A better slogan than ‘Yes We Can’ is ‘Yes We Will’

‘Yes We Can’ become the great rallying cry of Barack Obama’s last Presidential campaign. It helped get him elected. Unfortunately, it hasn’t translated into significant accomplishment during his term. Maybe it needed to be ‘Yes We Will’.

Lots of people, in all walks of life, believe they ‘can’ get things done. That’s reasonable – most of us have the potential to  accomplish almost anything we set our minds to. Sadly, belief that we ‘can’ do things isn’t enough. Belief needs to be supported by action and action is often in short supply.

It’s no different in business than in politics. We have meetings and workshops and conferences and we get people excited and we promise to get stuff done and we go away from the meetings and all the pain in the ass aspects of life take over and nothing changes. Yes we can doesn’t translate to the actions required for success.

I lead one such meeting last week. Cin7 brought its North American, Australian and New Zealand sales, marketing and customer support people together for a  two-day meeting. Founder, Danny Ing (not to be confused with Burnley striker Danny Ings) set the scene on Thursday morning. The big takeaway for me was his observation that most people offer reasonable explanations why they can’t get something done. He’s looking for people who behave unreasonably – they jump higher and run faster and work harder and longer and crawl over broken glass, if necessary, to make sure that  shit does get done. Screw reasonable people, we want unreasonable people!

Being an unreasonable person starts with saying ”Yes I will!”. It requires an ethos that NOTHING short of success is acceptable. It needs persistency and creativity and courage and patience and optimism. An ‘unreasonable’ person doesn’t take no for an answer and isn’t discouraged by failure. They aren’t dragged down by negative people and they don’t care if their peers don’t have confidence in their plan.

Just like the political types around Obama haven’t turned ‘can’ into ‘will’, most business people also fail. If we’re going to improve this situation, a few key things need to happen.

• We need to recruit people with the right characteristics to get things done. Techniques like behavioural interviewing and psychometric testing will help.
• We must have clear plans that everyone can understand and follow – success doesn’t usually occur randomly.
• We must create environments where people aren’t afraid of failure. Some of the greatest accomplishments of all time have come after repeated failure.
• We need to provide enough incentive for people to really care about succeeding. Whether the incentive is financial or not, there must be one.

I’m guessing that in the case of the Obama administration, failure has come down to a combination of the wrong people, plans watered down by political expediency and fear of alienating voters. Those things will never change and it’s unlikely that a new administration – from either side  – will do much better.

In business, however, we have the chance to move from ‘Yes We Can’ to ‘Yes We Will”. It’ll be more difficult for public companies due to the need to constantly feed shareholders increased earnings per share – every quarter. Having said that, it hasn’t stopped Apple from constantly succeeding. Private companies – and that’s most of us – have no such inhibitor. The only reason for us not to take the leap from ‘can’ to ‘will’ is our own fear or reluctance or apathy or ignorance.

Get over it folks! Time to adopt the slogan “Yes We Will’.

The Amerusa School – Chapter Five

The Amerusa School science teachers were having milk and cookies in the teachers’ lounge. There was Steve Hawkster –  he had a very funny voice and had to get around in a special chair. Then there was an odd looking man in a bow tie named Billy Nan – every one called him the Science Man. Finally, there was Timmy Burning-Knee – no one knew why he had such an odd name but he was really smart and had discovered a way for people, in all the surrounding villages, to talk to each other using their computers.

Mr. Hawkster, Mr Nan and Mr. Burning-Knee were very concerned. For years, they had taught the children of Amerusa School important things like how all the villages had come to be and why the weather had become so strange and why that was a problem. Now, a lot of people in Amerusa didn’t want them to teach those things anymore.

Some of the other teachers – an old man called Paddy Robberman (he also had a TV show where he talked a lot about the Magic Invisible Guy), Sham Halfnitty and mean old Mr. Baner – didn’t want the children to learn anything about science. They wanted them to hear about how the Magic Invisible Guy had waved his index finger one day and all the people and villages had appeared out of thin air.

