My brother Andrew sent this link to me recently. He said:
I heard this podcast the other day and have been sharing it with friends of various political orientations, to rave reviews. It’s two rather conservative types, but it’s not political: it’s just damned interesting, so smart and funny. A real pleasurable conversation to drop in on if you can find the time.
I was taken by it within the first 30 seconds…
Click here.
Do One Thing Different
By Bill O’Hanlon
224 pages
Originally published in 1999 by William Morrow and Company
A cop comes upon a drunk on his hands and knees at night under a streetlight.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m looking for my keys,” the drunkard replies, slurring.
The cop decides to help him. After a few minutes, he looks up and asks: “Do you remember the last place you saw them?”
“Sure,” the sot replies, straightening up and pointing into the darkness across the street. “I dropped them over there.”
The cop laughs. “Then why the hell are we looking here?”
The drunkard gives him a condescending look. “Because the light is better.”
Explanations, Bill O’Hanlon says in Do One Thing Different, do not solve problems. They “often give us an illusion of help by enabling us to understand why we have a problem but not giving us any concrete ways to actually solve it.”
And that, he says, is why psychoanalysis and other forms of explanation-based therapies don’t work. Instead of solutions:
* They orient you toward what can’t be changed – the past or personality characteristics.
* They encourage you to view yourself as a victim – of your childhood, your biology, your family, or societal oppression.
* They sometimes create new problems you didn’t know you had.
Reading this book again more than 20 years after it was published, it struck me that O’Hanlon was on to something that was even back then a problem with American culture. As he put it:
“These systems of explanation lead to victim culture, in which people focus on the damage done to them in childhood or their current relationships. This results in a tendency to blame others and look outside ourselves for solutions – to turn to experts or self-help books and groups.”
One of the things I best remember from the Introduction to Psychology class I took in 1969 was that it took about 7 or 8 years for traumatized people treated with psychoanalysis to recover. That was the same rate at which traumatized people recovered with no treatment at all.
O’Hanlon recommends a different approach to treating psychological challenges and overcoming emotional debris: his take on cognitive behavioral therapy.
As you may know from previous essays, I’m a big fan of Viktor Frankl and cognitive behavioral therapy, existential therapy, and logotherapy. All of which is to say that, although Do One Thing Different may be a little simplistic, I enjoyed reading it a second time. (And I especially enjoyed reading my marginalia.)
Critical Reviews
* “One reason why I loved this book is that rather than giving specific solutions to specific problems, it hands us tools which we can use in any problem scenario.” (Avani Mehta)
* “Chock-full of interesting stories and examples that describe the subtleties and practicalities of the solution-oriented approach.” (Family Therapy Networker)
* “If you do one thing different, read this book! It is filled with practical, creative, effective, down-to-earth solutions to life’s challenging problems.” (Michele Weiner-Davis, author of Divorce Busting)
Time (2020)
Available on Amazon Prime
Produced and directed by Garrett Bradley
Featuring Sibil Fox Richardson and Robert Richardson
Time, an Academy Award-nominated documentary, is the story of Sibil Fox Richardson (aka Fox Rich), mother of six, pursuing the early release of her husband, Rob, serving a 60-year prison sentence in Louisiana.
It isn’t particularly clever. It wasn’t beautifully shot. And it doesn’t even have a compelling message. I can’t say it changed me, but it did remind me of some things I’ve come to believe about the world.
Time is ostensibly about what’s wrong with America’s prison system. That’s what Fox Rich said on camera. I agree that our carceral system is seriously flawed, but that wasn’t the message I got from this film.
Time is about familial love. It’s the story of one person’s intelligent, resourceful, and amazingly persistent efforts to raise six promising children during the 18 years that their father was absent.
For several years when K and I were starting out in our marriage, I had the opportunity to have an inside view of an extended African-American family that lived near us in Washington, DC. And one of things I was most impressed by during that time (and since, in other situations) was the role that African-American women play in their culture. It is, IMHO, a much larger role than White women play.
Not only do they take care of all the quotidian needs, and the emotional needs, and spin the thread that holds the social fabric of the family together, they also in many cases bring in all or most of the family’s income. And this was especially true for my and my parents’ generations.
I read somewhere that Garrett Bradley had intended to make this a short film. But when shooting wrapped, Fox Rich gave him a bag of tapes containing some 100 hours of home videos that she had recorded over the previous 18 years… and he turned it into a feature.
It is those bits and pieces of amateur B-roll clips that give the 80-minute documentary its depth and reality. (Accomplished with a pitch-perfect musical score and amazing editing.)
If you are looking for a movie to further the argument about the problems with prisons in the US, Time won’t meet your expectations. But if you want to be inspired by the role that Black women play in Black America, or you want to be inspired by the story of one amazing person, Time will satisfy.
