Here is a partial listing of female heads of state since 1900:
Corazon Aquino - Philippines
Sirimavo Bandaranaike - Sri Lanka
Agatha Barbara - Mali
Benazir Bhutto - Pakistan
Gro Harlem Brundtland - Norway
Eugenia Charles - Dominica
Vigdis Finbogadottir - Iceland
Indira Gandhi - India
Golda Meir - Israel
Margaret Thatcher - Great Britain
Kim Campbell - Canada
Violeta Barrios de Chamorro - Nicaragua
Tansu Ciller - Turkey
Pamela Gordon - Bermuda
Sylvie Kinigi - Burundi
Chandrika Kumaratunge - Sri Lanka (her mother was the first female prime minister in the world)
Jenny Shipley - New Zealand
Jennifer M. Smith - Bermuda
Hanna Suchocka - Poland
Aung San Suu Kyi - Myanmar (Burma)
Agathe Uwilingiyimana - Rwanda
Vaira Vike-Freiberga - Latvia
Michelle Bachelet - Chile
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner - Argentina
Julia Gillard - Australia
Mary Robinson - Ireland
Mary McAleese - Ireland
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Liberia
Angela Merkel - Germany
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf - Switzerland (one of several female Swiss heads of state)
... and the list goes on.
Notably missing from this list is that bastion of democracy and freedom, the United States of America, where in 2012, part of the dialog of the presidential campaign is whether or not the use of contraception is of the devil, and whether women should have access to medical care and counseling regarding reproductive health .
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The Purpose of Baptism
Holocaust-survivor and humanitarian Elie Wiesel has challenged the Mormon Church to renounce its practice of baptizing the dead. The request has likely received more than typical press attention because of Mitt Romney's run for the Republican presidential nomination. Wiesel's request comes on the heels of the revelation that Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal's relatives have been baptized in a Mormon ceremony that selects the names of deceased individuals to receive "proxy baptism."
Where does this Mormon practice come from? The practice comes from Joseph Smith's interpretation of I Corinthians 15:29, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead not rise at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?” Mormons believe that Joseph Smith, their faith’s founding prophet, restored the apostolic practice after centuries of neglect by mainstream Christians. (See the washingtonpost.com.)
As a Jew who became a Christian as a young adult, I find the Mormon practice insulting, reprehensible, and frightening. First, orthodox Christianity teaches that the purpose of baptism is to welcome a person into the family of Christ. In liturgical churches, where infant baptism is still generally practiced, the parents and the congregation make the promise, on behalf of the baptized child, to raise that individual in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The family and the community assume responsibility for the spiritual development and growth of the child. That child takes responsibility for his or her faith through the experience of Confirmation - a choice the child makes to confirm his or her commitment to Christ and the teachings of the church.
The evangelical churches, including nearly every permutation of Baptist, assert that one should experience a "believer's baptism." In other words, when an individual makes an acknowledgement of Jesus the Christ as one's personal Savior and Lord, that commitment is demonstrated to the community through the act of baptism.
The key point is this: whether a child is baptized before he or she understands the meaning and purpose of baptism, or if an older child or adult "makes a profession of faith," baptism is a decision made by living individuals who have made the conscious choice to follow the teachings of Christ and to be an active and vital part of a body of believers, i.e., Christ's church.
Not only is the Mormon practice of baptism of the dead offensive to Jews and others who do not agree with Mormon teaching, but the practice has no theological basis in orthodox Christian teaching. Paul's statement has troubled theologians for centuries, but the general belief is that Paul may have either been asking, "If there is no resurrection, why bother to be baptized [i.e., why bother to profess Christ as Lord]?" The other plausible interpretation is that new believers were baptized in honor of a deceased believer who had been responsible for the believer's new found faith. Given the often short lifespan of first century individuals, this interpretation may have merit.