Mr. Robberman, Mr. Halfnitty and mean old Mr. Baner had talked to Mush and Shrill O’Liarly about the problem and now they were shouting angrily, about the silly old science classes, on their radio and TV shows. The people in the southern part of Amerusa thought they were nuts but the people in the nice big houses in the northern part of town nodded wisely when they heard Mush and Shrill speak. Then they held their arms up in the air and asked the Magic Invisible Guy to strike Mr. Hawkster, Mr. Nan and Mr. Burning-Knee dead before they corrupted their darling children even more.

Meanwhile, the Amerusa School security guard was talking to some of the oder boys. He explained that the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard was planning another raid on Amerusa and they had to stop him before he carried out his evil, horrible plan. It was going to be dangerous – they’d have to sneak into his trailer after dark and capture him. There might be big boys guarding the old man and the he might have some booby traps planted around the trailer. Nevertheless, it had to be done to protect the town and the school. All the boys said they were ready to go and, even though it would be dangerous, they knew they could stop the sick old man with the dirty, smelly beard from sending his boys to Amerusa in pick up trucks loaded with rocks.

The security guard and the oder boys made their preparations. They took off their clothes – most of them wore white clothes and that would be easy to see in the dark – and replaced them with black clothes. They were each given flashlights so they could see in the dark. Finally, they collected some sharp rocks and put them in their backpacks – they might need them if they ran into the big boys from the other village.

When they were ready, the new head teacher came to see them. He thanked them for being willing to do this dangerous job and told them how important it was to stop the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard before he caused more trouble. He said he would see them when they returned.

While they waited to head off to the old man’s village, a few of the boys called their moms and dads and told them how much they loved them. A few of the boys held their arms up in the air and asked the Magic Invisible  Guy to keep them safe.

Then it was time to go.

TO BE CONTINUED

Republican Presidential hopeful embarrasses himself on climate change

(Today’s guest blogger is Phil Plait who writes Slate’s Bad Astronomy blog. Phil is an astronomer, public speaker, science evangelizer, and author of Death From the Skies! Thanks Phil – I could have said it better.)

In case you haven’t heard, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is not a fan of reality.

The reality of science, that is. He has a history of presenting global warming–denying talking points and used some of his political power just this past week to pressure NASA into downplaying its role in measuring the effects of global warming on the planet.

Earlier this week, Cruz went on Late Night With Seth Meyers, and they discussed the issue. What Cruz said, in its entirety, is what comes out of the south end of a north-facing bull.

Here’s the transcript:

“I just came back from New Hampshire where there’s snow and ice everywhere. And my view actually is simple: Debates on this should follow science, and should follow data. And many of the alarmists on global warming, they got a problem cuz the science just doesn’t back them up. And in particular, satellite data demonstrates that the last 17 years there’s been zero warming. None whatsoever. It’s why—you remember how it used to be called global warming and then magically the theory changed to climate change? The reason is it wasn’t warming, but the computer models still say it is, except the satellites show it’s not.”

There’s so much wrong in what he said that it’s almost cartoonish. It’s a tour de force of wrongness.

Let’s go point by point.

First: It’s cold in New Hampshire! Yes, because global warming doesn’t mean the Earth is always hot. It still gets cold because we have seasons; the Earth’s axis is still tilted. This is a standard denier talking point meant to distract from the real issue. Cruz starting off with this line is a sure-fire way of knowing that he’s got his head firmly planted in the sand. As Stephen Colbert wrote, brilliantly mocking this kind of ridiculosity, “Global warming isn’t real because I was cold today! Also great news: World hunger is over because I just ate.”

Second: Cruz is right in one sense; we should follow the science. But the real science, not the nonsense he’s saying. Real science doesn’t cherry-pick one result that appears (incorrectly) to back up an outrageous claim, but ignore the overwhelming amount of evidence that this claim is dead wrong.