Critical Reviews
* “This is a beautifully shot film that’s as interested in studying the changing faces of its subjects as laying out their struggle from end to end.” (AV Club)
* “Time, Bradley asks us to remember, is what we lose. Only in a movie can we entertain and engineer the fantasy of getting it back, rewinding the clock, restoring presence to a loved one’s absence. Thank God, then, for movies. This one especially.” (Rolling Stone)
* “[Time] tells a story as urgent and beautifully human as almost anything on screen this year.” (Entertainment Weekly)
You can watch the trailer here.
GOOD: Federal Judge Issues Injunction Against Biden’s Race-Based Loan Forgiveness Program
US District Judge S. Thomas Anderson issued an injunction against the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), halting the distribution of federal loan-forgiveness funds under the Biden-sponsored American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The ruling was in favor of Robert Holman, a Tennessee farmer who argued that the “whites-only” provision of the program is unconstitutional.
The injunction will be in place until the case is fully resolved. However, the judge noted that Holman “has shown a substantial likelihood that he will prevail on his claim.”
Is the American Rescue Plan racist? Click here.
BAD: Crime Surges in San Francisco After Passage of a New Law
I’ve been writing about the violence in Chicago, but Chicago is not alone. San Francisco is having a different kind of crime wave. Ever since they passed Proposition 47, amazingly called “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” theft has been on the rise. Organized gangs have taken advantage of it by hiring kids to ransack stores, knowing that so long as each hired thief keeps his score to less than $950, the worst that will happen to him – if he’s caught – is a ticket and a misdemeanor.
There have been dozens of videos of this, but the one that went viral was of about a dozen men rushing out of Nieman Marcus with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of designer handbags, before jumping into three getaway cars: an Infiniti, a Mercedes, and a Lexus..
Click here to see the video.
And click here for a clip of locals reacting.
UNCERTAIN: European Union’s COVID-19 Vaccine Passport Goes Live
The European Union is taking the lead in creating vaccination certificates, an idea that horrifies proponents of medical privacy and individual liberty, but pleases proponents of Big Government.
“In March, we promised… free and safe travel within the EU by the summer,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We can now confirm… the system is up and running!”
One hopeful note: “Member States must refrain from imposing additional travel restrictions on holders… unless they are necessary and proportionate to safeguard public health.”
How does the EU’s Vaccine Passport work? Click here.
GOOD: FTC to Investigate Non-Compete Contracts
As part of a broad executive order, President Biden called on the FTC to “ban or limit” non-compete clauses in employment contracts. IMHO, that’s generally a good thing, because it gives employees more freedom to change jobs. About 32% of US companies use such clauses in their employment contracts, according to PayScale Inc. Currently, these sorts of employment issues are handled at the state level, but getting the FTC involved would bring jurisdiction to a federal level, which is, of course, what the government wants.
BAD: FTC to Investigate Non-Compete Contracts
The problem with banning non-compete clauses is that it would create a serious risk for companies – that their employees would feel free to share trade secrets and other proprietary information with their new employers. And that could set in motion a policy of poaching key employees from one’s competitors simply for that purpose.
UNCERTAIN: FTC to Investigate Non-Compete Contracts
As an employer, I’ve never required non-compete clauses in employment contracts. Nor do I worry too much about them. If they are very restrictive, they are legally unenforceable (or so I’ve been told). And when it comes to trade secrets, most of them aren’t secrets at all. Just imagined secrets that everyone else is already doing.
On the other hand, if I were in a business whose success depended on developing new technology, I would worry about having that “stolen.”
I have to believe there is a rule that falls in the midground that protects true trade secrets – but only true trade secrets. And even then only within reasonable boundaries.
GOOD: Zaila Avant-garde Becomes the 1st African-American National Spelling Bee Champ
Eighth-grader Zaila Avant-garde won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee – the first African-American to do so in the competition’s history.
One year after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the annual tournament and two years after eight contestants were named co-champions, the Louisiana native correctly spelled the word “murraya” – a type of tree – to claim this year’s title and the $50,000 prize.
(And spelling isn’t her only skill. She’s pretty good at basketball, too.)
Click here.
BAD: Biden’s Not Worried About Inflation
Joe Biden’s handlers brought him out on in public recently (at a so-called town hall meeting) where he was pitched softballs by CNN’s Don Lemon.
One particularly spongy one was on the subject of inflation – whether Biden felt that it was an emerging problem.
“First of all, our experts” predicted it,” he said.
This is not true. The White House budget office forecast inflation of 2.1% and the Fed had it at 2.2% for 2021. But in June, the number was 5.4% – and that number is artificially low.
Then Biden said that inflation is “just a temporary phenomenon.”
This may be true. There are good arguments on both sides.
Finally, he promised to “keep inflation in check” through his $4 trillion spending plan.
That is just plain crazy. You don’t limit inflation by borrowing money you don’t have paid for by counterfeit dollars. That is, by definition, inflationary.
DISAPPOINTING: Highway Dollars Won’t Rev Up the Economy
Infrastructure spending can create economic expansion. The government-sponsored interstate highway system of the 1950s-1970s, for example, greatly reduced the time it took to travel cross-country. As a result, businesses gained access to new suppliers and new customers. Cities were able to specialize in certain industries. And international trade opened.