My own baptism was the result of my intentional decision to acknowledge that there was merit in the Christian teaching that Jesus was Messiah. My baptism was the "outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace." I would never insult my parents, grandparents, and other assorted relatives, both living and dead, by having proxy baptisms for them so that I can be "joined with them in Heaven": the Mormon assertion for proxy baptism. My own theology leads me to believe that a God of grace and compassion fully understands my family members' experiences that would have caused them to refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, but would not, however, close Heaven's gates to them.
Wiesel should be applauded for demanding that Romney condemn his faith's practice of proxy baptism. I would also like to see Romney take on the continued existence of polygamy among various Mormon sects. If nothing else materializes from Romney's run for national office, perhaps a serious examination of these Mormon aberrations will finally gain nationwide and mainstream attention. At the very least, the Mormons should let the dead rest in peace.
Where does this Mormon practice come from? The practice comes from Joseph Smith's interpretation of I Corinthians 15:29, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead not rise at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?” Mormons believe that Joseph Smith, their faith’s founding prophet, restored the apostolic practice after centuries of neglect by mainstream Christians. (See the washingtonpost.com.)
As a Jew who became a Christian as a young adult, I find the Mormon practice insulting, reprehensible, and frightening. First, orthodox Christianity teaches that the purpose of baptism is to welcome a person into the family of Christ. In liturgical churches, where infant baptism is still generally practiced, the parents and the congregation make the promise, on behalf of the baptized child, to raise that individual in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The family and the community assume responsibility for the spiritual development and growth of the child. That child takes responsibility for his or her faith through the experience of Confirmation - a choice the child makes to confirm his or her commitment to Christ and the teachings of the church.
The evangelical churches, including nearly every permutation of Baptist, assert that one should experience a "believer's baptism." In other words, when an individual makes an acknowledgement of Jesus the Christ as one's personal Savior and Lord, that commitment is demonstrated to the community through the act of baptism.
The key point is this: whether a child is baptized before he or she understands the meaning and purpose of baptism, or if an older child or adult "makes a profession of faith," baptism is a decision made by living individuals who have made the conscious choice to follow the teachings of Christ and to be an active and vital part of a body of believers, i.e., Christ's church.
Not only is the Mormon practice of baptism of the dead offensive to Jews and others who do not agree with Mormon teaching, but the practice has no theological basis in orthodox Christian teaching. Paul's statement has troubled theologians for centuries, but the general belief is that Paul may have either been asking, "If there is no resurrection, why bother to be baptized [i.e., why bother to profess Christ as Lord]?" The other plausible interpretation is that new believers were baptized in honor of a deceased believer who had been responsible for the believer's new found faith. Given the often short lifespan of first century individuals, this interpretation may have merit.
My own baptism was the result of my intentional decision to acknowledge that there was merit in the Christian teaching that Jesus was Messiah. My baptism was the "outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace." I would never insult my parents, grandparents, and other assorted relatives, both living and dead, by having proxy baptisms for them so that I can be "joined with them in Heaven": the Mormon assertion for proxy baptism. My own theology leads me to believe that a God of grace and compassion fully understands my family members' experiences that would have caused them to refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, but would not, however, close Heaven's gates to them.
Wiesel should be applauded for demanding that Romney condemn his faith's practice of proxy baptism. I would also like to see Romney take on the continued existence of polygamy among various Mormon sects. If nothing else materializes from Romney's run for national office, perhaps a serious examination of these Mormon aberrations will finally gain nationwide and mainstream attention. At the very least, the Mormons should let the dead rest in peace.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Who Decides What We Read?
I've been in something of a frustration mode lately. I was recently fortunate enough to meet with a literary agent to discuss a book project I had been working on since the summer. At that meeting, we discussed the fact that a family member already had a book contract to write a biography of his long ago relative. "I don't think the market can support two books about X," the agent told me.
After having spent two seemingly futile days in archives in Washington, I was tired and vulnerable, and I caved without much of a struggle. My response was something along the lines of saying that I felt relieved.
The agent and I kicked around a few other potential book ideas, and I left his office with the promise to send him a proposal for one of them.