Third: He says satellite data shows no warming. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, his saying this shows at best a gross misunderstanding of the data. And there is a vast amount of data from other sources showing the Earth is warming up. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in February 2015, “nine of the past 12 months have been either warmest or second warmest on record for their respective months.” And 2014 was one of if not the hottest year on record.

But of all the bizarre nonsense Cruz said in that interview, what really got my teeth grinding was his comment about how it used to be called “global warming” but now we call it “climate change” because the evidence doesn’t support warming. That is at the level of weapons-grade irony. The idea to start calling it “climate change” came from a Republican strategist, in an effort to make it seem less threatening.

By saying that, Cruz has gone full Orwell: His own party made that change in phrase, but he’s accusing scientists of doing it. Ted Cruz is a flat-out science denier. He’s unworthy of a leadership position, especially one that deals with science. Yet he’s chairman of the Senate subcommittee overseeing NASA, and he wants to run for president.

If there’s anything that can counteract global warming, it’s the chill in the air I feel from having to write that last paragraph.

My biggest fear post 2016 is that a Tea Party POTUS will re-shape SCOTUS

In twenty months, the United States will hold their next Presidential election. While no one knows what the result will be, there’s a very real chance that a conservative Republican – likely a Tea Party guy – will inhabit the White House from January 2017.

There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about that – especially if you care about marriage equality, climate change, education, foreign relations, health care, the growing gap between rich and poor, race relations, the right to terminate a pregnancy, equality for women, capital punishment, investment for scientific research and every other area where the Tea Party is stuck in the Dark Ages. However, the threat of repealing The Affordable Care Act or passing a law re-assigning all IRS workers to guard the Mexican border or the probability of more military excursions into the Middle East aren’t the things that scare me the most. There’s something far scarier.

The Supreme Court is the most powerful group of people in the country – one of the most powerful in the world. They provide interpretations of laws that govern behaviour for decades, they can virtually strike down legislation, they have the power over life and death in multiple areas. They’ve ruled on abortion, segregation, the teaching of Evolution, the death penalty and so many more things. They set the tone of the nation. If they’d ruled differently, in the past, America would still be a place with separate schools for blacks and whites, abortion would still be illegal, Darwin would be outlawed in schools and Obama would be using Coloured toilets and riding in the back of the bus.

A President’s greatest possible legacy is to stack the Supreme Court with a strong majority of Justices from his side of the political fence. A job on the Supreme Court bench is virtually a job for life – you have to be pretty old and feeble to step down, especially if your departure could shift the political direction of the Court. Once you’re appointed and confirmed, you’re there for a bloody long time.

Currently, five justices were appointed by Republican Presidents and four by Democrats. The Chief Justice, Bush appointee John Roberts, is the most moderate member and is often the swing voter in Court decisions. Two of the Left leaning Justices, Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, are 82 and 77 respectively. They will undoubtedly die or retire during the term of the next President. Two of the most right leaning Justices – Scalia and Thomas – are also senior citizens.

If the next US President is from the loony Right, he will undoubtedly appoint at least four Supreme Court Justices – two from each side of the political divide. If the Congress continues to slide toward the Right, POTUS will have no difficulty replacing Scalia and Kennedy with equally conservative judges. He’ll also be able to replace Ginsburg and Breyer with racist, misogynist types.

If this scenario occurs, the Supreme Court of the United States will take a giant tilt to the Right. The next oldest, Clarence Thomas, an extremely conservative Justice who, ironically, owes his career to brave rulings of more liberal Courts, is only 67 – a comparative teenager in SCOTUS terms. A stubborn bastard like him won’t leave until he’s carried out in a box. The Tea Party die will be cast for a generation, at least.

If my worst nightmares come true, may the Magic Invisible Guy help Gays, women, scientists, the poor, students who want to know about more than the books of the Pentateuch and Noah’s ark, scientific research and – worst of all – the planet. They’ll all need all the help they can get.

