HeadlineUpdate

Wal-Mart is Smart (and the Post is dumbing down)

Two articles today, from the business sections of the Times and the Post, are almost enough to convince me that we're wrong about Wal-Mart.  Sure, they're hurting local economies, exploiting workers and chewing up the landscape, but Americans mostly like their stores and as today's news shows, the company is smart and getting smarter.

Hiring Democratic operative Leslie Dach to be in charge of public relations and government affairs is bold, but this quote from the Post's profile of energy theoriest Amory Lovins is even more striking:

"He's been fantastic," said Andy Ruben, vice president for strategic planning and sustainability at Wal-Mart. Lovins suggested that Wal-Mart get its truck drivers to stop using the main engine to air-condition their cabs while parked. Instead, he proposed using small, more efficient engines installed behind the fuel tank. Ruben says the change will save 10 million gallons a year for Wal-Mart, which operates 7,200 trucks, the second-largest private fleet in the nation.

Ruben said Lovins also introduced him to the idea of "phantom loads," electricity used by televisions, microwaves and other appliances while turned off. Wal-Mart may ask suppliers to redesign such devices. Lovins and his colleagues at RMI, Ruben said, are "big thinkers and have got a different lens they see things through." Lovins said he likes working with a company that can make decisions quickly and is big enough to have a real impact.

To me, the eye-opener was the idea that Wal-Mart even has a Vice President for strategic planning and sustainability.  Meanwhile, BP is running commercials promoting alternative energy, with the company formerly known as British now ID'ing themselves as "Beyond Petroleum." 

There's something happening here.  Maybe Leslie Dach is right when he told the Times:

"I believe that change is happening and the change is real," he said.  Explaining his decision to leave his role as an outside consultant, he added, "The changes come from the inside."

As I've said before, taking on Wal-Mart is a pretty tough battle.  I'm not suggesting giving up on outside pressure, but simultaneous inside progress is looking pretty good today.

One More Thing:

One of the great newspaper stylists of our time was the late Washington Post TV writer, John J. Carmody.  His TV column, written in the voice of "Captain Airwaves" was witty, informative and always a pleasure.  On the other hand,  his successor, Lisa de Moraes, takes pride in writing like a Valley Girl:

"It's a question that not only we face with 'Vanished' but frankly the whole industry is going to be facing this year, given the proliferation of serialized shows," said Liguori, who, as one TV critic sitting in The Power Strip noted, often sounds like he's swallowed a dictionary.  "Proliferation"--paleeze.

Helo? Is "proliferation" reallyl such a hard word?

One Power Strip critic, reflecting the general cranky-pants-iness of the room, said it was nice to know Liguori feels everybody's pain but what exactly is he doing about it?

Wow, what a missed metaphor pile-up in that sentence. Power Strip?  "Cranky-pants-iness?"  This woman, and I'm assuming that although she writes like one she isn't really a teenager, is far too in love with her own "writing." As Truman Capote   said (about Jack Kerouac), "that's not writing, that's typing."

"We did want to make sure we had some portfolio management," said Liguori, coughing up a little Merriam-Webster.

More of those fancy words.  Imagine that. A Fox VP who's too intellectual for the Washington Post!  Please, WashPost, stop killing trees for this woman!

 

Armey's Army

In my other life as a direct mail insultant, I am well familiar with stories like this about direct mail scams. group using the promise of tax-free medical savings accounts to lure members. In this case, former House Majority Leader Richard Armey heads a nice little earner called FreedomWorks (formerly Citizens for a Sound Economy--I bet that title change cost them a pretty penny in consultants' fees, focus groups and polls) that is giving my beloved profession of direct mail manipulation a bad name.

As this paragraph shows, the object here is really just to sell names to other mailers. 

FreedomWorks and its predecessor, CSE, were careful about the deal's financial aspects. In a Sept. 13, 2000, letter, CSE's Quinn said documents should overtly refer to dues, suggesting they be set at $12 a year, to be raised at CSE's discretion upon notifying Medical Savings Insurance Co. She also noted: "I would assume that these people will become CSE members for all purposes and therefore will go on the CSE mailing list. Since the CSE mailing list is rented, as a matter of course, those names would be rented as CSE members . . . without specific identification as MSIC insureds."

Bejewelled with right wing mantras like "Flat Tax," "Across-the-Board Tax Cuts,"  "Limited Government" and "School Choice" this direct mail come-on attracted enough suckers to launch a lawsuit. But when it works, direct mail gives people a chance to act on their most deeply held values and beliefs. Whether it's putting an Amnesty International sticker on your car or sending a contribution to your favorite candidate, odds are you've responded to a direct mail appeal or two.  So don't blame the messenger, unless it's Dick Armey.  Him, blame all you want. 