A few weeks after that meeting, I e-mailed a friend about what happened. Her response was interesting. She works in a library dedicated to people who have lived in the White House, and she observed how many multiple books there are in the library on the same subject. How, she wondered, could this agent determine that two books could not be written about the same person?
How indeed? Just who does determines what we read?
Because I still see myself as a struggling writer (my definition of no longer struggling is when my writing earns enough to cover the research trips and pay my bills), I am sensitive to books that get published and reviewed. In the last few years, I have spotted a very disturbing trend. Authors who know editors of influential and widely circulated, and widely respected, publications will have their work reviewed - everywhere! A good example is the latest work by Joan Didion, whom I hate to give any additional press to, because she has had more than enough. I've read about her in Vanity Fair. She was on the cover of New York Magazine. The New Yorker reviewed her book, as did the New York Times, the Washington Post, and goodness knows who else.
I am sorry for Ms. Didion's pain. I fully understand the need to emote and work through hurt and grief, and I definitely know that writing offers that outlet better than other media. But do I have to be inundated with the details of her life story and her daily habits? Isn't there a limit to the exposure?
It is difficult to break into the clique that arbitrates what we will have available to read. Only by getting beyond the more obvious suggestions of reading options and digging deeper into the great variety of what is published through university presses, small independent publishing firms, and the mid-list books of trade publishers that get little attention can we move beyond the books that are hyped and thrown at us.
Through one of my Twitter feeds, I happened upon an interesting article in the New York Daily News: "The Most Overrated Books of 2011." This blogpost says it all, and more succinctly than I just have, too. (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/node/126739)
After having spent two seemingly futile days in archives in Washington, I was tired and vulnerable, and I caved without much of a struggle. My response was something along the lines of saying that I felt relieved.
The agent and I kicked around a few other potential book ideas, and I left his office with the promise to send him a proposal for one of them.
A few weeks after that meeting, I e-mailed a friend about what happened. Her response was interesting. She works in a library dedicated to people who have lived in the White House, and she observed how many multiple books there are in the library on the same subject. How, she wondered, could this agent determine that two books could not be written about the same person?
How indeed? Just who does determines what we read?
Because I still see myself as a struggling writer (my definition of no longer struggling is when my writing earns enough to cover the research trips and pay my bills), I am sensitive to books that get published and reviewed. In the last few years, I have spotted a very disturbing trend. Authors who know editors of influential and widely circulated, and widely respected, publications will have their work reviewed - everywhere! A good example is the latest work by Joan Didion, whom I hate to give any additional press to, because she has had more than enough. I've read about her in Vanity Fair. She was on the cover of New York Magazine. The New Yorker reviewed her book, as did the New York Times, the Washington Post, and goodness knows who else.
I am sorry for Ms. Didion's pain. I fully understand the need to emote and work through hurt and grief, and I definitely know that writing offers that outlet better than other media. But do I have to be inundated with the details of her life story and her daily habits? Isn't there a limit to the exposure?
It is difficult to break into the clique that arbitrates what we will have available to read. Only by getting beyond the more obvious suggestions of reading options and digging deeper into the great variety of what is published through university presses, small independent publishing firms, and the mid-list books of trade publishers that get little attention can we move beyond the books that are hyped and thrown at us.
Through one of my Twitter feeds, I happened upon an interesting article in the New York Daily News: "The Most Overrated Books of 2011." This blogpost says it all, and more succinctly than I just have, too. (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/node/126739)
Friday, December 2, 2011
A Hodgepodge of Thoughts on Capitalism and its Oppressors
I was in New York the week before last - the week that included the Thursday when the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators planned to "act." Their actions, according to the paper that Thursday morning, included taking their message to the subways, and ultimately converging at the southern tip of Manhattan in and around Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. Their appointed hour for gathering was 3 p.m. - which ended up being about exactly the time I was due back at Union Square from my museum jaunt further uptown.
I wondered if the demonstrators were going to converge on the station and put me in harm's way. I wondered if I would feel safe joining them for a short period just to relive my own days of protest in the early 1970s when I marched on behalf of Soviet Jewry in front of the Soviet embassy in Washington. And I wondered if I should get off the subway one stop sooner and just walk the rest of the way to Union Square.