Republican Idol – the local audition rounds continue

Republican presidential wannabes continue to flock to local auditions in the hope of striking a chord with the judges and getting a golden ticket for Washington Week. Your faithful reporter notes than some contestants have attended more than one local audition – they’re obviously VERY keen. In this week’s action:

Former Governor and Fox Comedy News Channel pundit Mike Huckabee has been a busy boy. He’s shown up in a low cost internet informercial – Barton Publishing’s Diabetes Solution Kit – that claims that cinnamon rolls can help cure diabetes.  This landmark information is right up there with the discovery that the earth really is flat after all and dinosaurs perished in The Great Flood. Huckabee – or Huckster, as he’s now being called – has the credentials to go a long way in this competition.

Senator Ted Cruz is also back for more. The head of the Senate committee responsible for NASA funding, and a flat out climate change denier, has told NASA Administrator Charles Bolden that the agency should be spending a lot less time on climate change studies. We don’t want one of America’s leading science agencies wasting its time on science, do we? Good work Ted!

Cruz also found the time to work up an ensemble audition with fellow Senators, including Idol hopefuls Marco Rubio and John McCain. They were amongst the 47 Republican Senators who sent the Iranian government a letter threatening that any nuclear deal done with the Obama administration will be ripped up by the next Republican administration. Unfortunately, Iran’s reply demonstrated that their leadership group has a far better handle on international law and, not surprisingly, US law as well. Doesn’t bode well for this group – in any event, they probably should have attended the Republican X Factor audition, since Republican Idol doesn’t actually have a group section. Duh!

South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham has made a big play for the senior vote with the admission that he’s never used email, texting or social media in his life. Unfortunately, Idol voting is done by SMS so Lindsay will struggle to get enough support to survive. Shame – he’s the sort of Neanderthal idiot who could do well in this competition.

Speaking of senior citizens, former Republican Idol winner, Mitt Romney, is missing the spotlight so much that’s he jumping in the ring with another dinosaur – Evander Holyfield. The charity event will take place in Utah, in May, if either of them can remember to show up. The standing eight count is being reviewed because neither of them can stand for eight full counts without having to take a nap.

One of the most startling auditions in Republican Idol history has played out in Arkansas. State Legislator Justin Harris and his wife – proprietor of a pre-school center named Growing God’s Children – adopted two girls from a troubled background. The Harris family strategy for modifying the girls’ behaviour was to lock them in a CCTV monitored room and, when that didn’t work, they brought in an exorcist from Alabama. Unbelievably, that didn’t work either so they gave the girls away to a neighbour who subsequently sexually abused at least one of them. I’m speechless and breathless. I reckon, that in a state like Arkansas, Harris’s popularity should soar. Whether the rest of Republican Nation is ready for him………..??

In the Illinois local audition, Congressman Aaron Schock has resigned in an expense scandal. He spent tens of thousands turning his office into a  replica of Downton Abbey and then, in a spectacular display of creative accounting, billed Congress for 170,000 miles of travel in a car that only had 80,000 miles on the clock. Schock – or Schlock as some are now calling him – will be a big loss to the competition.

Finally, we had a post-mortem entry – one inspired by the Aaron Schock audition. Turns out that in 1848, Congressman Abraham Lincoln was also caught up in an expense scandal. He was found to have over billed his travel expenses by $677 – the equivalent of $18,700 in 2015 money. Worked out okay for him – hopeful Mr. Schock doesn’t totally lose heart.

Another good week of auditions. Stay tuned for the next round.

Sometimes you should just keep your mouth shut

I’ve never been one to hold back. If you’re a regular reader that will come as no surprise. If I don’t agree, I’m pretty quick to offer my opinion and if you piss me off, I’ll probably fire something straight  back at you. That’s my nature and, when the rubber hits the road, most of us revert to nature.

However, the older I get, the more I understand that, sometimes, it’s best to overcome your nature and keep your gob shut. Avoid making some self-righteous point and save the peace. Swallow your pride and avoid an unnecessary shit fight with someone that’s really important to you.