O Condi! O Mores! (and Maureen)

I know, I really shouldn't try to pun in Latin. But I did just buy at a yard sale a copy of Henry Beard's "Latin for All Occasions" after I opened to this:

    Things to Say to your Psychiatrist

    Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe.

• Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Euroopae vincendarum.

    I think some people in togas are plotting against me.

• Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.

Read Maureen Dowd today on Condi Rice's peculiar definition of diplomacy:

“I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn’t have been clear what I was shuttling to do,” she said.

Keep more civilians from being killed? Or at least keep America from being even more despised in the Middle East and around the globe?

You can always count on Maureen Dowd to get it right, even if she does like her popular culture references a bit too much.  This one name-checks Uma and Oprah and then pounds comparisions with the new  "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie into a bloody pulp of metaphor. 
But Dowd is worth reading, even if the Times does make you jump through hoops now to do so.  Also on my fave rave list of columnists are:

Simon Hoggart of the Guardian
Harold Meyerson and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post
David Corn of the Nation
Murray Waas of the National Journal

Me and Kinky Friedman

I've been a fan of the Kinkster since his days as a touring partner of Bob Dylan, witty singer songwriter and with his band, the Texas Jewboys, performer of such classics as "They Don't Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore" and "I'm an Asshole from El Paso."  He  skyrocketed to success in 1984 with the first of his comic mysteries starring himself, his friends, and a thinly drawn plot. I've borrowed this formula for my novel in progress, Murder in the Propaganda Factory, in which every word is true, except for the parts that aren't. 
Now, of course, Kinky Friedman is running for Governor of Texas in a four way race that, as Dan Rather would say, is tighter than a tick on a jackrabbit..or something like that  Read all about Kinky's campaign here as he runs for the office once held by George W. Bush.  As Kinky likes to observe, if he could do it, how hard can it be?

"Weather Porn" and the Boy King with all the Bling

This article in the Washington Post about the Discovery Channel's plans to market video content specially  made for cell phones reads like parody.  An executive at National Geographic shoots himself, and his company in the corporate foot thusly, committing what Michael Kinsley once defined as the classic "gaffe"--saying what's really on your mind in public. 

National Geographic Ventures, the for-profit arm of the National Geographic Society, is creating high-action shorts of natural phenomena such as tornados and hurricanes, which Chief Operating Officer Ted Prince refers to as "weather porn."

Also beyond belief is this:

The job of feeding content to small screens falls to a six-person team inside the new-media department. Four "preditors" -- industry short-hand for producers/writers/editors -- create programming for Web sites and mobile phones, combing the companies' hundreds of thousands of hours of footage for segments that can be knit into cellphone-size bits of up to two minutes. Instead of a two-hour documentary on zebras in the Serengeti, animal footage is more likely to take the form of "Top Five Takedowns," which lets viewers vote by text message on their favorite clip of predators attacking prey.

Realy scarrry, eh kids?  The Post kindly links to the "Predators Attack" video.  What a public service this newspaper is performing and it is clearly not at all looking to cash in internet readers' interest in cheap thrills.

 

Bush Being Bush? Or Bush Being a Buffoon? We Report: You Decide

Link: CNN.com - Bush caught off-guard in chat with Blair - Jul 17, 2024.

I hate to direct readers to CNN, the least important news organization in the world, but they do have a video of George Bush's private chat with Tony Blair.  As Chris Matthews observed earlier today, if you're a world leader you're supposed to know not to speak with your mouth full or talk when the microphone is hot, but Bush apparently forgot to do both. His smirk when he confides to Blair what's "ironic" (presumably in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word) is classic.  And isn't Blair egging George on by agreeing with him about Kofi Annan's obstinance?  He's still Bush's poodle.  Follow what they're saying about all this on the Guardian's website here.

The Conventional Wisdom is (Almost) Always Wrong

It's an age old theme, perhaps best expressed by the philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Whatever it is, I'm against it."

Whether you call it conventional wisdom or the "prevailing view" as Thomas Mann prefers in his  excellent piece today in the Washington Post, it's headed for a train wreck. Can someone please start printing those old "Question Authority" buttons again? (True story. I was wearing one once and someone inquiringly approached me and said, "I have a question.")
Harold Meyerson said much the same thing in his piece the other day about how Ned Lamont is upsetting the CW and is going to beat Joe Lieberman. 
Thomas Mann cites the Republicans' "traditionally  higher turnout rates" and "vaunted get-out-the-vote operation" but I think that's going to prove to be their Achilles Heel this year.  There are so many local races generating massive Democratic enthusiasm that I see a "'trickle up" effect from the middle to the top of the ticket.  Republicans may end up losing some of their base this year as they continue to argue over stem cells and fences on the border.  Democrats, meanwhile, are finding new energy in that most old-fashioned political tool:  the door to door canvass.