I decided I would take my chances, and rode into the Union Square stop. All was quiet. No phalanx of police officers underground. No groups shouting slogans. Not even the nearly ubiquitous musicians who set up in the spaces where the yellow line and the green line meet and then go their separate ways.
On street level, I emerged just in time to see the protestors marching in an orderly fashion along the Square (see photo). But just a few blocks to the south, I could hear the police whistles, sirens, and louder chants. By 5:00 p.m., according to the local news, thousands were converged at Battery Park, and warned they would be arrested if they blocked traffic across the bridge. Photos showed lines of cars backed up for miles. I wanted the protestors to comply and not create problems; it would only diminish their message.
As I have learned from previous trips to New York when events in that city make national news, the "local take" is far more nuanced than what we in the rest of the nation hear. Those who live and work near Zuccotti Park are ready for the protestors to go home. A few were photographed holding signs that read, "Occupy a Desk." Workers were interviewed about how they were inconvenienced in trying to get into their office buildings. At Macy's a few days later, I heard someone tell a friend that her neighbors can't even walk their children to school because of the demonstrations.
I have been very sensitive to the original message of those who formed the movement. It is a reminder that extreme wealth in this country is concentrated in the hands of a very few, and that wealth gives a tiny minority access the rest of us don't get - regardless of what we are allegedly supposed to receive according to the idealism of our political documents. It makes me think of the message I tried to inculcate into my children - not to believe what I sometimes think is the Great American Lie - "liberty and justice for all." We do not have liberty and justice for all, but we have to find a way to fulfill the ideals on which we set up a republic. The "occupiers" are trying to remind us that there is still much work to be done.
But they have diminished their message by their refusal to focus on one or two key issues and persistently drive those points home. An acquaintance of mine attended some working sessions in the early days of the movement. He was impressed with the occupiers' dedication and their orderliness. What I'm hearing now is the adult version of elementary school "group work," which eschews leadership and tries to forge a watery consensus. The group needs definitive leaders to hone and drive home a message, or it will be drowned out by a nation with an incredibly short attention span.
One object lesson about the 1% versus the 99% comes from a story carried earlier this week by Yahoo! Finance and the Christian Science Monitor (see David vs. Goliath fight ) about a cease and desist letter that Chick-fil-A has sent to a Vermont kale grower who screen printed shirts reading "Eat More Kale."
Chick-fil-A's attorneys claim that grower Bo Muller-Moore has infringed on the chicken chain's intellectual property by using a phrase close to its "Eat Mor Chikin." Well, first off, Mr. Muller-Moore knows how to spell, and second, I'm hard pressed to see how people are going to confuse chicken with kale. Finally, I doubt that Mr. Muller-Moore is going to franchise his kale business nationwide.
Just for the heck of it, I checked on the Chick-fil-A web site to see how many locations they have in Vermont. ZERO! So, I wonder how the company can justify that a kale grower is going to dilute its brand. Actually, I wonder why the dairy industry hasn't gone after Chick-fil-A for using Holstein cattle in its advertising, thus diminishing the perception that cows give us milk.
Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, strongly espoused his Christian principles - to the level that he makes a big point of not being open on Sunday. One would like to think that the corollary to those views is not to oppress those who are [financially] weaker and less able to defend themselves. There is a whole lot more in Scripture about the powerful abusing the weak than there is about observing the Sabbath.
I fired off a letter to Chick-fil-A letting them know that if they persisted in demanding that Mr. Muller-Moore suspend his kale promotional campaign that they would lose a customer. I haven't heard back, other than to get the perfunctory auto-response.
That's okay. I can occupy a seat at Wendy's or Panera Bread instead.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
The Marketplace of Ideas
I made it to the National Book Festival last week. A little iffy, since my husband was one of those RIF-ed by the state budget issues affecting state employees in our state, but we decided that this was important enough for me to attend.