In any relationship – whether it’s a romantic one or a business one or just a friendship – disagreements occur. Sometimes it’s worth picking a fight over – you’ll probably find some kind of compromise and you’ll both be better for it. Other times, you fight over fundamental differences in values or philosophy. In those cases, it’s less likely that you’ll strike that common ground and there’s always the potential for those disagreements to  materially affect the relationship. That’s when you have to seriously consider whether it’s worth pursuing the fight.

You might think that disagreements around values or philosophy are pretty important things to sort out. Well, most of us end up in highly valued relationships in which we don’t have total agreement with the other party in every conceivable area – yet we still consider those relationships to be central to our lives. If we enter into a significant relationship knowing, full well, that we have differences in areas relating to values or philosophy, it’s very unlikely that one party will change to accommodate the other. Arguing or fighting won’t help – if anything, it’ll drive us further apart. And, if the relationship is important to us – and it works – in spite of the differences, there’s zero upside in entering into conflict around the points of difference.

So now, when there’s an opportunity to start, or join, an argument – whether it’s at work or home – I try to mentally determine what kind of fight I’m getting into. If it’s over details, I’ll probably still have a go – like I said, that’s my nature. If it’s over something much deeper, I’m more likely to bite my tongue and count to a million. Life’s too short to get into conflicts that have no chance of resolution. Now, if the other party isn’t really all that important to me……………:)

How reduced attention spans affect getting the basics right

People’s attention spans just ain’t what they used to be. I used to blame it on those damn Millenials but I’m now convinced that it’s so much more pervasive than that. My latest theory is that we’ve descended into a world that revolves around  sound bites, the ability to download and watch an entire TV series in a single session, highlights packages, long weekends instead of two week vacations, easy credit that let’s us buy everything we want whether we can afford it or not, fast food, fast fashion, boot camps and every other manner of short cut that you can imagine. No one has to ‘stay the course’ any more.

Nowhere does the trend toward short attention spans hurt more than in business. Some of the ways it negatively affects us include:

• Reduced employee tenure – I’ve just hired a senior employee. This is a significant role and I expected to get applications from people with good track records in solid businesses. What I got was hundreds of resumes from people – predominantly under 30 – with good degrees from great schools and a track record of changing jobs every six months or less. This is consistent with the most recent research – NO ONE stays anywhere very long any more. As soon as they get bored – or pissed off about something – they bolt. And, since they ALL do it, it’s no longer much of a disadvantage – except for businesses. How do you succeed in business if your HR resembles a revolving door
• Failed projects – Any project manager understands how difficult it is to get team members to stay on track. Most project failures relate, in some way, to scope creep. And most scope creep, at a basic level, relates to people who can’t stay focused. And the inability to stay focused almost always comes back to a deficient attention span. And it’s getting worse by the year. Who would be a project manager these days?
• Poor execution – Every good strategy, every killer app, every genius plan relies on great execution. Everyone needs to carry out their piece of the plan – whether it’s sexy or not – and they need to keep their head down and their bum up (Americans can keep their butts up if they prefer) until the job gets done. These days, people want to wander off and do something more interesting or, some cases, someone else’s job. The ability to stick with it is a dying art and, as a result, execution isn’t as good as it used to be and, because of that, more strategies and plans fail.

This isn’t one of those preachy blog posts where I lay out the problem and then present the easy-peasy three step solution. I don’t have a solution and the, the way the world is tending, it’s only going to get worse.

My personal solution is to stick with those few people who still have attention spans longer than their noses. Obviously, WordPress has precious few of those people based on their inability to address basic issues in this platform that constantly plague bloggers like me.

Now…..what was I saying again??

Myths about the economies of Western democracies

Today’s blog takes inspiration from the writings of Robert Reich. Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California – Berkeley and a former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.