Here in my part of Maryland, Jamie Raskin is generating massive grassroots enthusiasm in his race for State Senate as this short documentary makes clear.  Full disclosure:  I'm working on Jamie's campaign, but see for yourself why I and so many people think Jamie Raskin's campaign is a reminder of why we started out caring about politics in the first place. (For me, it has a lot to do with this quote from Robert Kennedy.  What inspired you?  Please comment below.)  One of the groups endorsing Jamie, 21st Century Democrats, has a slate of endorsed candidates at all levels of government who are in a position to strengthen the position of other Democrats on the ticket.

So the next time someone knocks on your door, or phones you at home, or (my favorite) sends you a mailing, remember the grassroots and I don't mean that one hit wonder band.  Back when he was mostly sensible, Ralph Nader, one of the many unlikely people I've written for over the years (including, in the same season, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, Bishop Tutu and Mario Cuomo) used to talk about the "democracy toolbox" and in 2006, there's finally going to be one in the hands of every voter.  Watch out!

Grover Norquist Ha Ha Ha

    It is truly the season of joy and wonderment here in Washingtron.  First Abramoff, then DeLay, (and Ney), Ralph Reed and now Grover Norquist. They're all getting their comeuppance, and it feels so good! 

I particularly enjoyed the quotes from Norquist's fellow wingers who after years of backstabbing, now  enjoy stabbing people in the front.    

"People were willing to cut him a lot of slack because he's done a lot of favors for a lot of people," said J. Michael Waller, a vice president of the right-leaning Center for Security Policy who for several years was an occasional participant at Norquist's Wednesday meetings. "But Grover's not that likable."

 

...Frank J. Gaffney Jr., the firebrand director of the Center for Security Policy, has developed an anti-Norquist presentation, complete with charts and graphs, that he has shopped around to other conservatives.

The Democrat We Don't Need **Updated**

The indespensible politicalwire.com has this update to the question I asked below, a post that generated a flurry of emails from readers--well, two.

One of the games Washington people play is to ask each other's opinions on what to the rest of the country is pretty obscure stuff--like who's going to win the Democratic Senate nomination in Connecticut.  "Get a life," you're saying on beyond the Beltway, but here we're all over today's news that Joe Lieberman is planning to run as an independent if he's rejected by the Nutmeg State's Democrats in favor of challenger Ned Lamont.

Lieberman, Al Gore's Brilliant Mistake (or one of them, at least, along with not letting Bill Clinton campaign for him in West Virginia and New Hampshire) has morphed into a Bush-kissing, mollycoddling mealy mouthed jerk.  (See talk radio?  I can dish it out too.  Call me.)  If Gore had picked Florida Senator Bob Graham-- or Flipper, for that matter,anyone who could have attracted votes in Florida-- he'd be President and Lieberman would be mostly harmless.  (Warning: Preceding link is loud).

Even so, a month ago I wouldn't have bet against him, but now all bets are off.  Lieberman's own polls must show him dead in the water, his feet in concrete,pushing up daisies, an ex-Senator.  Democrats who weren't feeling the anger driving Lamont's supporters are feeling it now, as Lieberman's behavior becomes positively Nixonian. 

The Times article cites the fate of one of the last of the really good Republicans, my own former Senator Clifford Case:

The senator's remarks about a possible independent campaign may reflect a knowledge of history as well as an abundance of caution. He was a member of the Connecticut State Senate in 1978 when Senator Clifford Case, a longtime New Jersey Republican, made a fatal mistake: underestimating an opponent.

Mr. Case paid little attention to Jeffrey Bell, a Ronald Reagan protégé who was much more conservative than the senator. Instead of running hard against Mr. Bell in the primary, the senator looked ahead to the general election against the Democrat Bill Bradley. But Mr. Bell triumphed in the primary, sending Mr. Case into retirement.

The key word here is "retirement" which Senator Case slipped into like the gentleman he always was (unlike his Garden State Senate colleague, extra bonus points--no fair Googling--for readers who recall his name, including nickname, his notable contribution to history, and the name of his press secretary). 

Then there was the case of Case's colleague from New York, Jacob Javits, who after being defeated in the GOP primary by Alphonse D'Amato, ran as a Liberal, took votes away from the Democrat and handed the election to D'Amato.  Six years later, I worked on Mark Green's campaign to beat D'Amato but unfortunately he stayed on to do damage for three whole terms until he was finally beaten by Chuck Schumer.  Now, of course, Schumer is head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and Chuck, as they say in Brooklyn, dis is what I wanna know.

Do you have a tacit understanding with Lieberman that you won't undermine this Independent talk?  Or are you going to say that you'll support the winner of the Democratic primary?  Isn't that your job?