Like last year's event, which was my first, I found this year's Festival (the first time it went for two days - well, technically, one and one-half) intellectually stimulating. It is the rare opportunity to step out of the daily humdrum and move into that rarefied atmosphere where authors talk to interested audiences.
I have had my share of talking in front of interested audiences this last year and a half - having had the wonderful opportunity to talk to audiences interested in our nation's First Ladies, and particularly those who are interested in hearing about the nation's youngest First Lady, Frances Folsom Cleveland.
The fact that book reading is still something of a dying art is encapsulated in a remark I overheard Washington Post reporter and author, Joel Achenbach, say to some friends of his who were seated in the row in front of me: "This is not a bad turnout. And these people buy books."
Perhaps David McCullough, who came as close to being classified as a "keynote speaker" as any of those who spoke this year, summarized it best, when he strongly asserted his views that the ability to discuss and research and read others' works was part of what is essential to keeping a democracy thriving and healthy.
Indeed it is essential to keeping us healthy - a point that McCullough also made sure to make as the last speaker in the "History and Biography" pavilion on the Mall at the festival's close on Sunday afternoon. He observed that on the day after the 9/11 attacks, he entered the offices of James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and asserted that the book festival needed to be kept alive, if for no other reason than to assert that we are a nation that does not tell others how to think.
This comment drew rousing applause by the audience, but in reviewing the speakers in what I will call the "non-fiction" pavilions (History & Biography, and Contemporary Life - where I spent all of my time at the Festival), I noticed that there is a subtle undercurrent that suggests a train of thought that we should be following. There is an overemphasis on looking at the issues that face Black America, an obsession with the Civil War, and an almost morbid fascination with those who have faced serious battles with disease.
While none of these topics are, in and of themselves, inappropriate for inclusion in a book festival, it becomes something of a question mark when there are multiple entries that fit into this category. The " Big C" has captured a lot of attention, and perhaps I should simply write off the fascination with issues of race and the Civil War as part of the homage being paid to the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. However, in my middle-aged naivete, I would still like to believe that there is more beyond the literary horizon than this narrow band of topics covered in this year's festival.
Last year's festival, the first which I attended, energized me beyond description. The range of topics was much more expansive, covering everything from the new biography of Cleopatra to a presentation on the possibilities offered to our society by the wonders of engineering. Former First Lady Laura Bush spoke (her memoir having just been published), a fitting inaugural to my first attendance, since the book festival was initially her idea - taken from something she had started in Texas when she was that state's first lady.
We are a nation of far-reaching ideas - still ever optimistic and hopeful. As I noted on the survey I returned to the Library of Congress, the title of the event is the "NATIONAL" Book Festival, and I hope this Atlantic-to-Pacific scope will be remembered as activities get under way to secure next year's speakers.
Like last year's event, which was my first, I found this year's Festival (the first time it went for two days - well, technically, one and one-half) intellectually stimulating. It is the rare opportunity to step out of the daily humdrum and move into that rarefied atmosphere where authors talk to interested audiences.
I have had my share of talking in front of interested audiences this last year and a half - having had the wonderful opportunity to talk to audiences interested in our nation's First Ladies, and particularly those who are interested in hearing about the nation's youngest First Lady, Frances Folsom Cleveland.
The fact that book reading is still something of a dying art is encapsulated in a remark I overheard Washington Post reporter and author, Joel Achenbach, say to some friends of his who were seated in the row in front of me: "This is not a bad turnout. And these people buy books."
Perhaps David McCullough, who came as close to being classified as a "keynote speaker" as any of those who spoke this year, summarized it best, when he strongly asserted his views that the ability to discuss and research and read others' works was part of what is essential to keeping a democracy thriving and healthy.
Indeed it is essential to keeping us healthy - a point that McCullough also made sure to make as the last speaker in the "History and Biography" pavilion on the Mall at the festival's close on Sunday afternoon. He observed that on the day after the 9/11 attacks, he entered the offices of James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and asserted that the book festival needed to be kept alive, if for no other reason than to assert that we are a nation that does not tell others how to think.
