Poetry Time
I understand New York Times columnist Nicholas
Kristof recently ran a poetry contest on his blog asking readers to submit
original poetry dealing with the new Presidency. By the time that I got there, the “comments”
section had been maxed out and was closed.
Nevertheless, here is the poem I would have submitted had I been able to:
The Ballad of the Gullible
Never shopped in Whole Foods
Nor tuned to NPR.
And my idea of heaven
Is takin’ in NASCAR.
Don’t like reading print books,
Nor list’ning to a poem.
Got me a Smith and Wesson
To fortify my home.
You may think me a fool,
Raise up my glass of wine,
But buddy, please believe me,
The Donald is just fine.
These are precisely the voters which the Democratic Party failed to reach last year.
If you wish, you can sing this! We could have an on-line chorus! But for the time being, you can just make up your own tune. If you give it a try, I suggest you accent the syllables which I’ve underlined and highlighted as follows (Next to last syllable in odd numbered lines, syllable before that one in even numbered lines). Just somewhat extend them. But do with it as you wish:
If you wish, you can sing this! We could have an on-line chorus! But for the time being, you can just make up your own tune. If you give it a try, I suggest you accent the syllables which I’ve underlined and highlighted as follows (Next to last syllable in odd numbered lines, syllable before that one in even numbered lines). Just somewhat extend them. But do with it as you wish:
1 Never
shopped in Whole Foods
2 Nor tuned
to NPR.
3 And my idea
of heaven
4 Is takin’
in NASCAR.
5 Don’t like
reading print books,
6 Nor list’ning to a poem.
7 Got me a Smith and Wesson
8 To fortify
my home.
9 You may
think me a fool,
10 Raise up my glass
of wine,
11 But buddy,
please believe me,
12 The Donald is
just fine.
But my poem never got on Kristof's blog. A poem submitted by a neighbor, Joyce Golden, did and here it is for your enjoyment:
Chief: mirror mirror
Who is the fairest in the land?
Mirror: well, "I'm really not sure"
Chief: but they talk only of me,
They made me their grand
Prize winner!
Their gamer-in-chief
Mirror: maybe, you need a new
Mirror... Joyce Golden 1/27/17
Are any of you out there poets, or aspire to be one? Send your work in for inclusion in the blog!
Jack Lippman
The Strength of a Negotiator
A
negotiator’s position is strengthened when the person with whom he or she is
negotiating is kept in the dark about what their real goals are. A few examples follow.
A car
salesman has quoted you a price on the car you want. You know it’s too high. You ask for a lower price. He tries to get you to commit to how much you
really want to pay. But of course, you
don’t tell him the truth. But he can
work with any number to increase his profit, particularly if there is a
trade-in, lease expiration, financing or new leasing involved. It’s harder if the number you’re trying to
agree upon is going to be a one-time cash payment. Even then, he can work with “extras” like dealer
fees, pin striping, extended warranties, useless “undercoating” and special wax
finishes, all of which he can use to build up the profit. But finally, when the two of you agree upon a
price, the salesman then gets up and goes back to get the sales manager to
agree with it, and that person may have his own ideas as to what the price
should be. He knows how long the
dealership has had the car on its lot and how much interest it is paying on the
financing the dealership uses to purchase the car. His price might differ. So the selling price may change again. And if you get up, threatening to “walk,”
that may affect the dealer’s price as well. That’s what negotiations are all
about.
You put your
house on the market. You know exactly
for how much similar houses in your neighborhood have been selling, and you’d
be satisfied with that price. You tell
your agent how much you want and he or she puts it on the market for about 15%
more than that price because, automatically, the buyer is going to offer less
than you want for your house. You get a
“low ball” offer, but aren’t sure how much more the buyer is willing to
pay. Your agent says to wait for other
offers. They all seem to be low-balling
you. One is willing to pay the price you
are willing to sell for, but is having difficulty getting a mortgage. The agent asks you if you are willing to hold
the mortgage. You wisely say “no.” Another buyer offers that 15% inflated price,
but you find that he plans to convert your house to a “sober home” for recovering
addicts. You know your neighbors too well
to do that. But finally, you sell your
house for what you hope is a fair price four months later. Maybe.
This is the
way business negotiations are carried on.
I repeat that the key to success is hiding what your real objective
is. That’s why the car salesman never
tells you the exact price that the car can be sold for while still providing a fair
profit for the dealer and his or her commission. Maybe he can sell it for more than that
amount. Most of the time that is what
happens. And if it doesn’t, the salesman
might not be around much longer. And the
prospective buyer of a home would be foolish to come out with the maximum price
they are willing to pay; no more than the seller would announce the minimum
amount that he or she is willing to take for the house. A strong negotiator hides his true
position. Not to do so would weaken his ability
to negotiate.
Well, this
way of doing business has now spread to government, where it does not
belong. But since the democratic process
put the “King of Negotiators” into the White House, and made the word “deal”
part of the lexicon of governmental operations, we had better get used to
it. The Administration is not going to
reveal its health care proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act and it is
happy to let the Congress toss a whole bunch of proposals into the mix. Keeping everyone in the dark about their real
intentions regarding health care protects whatever plan they may have from
attack.
And the same thing goes for trade policy, foreign policy, economics,
etc., etc. Traditionally,
proposals in these areas were stated in a straightforward manner. Everyone knew where everyone stood. Negotiations then took place to arrive at some
sort of decision, usually a compromise.
But to compromise, one must know the position of the other side. Even when a “real”
position has been other than a publicly stated position, the other side usually
is well aware of that through private, unpublicized discussions. Hence, negotiations can still be based on
knowledge of where both sides really stand, even though that information may not be out in the sunlight.