There are many myths surrounding Western economies but three are bigger than all the others. These myths provide much of the narrative for political debate and, other than the contrast between politicians who’s views are faith-based and those who aren’t, arguably represent the most prominent point of difference between the left and right. The three great myths are:

The rich and big business drive job creation

The right believes this and its platform of tax breaks and financial incentives for the rich and large corporations is driven by this. Reich believes, and I agree, that most job creation comes from the middle classes – from the millions of entrepreneurs who create and run small to medium sized businesses. According to Forbes Magazine, 90% of US businesses have fewer than 20 employees and 65% of job growth, since 1995, has come from small business. Yet, they get a fraction of the attention and support, from government, that Fortune 500 companies get. The picture is no different in Europe, Japan or Australia.

We must choose between the free market and government

Nowhere in the debate between major political parties of the West, is there a bigger argument than this. The right wants government to get out of the way so that the market can get on with its natural behaviour. Reich thinks this is nonsensical – his view is that  the free market doesn’t actually exist. He asserts that government creates market structure, rules to prevent ‘Lord of the Flies’ behaviour, remedies for predatory activity and protection against mega organisations becoming so large and powerful that they, in essence, become alternative governments driven by economic greed. Without this ‘adult supervision’ there would be no mechanism for IP protection, predatory activity of all kinds would be rampant and fraudulent activity would go unchecked.

The biggest issue is the size of government

In New Zealand, government has three year electoral cycles. When the National Party (right of centre) wins an election, government department re-structures dominate the first year (massive job cuts) and the engagement of consultants and contractors – to make up for the lost employees while continuing the illusion of ‘small government’ – dominate the second year. In the third year, no one does anything substantial for fear of damaging the chances of election. If the Labour Party (left of centre) wins the next election, they fire the consultants and contractors and hire back everyone kicked out in the re-structure – plus a few more for good luck. There is no clearer iteration of the left – right debate between big and small government than this. Reich says that we shouldn’t worry about the size of government – we should worry about who government is representing. If they support middle class driven job growth, sustainable prosperity will result and no one will complain about the size of government. If they support the rich and big business, the middle and lower classes will see no benefit from the reduced size of government.

Robert Reich has been called, by Time Magazine, one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He’s one of the smartest men and most astute thinkers on earth. Nowhere is his unfailing logic more compelling than in the area of the economy. Governments, whoever and wherever they are, need to listen to Robert Reich.

The Amerusa School – Chapter Four

One day, at Amerusa School, a little girl named Violet fell down and scraped her knee. It hurt lots and blood was pouring out. Violet called out to her teacher “Help me Mr. Baner, I’ve fallen and hurt my knee. Can you fix it?”

Mr. Baner was a mean old man – he didn’t like the kids very much, especially kids like Violet who came from the Southern part of town. He asked Violet “Will your Mommy and Daddy’s bosses give the doctor money to fix your knee?” Violet was sad. She replied “My Mommy can’t find a job and my Daddy’s boss won’t give us money for doctors. Can you help me?” She started to cry.

Mr. Baner made a snorting noise and said “Well, if your Mommy and Daddy’s bosses won’t give the doctor money to fix your knee, they’ll have to give him money themselves.” Violet cried even more. “My Mommy and Daddy don’t have much money. Sometimes we don’t have enough for food and my little brother needs lots of medicine for his Asthma and we have to take care of our cousins because their Mommy and Daddy died. Can you help me?”She was still bleeding and her crying had turned to sobbing.

Mean old Mr.Baner said, as he walked away, “Your parents should have thought of all those things before they had you and  your brother. Tell them to talk to the Magic Invisible Guy – he’ll wave his index finger and your knee will be as good as new.” Then he was gone leaving Violet bleeding and sobbing in the school yard.

The new head teacher saw what was happening from his office window. He was sad and said to another teacher “Why are the mean old teachers, like Mr. Baner, making it so hard for me to bring a doctor to school who will fix scraped knees and bad tummies for free? Why do they think that will be a bad thing. Kanuckton School has a free doctor and the students and teachers there say it’s really good. But Mr. Baner and his friends say we don’t want to have bad doctors like they have in Kanuckton. What can we do to change Mr. Baner’s mind?”