But some economists are saying that the White House’s $116 billion plan won’t have the same effect. Maintaining old infrastructure or adding new roads here and there, though necessary, tends to boost GDP only in developing countries like India and China, not in industrialized ones.
Click here.
The Washington Post Makes Sense… Twice!
The Washington Post, which competes neck and neck with the NYT for Financially Dumbest Major Newspaper in the US, recently published two opinion pieces that actually made sense.
The first was about taxes. In particular, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s renewed call for a wealth tax to, as she put it, “make the ultra-rich finally pay their fair share.”
This was in response to a report from ProPublica, the do-not-think tank, that stated that the 25 wealthiest people in the US “pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars by which their fortunes grow each year.”
Here’s what the Post said:
ProPublica muddied a basic distinction, which, properly understood, actually fortifies the case against a wealth tax. The story likened on-paper asset price appreciation with actual cash income, then lamented that the two aren’t taxed at the same rate.
However, the income tax system never required people to pay taxes on the appreciation of their assets, until they sold them and “realized” capital gains. For good reason: ProPublica’s logic implies that, when the stock market goes down, Elon Musk, whose billions are tied up in shares of Tesla, should get a tax cut.
Sen. Warren is calling for a 2% annual tax on net wealth above $50 million; 3% above $1 billion. But that could mean that such people would face large tax bills even when they had little or negative net income, forcing them to sell assets to pay their taxes.
From the Post:
That could set off a downward spiral in the markets, affecting people of more modest means. Though prices of marketable securities are easy to track, the huge chunks of private wealth tied up in real estate, rare art, and closely held businesses are more difficult – sometimes impossible – to assess consistently.
The Post also pointed out that in 1995 11 European countries levied such wealth taxes. But they yielded only modest additional revenue and lots of wasted money on audits and red tape. Most of those taxes have been repealed.
The second Post opinion piece that made sense was about job qualifications. The proposition: The majority of Americans lack a college degree. Why do so many employers require one?
Okay, on the face of it, that sounds like a really dumb question. And I cannot deny that the logic behind it is about as dumb as it gets.
The paper’s editorial team laid out a set of facts that I found astonishing: 80% of Latinos, almost 70% of African-Americans, and more than 70% of rural men and women in the US workforce do not have a college degree.
I didn’t realize the percentages were that high. My reaction was, “Wow! No wonder these three groups are always at the bottom of every social and economic indicator!”
But that is not the way the editors of The Washington Post saw it. They saw it as another kind of systemic oppression. This is “degree discrimination,” they argued. “It’s a bias that’s blinding companies to talent they need and reinforcing existing economic inequalities.”
College-degree discrimination has become so widespread that many take it for granted. Almost 75% of new jobs from 2007 to 2016 were roles in which most employers typically “require” bachelor’s degrees – but fewer than 4 in 10 American workers have that credential. Going to war against arithmetic is a bad idea, and our post-pandemic skilled-worker shortage is a wake-up call.
The logic here is fundamentally flawed:
* Inequality is bad.
* Discrimination results in inequality.
* Therefore, all inequality is caused by discrimination.
This is a classic syllogistic error. But we can pick that up another day.
The Post went on to make the following distinction:
Requiring a medical degree to treat patients or a civil engineering degree to design a bridge is common sense. By contrast, requiring a generic college degree to be considered for jobs such as office manager, sales representative, digital marketer, or data-center technician may be common, but it makes no sense.
I disagree with the first sentence. But, again, let’s not argue that here. The second sentence makes complete sense.
I’ve been owning and running businesses for more than 50 years. During that time, I’ve had, directly or indirectly, thousands of employees. I’ve personally hired, fired, and managed hundreds. And for the past 20 years, I’ve been writing about business and entrepreneurship, which has obliged me to think about what makes for a good or bad employee.
And one thing I have come to believe: A college degree doesn’t mean shit.
If it means anything, it means nothing more than, “I hung around a college campus for four or five years at one time.”
It doesn’t mean competence. It doesn’t mean knowledge. It doesn’t mean anything that is truly useful to an employer. Not intelligence, nor curiosity, nor tenacity, nor the capacity for hard work.
What matters in an employee can only be discovered through purposeful interactions with job candidates. Conversations, correspondence, testing, and try-outs.
I have lots more to say on this subject (including why I think a college degree shouldn’t be required for medical or engineering jobs either), but I’ll get to that another time.
Most of the companies in which I’m involved these days still require a college degree for most jobs. But the best ones – the ones that are growing the fastest – don’t care about credentials. They look for talent, energy, ambition, and skill.
Joy, my manicurist, took this shot the other day. She thought it was “funny and dumb.”
I get the wheelchair accessible sign and the baby sign, because those indicate the facilities inside. But why the three gender-preference images? Why not 64?
What they should have is an image of a toilet and, if relevant, a urinal. If you are abandoning gender restrictions, that’s all you need.
