approved back in February, there wouldn’t have been enough accomplished in two months to make a real difference.

But just keep that in mind when you start fighting the symptoms, can’t get an appointment with your doctor and it turns out the “antidote” you bought from a friend of a friend is saline solution. There could have been plans and budget in place for dealing with similar eventualities; but there aren't.

People still marvel that anyone could get upset over “just the flu”. They equate it to a sore throat and the sniffles. Check the comments to any announcement of cancellation of a sports event—you’ll find plenty of “what the hell—you cancelled that for the flu?” statements.

Forty million deaths just 90 years ago; and hundreds of thousands of them every year since. It's real, it's deadly, and (thanks to the GOP) we don't have a plan.

Property hunt

After what a friend termed the “moving imbroglio”, I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday looking for houses in various parts of Seattle, from nigh on to Shoreline to Beacon Hill. I have to say, I'm pretty well knackered.

It’s interesting that, in the month I was “out” of the looking, packing all my possessions, there’s risen a whole crop of properties into the market. Friday and Saturday my agent and I viewed 25 townhomes. Yesterday we went back to look at five of them again and start narrowing down.

The focus was on new construction because, after my experience with the condo of the Mad Cow Realtor, I’m leaning toward being the first person in a house. And there’s definitely no shortage of them these days—rather a change from earlier in the year.

Here are my finalists: a 3 bedroom/3.5 bath stand-alone townhouse—don’t ask me about that; I can’t figure it out. This one is finished, very nice flooring/kitchen; pantry (whoo-hoo!), enough space (>1700sf) for my 2700 books, even a tiny garden. High-end finishes—slab granite in the kitchen, nice cabinets, oak flooring. I have to go back on my own to make sure I can get into the garage.

(One thing I’ve learned about metro Seattle: builders fling up townhome groups with literally not enough room to get into/out of the much-touted “attached garage!”. People just use them for storage and park their car outside. I'll be damned if I pay for a garage I can't use.)

The other contender isn’t actually finished. The listing agent assured mine that it’ll be done by 31 May, for sure. I’m not holding my breath. This one is 2000sf, bamboo flooring, slab granite kitchen, 3 bedroom/2.5 baths; no pantry. It’s not as light as the first, skylight notwithstanding, and I’m a little hinky about putting an offer in on a house that isn’t finished yet. I’ve heard too many horror stories about construction going on forever.

My goal is to be moved as soon as possible into my own place, where I can be as comfortable as possible in this town.

BTW—the condo that fell thru? MCR has it back on the market, with the same deceptive features touted. Her only change is that the loan has to be a 20% down financing only and the seller will give $3000 “credit” to the buyer.

Oh, and she’s lied about the listing date and the original listing price.

I’m so glad I’m out of that.