Just then, the Amerusa School security guard knocked on the new head teacher’s door. He told the new head teacher that he had heard that the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard was planning another raid. One of the security guard’s friends had gone to the neighbouring village, where the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard lived in his trailer at the edge of town, and pretended to be friends with some of the boys from the village. They told him about the stolen pick up trucks and the piles of rocks and the plan to drive through Amerusa throwing the rocks through shop windows and ripping up the flowers from the town square and, maybe, running over more people trying to cross the street. This was terrible!

The new head teacher called a secret meeting with some of the teachers and the boss of the Parent Teacher Association and the boss of the town and the security guard. They talked about how they could stop this terrible thing from happening. After they talked and talked and talked, they decided that they would have to sneak into the neighbouring village, when it was dark, and catch the sick, old man with the dirty, smelly beard before he could put his evil plan into action.

Meanwhile, Violet limped home with her bleeding scraped knee and, when she got there, her Mommy did her best to stop the bleeding and make Violet feel better. She did her best but Violet still walked with a limp and couldn’t understand why Mr. Baner didn’t want to help her.

While Violet was sobbing herself to sleep, mean Mr. Baner was in his big house in the Northern part of town, with his beautiful family, eating a yummy meal and watching Shrill O’Liarly shout from their enormous television (the television covered almost the whole wall in their living room). Mr. Baner turned to Mrs. Baner and said “The Magic Invisible Guy has truly blessed us. We have a wonderful life. I have to make sure that the horrible new head teacher with the black clothes doesn’t spoil things.” She nodded wisely. And Shrill continued to shout.

TO BE CONTINUED

It’s time for Rudy to shut his face and go home

I wrote about Rudy Guiliani a few weeks back. He got himself into mischief questioning whether Barack Obama loves America. With the exception of a few Tea Party Taliban types, he was roundly ridiculed for his comments. You would have thought that a seasoned politician like Rudy would have stuck his proverbial finger in the proverbial air and figured out that (1) he’d lost a ship load of credibility through his idiotic and insensitive comments and (2) he might want to keep a low profile until the murky air cleared. Not our Rudy. He’s just getting started.

Speaking, last week,  with New York talk show host John Gambling – he of the three generations of John Gamblings who, for 88 years, hosted the Rambling With Gambling show – Guiliani achieved the rare double banger of embarrassing comments.

First, he said that he wished Barack Obama was more like Bill Cosby. Oops – maybe not the smartest thing to say given recent revelations about America’s favourite TV dad. What he meant, was that Cosby used to regularly call out stupid behaviour by African Americans and Obama doesn’t. The Ferguson, Missouri situation was one of the examples he used. I guess he forgot that the recent shooting of two police officers, in Ferguson – the bad behaviour he wanted Obama to call out –  was a direct outcome of months of protest over the behaviour of a police department that has been deemed, by government investigators, to have consistently behaved in a racist manner. I don’t hear Guiliani calling that out.

His second mystifying statement was that former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson should be commended for killing Michael Brown. He tried to clarify that by referring to the report that says there’s no conclusive evidence that Brown’s hands were in the air when Wilson shot him to death. Unfortunately, all anyone heard, and all that’s being reported, is that Darren Wilson should get a medal for killing unarmed Michael Brown.

Rudy Guiliani used to be a savvy politician. I suspect he had a posse of consultants and minders around making sure he didn’t come across as a total dick. These days, he’s a sad old man trying and saying anything in the hope of remaining even a little relevant .

I have a message for Rudy. He’s showing himself to be an old school racist and increasingly Far Right fascist who is completely out of touch with reality. No one – except Rush Limbaugh and Bill O”Reilly – give a damn what he thinks and the more he opens his mouth, in public, the more he tarnishes what’s left of his post 9/11 reputation.

Rudy, it might be time to move into the home, on your terms, before someone gets a court order to forcibly do it.

Good bye Rudy. Your time is now officially up.