This comment drew rousing applause by the audience, but in reviewing the speakers in what I will call the "non-fiction" pavilions (History & Biography, and Contemporary Life - where I spent all of my time at the Festival), I noticed that there is a subtle undercurrent that suggests a train of thought that we should be following. There is an overemphasis on looking at the issues that face Black America, an obsession with the Civil War, and an almost morbid fascination with those who have faced serious battles with disease.
While none of these topics are, in and of themselves, inappropriate for inclusion in a book festival, it becomes something of a question mark when there are multiple entries that fit into this category. The " Big C" has captured a lot of attention, and perhaps I should simply write off the fascination with issues of race and the Civil War as part of the homage being paid to the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. However, in my middle-aged naivete, I would still like to believe that there is more beyond the literary horizon than this narrow band of topics covered in this year's festival.
Last year's festival, the first which I attended, energized me beyond description. The range of topics was much more expansive, covering everything from the new biography of Cleopatra to a presentation on the possibilities offered to our society by the wonders of engineering. Former First Lady Laura Bush spoke (her memoir having just been published), a fitting inaugural to my first attendance, since the book festival was initially her idea - taken from something she had started in Texas when she was that state's first lady.
We are a nation of far-reaching ideas - still ever optimistic and hopeful. As I noted on the survey I returned to the Library of Congress, the title of the event is the "NATIONAL" Book Festival, and I hope this Atlantic-to-Pacific scope will be remembered as activities get under way to secure next year's speakers.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Brave New Business World
For the first time, in a very, very long time, I attended a women's entrepreneurship conference that had actual businesswomen there - not just a bunch of service providers representing a host of government programs. Naturally, the event was hosted by government agencies - the SBA and the Federal Reserve - and it was attended by a White House appointee for small business issues (I never did get her complete name).
The world has changed drastically since 1993, when I started what has probably been the most successful of my many business ventures - a management and marketing consulting firm. Bill Clinton was in the White House then (worth noting that he was also a Democrat, like the current 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue occupant), and we were moving toward full employment, a budget surplus, and a sense that Ronald Reagan's "morning in America" was still at full sun.
I rode the wave of extended prosperity as long as everyone else did, well into the early months of 2001, even though the few hiccups that started showing up in the summer of 2000 were accurate warnings of things to come. During my consulting heyday, none of my clients showed any interest in finding out how to get contracts with the government. None of them asked me if there might be grants that could help them move their business along. None of them agonized over hiring another one or two employees because of what the cost of additional employer-provided health care might do to their bottom line. And, for the record, none of my clients were big enough to even rate on the Fortune 1000 list, let alone the Fortune 500 list, but they were solid, small and medium sized firms that offered good value and were reliable providers of their respective products and services.
What I heard at the seminar today bothers me tremendously. For several years now, I have heard business owners be encouraged to seek federal contracting opportunities - because the federal government is now the biggest buyer of EVERYTHING (emphasis is today's speaker's).
I listened to qualified business owners, with solid business plans and proven track records, tell about being turned down for loans - even SBA guaranteed loans. I wonder what would have happened if one of my flagship clients from the 1990s were to apply for an SBA loan today - that was how he was able to get his one-man operation financed to expand and bring in two additional professionals and a host of para-professionals. (Uh, I think they call that job creation.)
I heard highly placed government officials suggest that the only way to navigate the maze of federal programs is by finding a "specialist" who can assist with that process. When I asked why that was necessary - why a competent and experienced businessperson could not handle the application process herself - I was told that a "specialist" can help open the doors.
There did not seem to be any facet of business operation that did not have some potential tie back to a federal opportunity.
Back in the 1970s, when I was taking my Economics courses, I recall our professors showing us graphs that depicted what happened when the private sector had to compete with government for goods and services: prices went up; the cost of capital went up; and the private sector became less profitable. This was not anti-Keynesian rhetoric. It was basic economic theory.
I don't think Econ 101 has changed that much. The women in my break-out session got right to the heart of things: cut the red tape; fix the tax code; fix Obamacare; and tell government to get out of the way. Over half of the room applauded at those statements.