No
more. Now we have a
“Negotiator-in-Chief” who thinks he can beat the world with his ability to
“deal.” He wrote a book, didn’t he,
entitled “The Art of the Deal.” (It was
really ghost-written.) The problem is
that the rest of the world doesn’t do business that way. Negotiations must be based on knowledge, not
exaggerated bargaining positions, nuances, emotional appeal, fuzzy facts and
fuzzier numbers. And there is no
bankruptcy procedure for the United States of America if a “deal,” be it
domestic or international, goes sour. This is the world, not a car dealership nor a
guy trying to sell his house. This is
the problem.
JL
JL
Here’s a letter I wrote
to the Palm Beach Post (I’ll let you
know if they print it) about the International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago this
past Saturday evening. There were three
thousand demonstrators there, but most were kept on the western side of the Intracoastal
Waterway, far from the party. Here’s the
letter:
“I was sickened by the article in Friday’s Post
Accent section about the International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago. The
cause may be a good one but the description of the attendees was
disgusting. Women wearing jeweled tiaras? Trumpeters and a Marine
color guard heralding the entrance of guests? These wealthy people,
living under the illusion that they are our country’s nobility, should somehow
be shipped back to the late nineteenth century European society which died in
1918, and from which the United States separated itself by fighting the
Revolutionary War. And most appalled should be the President’s populist supporters.”
JL
David Brooks Addresses Fellow Republicans
In a recent New York Times column,
David Brooks said that “many
Republican members of Congress have made a *Faustian
bargain with Donald Trump. They don’t particularly admire him as a man, they
don’t trust him as an administrator, they don’t agree with him on major issues,
but they respect the grip he has on their voters.” Read more of what Brooks had
to say by clicking right here!
David Brooks is a
very insightful writer. But sometimes
his heart dominates his brain. Shortly
after the election, he wrote that Trump would probably resign or be impeached
within a year. Three months later, I
doubt that he would voice that bit of wishful thinking again. He is counting on the Republicans who made
their *Faustian bargain to eventually see the
light and renounce their allegiance to the Trump Presidency. “So sooner or
later,” he writes, “all will have to choose what side they are on, and live
forever after with the choice.”
The devil, however, has his personal
gatekeeper standing in the way of that happening the way Brooks would like it
to happen. His name is Bannon. And for some strange, yet inexplicable
reason, the President has made some sort of deal with that gatekeeper’s
boss. Click here to read the column.
*As the Germanic legend, the operas and the
plays would have it, Dr. Faustus sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for,
among other things, earthly power.
And while we're talking about the President, let me add that Donald Trump, while in the business world,
had been accustomed to doing whatever he wanted to do, and if someone objected,
they could sue him. Well, he must learn
that is not the way our government works.
Instead, we have a delicate balance between the Congressional, the
Executive and the Judicial branches of our government established by the
Constitution, and the President heads only one of them. Lack of respect for the Courts on all
levels, and lack of respect for elected representatives in the Congress can
only serve to immobilize the Executive branch.
And watching over this, as established by the First Amendment of the
Constitution, is a free press. Attempts
by any of the three branches to weaken that free press should be resisted by
all Americans, regardless of their politics.
JL
Poor Kellyanne Conway and Truth
This pathetic woman is truly deserving of our pity. She has been depending on warped sources of information like FoxNews and the Breitbart organization for so long that she has lost the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. Her recent ridiculous statements about “alternate facts” having as much credibility as “facts” are not only disgraceful but an insult to the legal profession of which she supposedly is a member.
A lawyer can
construct a defense based on half (or quarter or eighth) truths and sometimes
even lies, trying to assemble enough evidence to get a court to believe them,
but that does not turn such evidence into facts, even though they might get a
client off. This poor woman doesn’t
understand that. And if she does, that
makes her even more pathetic. That makes
her a downright liar.
Her latest comment
about a non-existent “massacre” in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is the result of
her having gotten too much information over the years from un-documentable
right-wing sources, as have too many Americans.
It seems she no longer can distinguish truth from falsehood. As I have stated in a prior posting, the
super-salesman in the White House has the same problem because highly successful
salespeople really believe what they are saying, whether it is true or
not. As ridiculous as it seems, the
President should get a pass because of that.
He knows no better. But attorney
Conway should know better. She has no
place in any White House, especially one that has built-in problems of its own
with truth.
And related to this problem, this morning on NPR's A-1 program (wherever you are, try to listen ... it's the replacement for the retired Diane Rehm), a member of Trump's transitional team was being interviewed. Host Josh Johnson questioned the member's claim that the team was "non-partisan," because the gentleman was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. The gentleman claimed that since the Foundation had no official party affiliation, their views, which he espoused, did not make the team "partisan."
We must be very careful with the meaning of words and what passes for "truth" in Washington today, more than ever. (For those who were not aware of it, the Heritage Foundation promotes right-wing conservative values.)
And related to this problem, this morning on NPR's A-1 program (wherever you are, try to listen ... it's the replacement for the retired Diane Rehm), a member of Trump's transitional team was being interviewed. Host Josh Johnson questioned the member's claim that the team was "non-partisan," because the gentleman was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. The gentleman claimed that since the Foundation had no official party affiliation, their views, which he espoused, did not make the team "partisan."
We must be very careful with the meaning of words and what passes for "truth" in Washington today, more than ever. (For those who were not aware of it, the Heritage Foundation promotes right-wing conservative values.)
JL
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