I'll borrow from Herman Cain, who said this during the Republican debate the other night: "I know how Washington works. It doesn't."
No, Washington doesn't work, but the rest of us do - or we'd like to, if we could count on government getting out of the way, and freeing the rest of us to get down to business.
The world has changed drastically since 1993, when I started what has probably been the most successful of my many business ventures - a management and marketing consulting firm. Bill Clinton was in the White House then (worth noting that he was also a Democrat, like the current 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue occupant), and we were moving toward full employment, a budget surplus, and a sense that Ronald Reagan's "morning in America" was still at full sun.
I rode the wave of extended prosperity as long as everyone else did, well into the early months of 2001, even though the few hiccups that started showing up in the summer of 2000 were accurate warnings of things to come. During my consulting heyday, none of my clients showed any interest in finding out how to get contracts with the government. None of them asked me if there might be grants that could help them move their business along. None of them agonized over hiring another one or two employees because of what the cost of additional employer-provided health care might do to their bottom line. And, for the record, none of my clients were big enough to even rate on the Fortune 1000 list, let alone the Fortune 500 list, but they were solid, small and medium sized firms that offered good value and were reliable providers of their respective products and services.
What I heard at the seminar today bothers me tremendously. For several years now, I have heard business owners be encouraged to seek federal contracting opportunities - because the federal government is now the biggest buyer of EVERYTHING (emphasis is today's speaker's).
I listened to qualified business owners, with solid business plans and proven track records, tell about being turned down for loans - even SBA guaranteed loans. I wonder what would have happened if one of my flagship clients from the 1990s were to apply for an SBA loan today - that was how he was able to get his one-man operation financed to expand and bring in two additional professionals and a host of para-professionals. (Uh, I think they call that job creation.)
I heard highly placed government officials suggest that the only way to navigate the maze of federal programs is by finding a "specialist" who can assist with that process. When I asked why that was necessary - why a competent and experienced businessperson could not handle the application process herself - I was told that a "specialist" can help open the doors.
There did not seem to be any facet of business operation that did not have some potential tie back to a federal opportunity.
Back in the 1970s, when I was taking my Economics courses, I recall our professors showing us graphs that depicted what happened when the private sector had to compete with government for goods and services: prices went up; the cost of capital went up; and the private sector became less profitable. This was not anti-Keynesian rhetoric. It was basic economic theory.
I don't think Econ 101 has changed that much. The women in my break-out session got right to the heart of things: cut the red tape; fix the tax code; fix Obamacare; and tell government to get out of the way. Over half of the room applauded at those statements.
I'll borrow from Herman Cain, who said this during the Republican debate the other night: "I know how Washington works. It doesn't."
No, Washington doesn't work, but the rest of us do - or we'd like to, if we could count on government getting out of the way, and freeing the rest of us to get down to business.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Notes from the Nation's Heartland
Kansas is not really flat. Granted, it does not have the heart-stopping steepness of the Appalachians. Neither does it have the awe-inspiring vistas of the Rockies or the breath-taking views of the Alaskan mountain range, but Kansas's rolling meadows and softly-capped hills provide variation to the landscape and a vista that stretches out for miles.
There is good reason for Kansas, and its neighbors Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, to be called the nation's "breadbasket." One home-made Kansas sign informs passers-by that one Kansas farmer feeds 127 people, or as the sign puts it, "126 people + you."
Fields of corn and soybean stretch along these miles of unimpeded vista, and they are just as breathtaking as the higher elevations of mountains that challenged the earlier settlers who braved the journey and lived through blistering hot summers and bitterly cold winters to transform the land into productive agriculture.
This year's corn crop will be down a little bit - Kansas, especially, has been hit by early flooding followed by miserable drought. The thermometer passed the 100 degree mark while we were there. Yet, even with the weather challenges that this year's farmers, and every year's farmers, face, we will have a phenomenal crop - thanks to the biotechnology that goes into seed production and today's agricultural practices.
Corn and soybeans are staples of the American diet. Hybrid corn finally became acceptable to farmers in the late 1950s. Soybeans are an even newer addition to American agriculture. We transform our diets as we find newer ways to produce abundant crops more economically.
In urban areas, well-fed people disparage corn-based products and the widespread use of soybean products in processed foods. In an age of plenty, it is easy to forget that 80 years ago, our national "breadbasket" experienced a horrific, long-term drought that could have easily brought our government to its knees. People are more tolerant of joblessness than they are of hunger, and it is noteworthy that our government was not overthrown during the Dust Bowl years.
Farming has always been a risky business. It is still one of the most dangerous occupations around, and the demands on farmers to use more expensive inputs and larger machinery force them to look for ways to increase yields and productivity. Much of this economic pressure comes from the government's cheap food policy - the same policy that prevented the overthrow of the government in the 1930s when food and money were scarce. Recent testimony before the Senate Ag Committee, holding field hearings in Wichita, KS, underscores the importance of a crop insurance program that reduces farmers' exposure to the very weather events that will reduce this year's corn yields.
On the East Coast, where I live, the politics of food has intensified. Discussions center around pushing for more locally-produced foods in school cafeterias, hospitals, and restaurants. Arguments abound regarding the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup over the use of cane sugar as a sweetener. Even the root causes of obesity generate heated discussions, although to me the answer to that one is fairly simple: eat less and move more.
In the meantime, Kansas farmers, and those in the neighboring states, faithfully plow and plant year after year. It is they who keep us sufficiently sated that we can argue the fine points over a meal, but maybe it's time we remember who brought the food in the first place.
There is good reason for Kansas, and its neighbors Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, to be called the nation's "breadbasket." One home-made Kansas sign informs passers-by that one Kansas farmer feeds 127 people, or as the sign puts it, "126 people + you."
Fields of corn and soybean stretch along these miles of unimpeded vista, and they are just as breathtaking as the higher elevations of mountains that challenged the earlier settlers who braved the journey and lived through blistering hot summers and bitterly cold winters to transform the land into productive agriculture.
This year's corn crop will be down a little bit - Kansas, especially, has been hit by early flooding followed by miserable drought. The thermometer passed the 100 degree mark while we were there. Yet, even with the weather challenges that this year's farmers, and every year's farmers, face, we will have a phenomenal crop - thanks to the biotechnology that goes into seed production and today's agricultural practices.
Corn and soybeans are staples of the American diet. Hybrid corn finally became acceptable to farmers in the late 1950s. Soybeans are an even newer addition to American agriculture. We transform our diets as we find newer ways to produce abundant crops more economically.
In urban areas, well-fed people disparage corn-based products and the widespread use of soybean products in processed foods. In an age of plenty, it is easy to forget that 80 years ago, our national "breadbasket" experienced a horrific, long-term drought that could have easily brought our government to its knees. People are more tolerant of joblessness than they are of hunger, and it is noteworthy that our government was not overthrown during the Dust Bowl years.
Farming has always been a risky business. It is still one of the most dangerous occupations around, and the demands on farmers to use more expensive inputs and larger machinery force them to look for ways to increase yields and productivity. Much of this economic pressure comes from the government's cheap food policy - the same policy that prevented the overthrow of the government in the 1930s when food and money were scarce. Recent testimony before the Senate Ag Committee, holding field hearings in Wichita, KS, underscores the importance of a crop insurance program that reduces farmers' exposure to the very weather events that will reduce this year's corn yields.
On the East Coast, where I live, the politics of food has intensified. Discussions center around pushing for more locally-produced foods in school cafeterias, hospitals, and restaurants. Arguments abound regarding the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup over the use of cane sugar as a sweetener. Even the root causes of obesity generate heated discussions, although to me the answer to that one is fairly simple: eat less and move more.
In the meantime, Kansas farmers, and those in the neighboring states, faithfully plow and plant year after year. It is they who keep us sufficiently sated that we can argue the fine points over a meal, but maybe it's time we remember who brought the food in the first place.
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