I wrote the following letter to Jim Mateja, the Chicago Tribune’s car columnist and one of the foremost practitioners of his craft, in response to his correct contention that Ed Whitacre, whom the Obamacrats selected to be Chairman of the Board of the new GM, is no car guy. I thought my readers might like it:
6/28/09
Hi Jim,
You are absolutely right when you state that the new non-executive Chairman of GM, Ed Whitacre, is “another member of the non-car guys club.” (Letters, 6/28/09) Whitacre said himself, as J.S. of Bartlett pointed out, “I don’t know anything about cars.” However, as the former chairman and CEO first of SBC and then of AT&T after the merger of those two telecommunications giants, he knows plenty about sucking up to politicians. Sadly, this will be the most necessary and highly valued skill at GM, Chrysler, and probably scores or hundreds of our once great corporations as the brave new world of Ma Government unfolds.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
“RENDER UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR’S, BUT RENDER UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S”
6/28/09
The Chicago Tribune, in an article in today’s (i.e., Sunday, 6/28’s) paper entitled “Scandals strain GOP’s religious appeal,” reports that Brandt Waggoner, a 25 year old student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, proclaimed:
“If we place our hope in a political party or a politician, we’ll be let down. My hope is in God, not in government.”
Rarely in recorded history have truer or more profound words been uttered. Mr. Waggoner is obviously wise beyond his tender years.
As my readers know, I am not an evangelical Christian, but I do have a great deal of sympathy, and empathy, for many, if not most, of their social and spiritual views. However, I am opposed to their political agenda, which I find far too heavy on government intervention and coercion. This opposition springs from the sentiment expressed in Mr. Waggoner’s comment.
Whenever I see people of faith, be it the Black minister on the South Side of my hometown ushering the latest Machine scoundrel to his pulpit or the evangelical preacher telling us the Democrats are the agents of godless Communism who will lead us straight to hell, I cringe. Not only is there no salvation in politics and politicians, but there are very few answers to earthly problems in politics and politicians. But there is always a meretricious politician who will say that he espouses one’s views on issues that properly have no place in politics in order to amass enough votes to start a career on the public payroll or to garner just enough votes to get him the latest taxpayer financed sinecure he craves.
Even more dangerous, perhaps, than the politician who pays lip service to one’s religious views is the politician, who, either because he is a true believer or because he feels he must honor at least one IOU, is the politician with the power to get some portion of one’s social agenda codified in law. Why? Because voters are fickle, and, come next election, they are just as likely to vote for the other party, the party who espouses social views one finds anathema. That party could be equally successful in codifying its social agenda.
God won’t let us down, but the politicians will. And in those very few instances in which they don’t let us down, we will, in all likelihood, end up wishing they had.
The Chicago Tribune, in an article in today’s (i.e., Sunday, 6/28’s) paper entitled “Scandals strain GOP’s religious appeal,” reports that Brandt Waggoner, a 25 year old student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, proclaimed:
“If we place our hope in a political party or a politician, we’ll be let down. My hope is in God, not in government.”
Rarely in recorded history have truer or more profound words been uttered. Mr. Waggoner is obviously wise beyond his tender years.
As my readers know, I am not an evangelical Christian, but I do have a great deal of sympathy, and empathy, for many, if not most, of their social and spiritual views. However, I am opposed to their political agenda, which I find far too heavy on government intervention and coercion. This opposition springs from the sentiment expressed in Mr. Waggoner’s comment.
Whenever I see people of faith, be it the Black minister on the South Side of my hometown ushering the latest Machine scoundrel to his pulpit or the evangelical preacher telling us the Democrats are the agents of godless Communism who will lead us straight to hell, I cringe. Not only is there no salvation in politics and politicians, but there are very few answers to earthly problems in politics and politicians. But there is always a meretricious politician who will say that he espouses one’s views on issues that properly have no place in politics in order to amass enough votes to start a career on the public payroll or to garner just enough votes to get him the latest taxpayer financed sinecure he craves.
Even more dangerous, perhaps, than the politician who pays lip service to one’s religious views is the politician, who, either because he is a true believer or because he feels he must honor at least one IOU, is the politician with the power to get some portion of one’s social agenda codified in law. Why? Because voters are fickle, and, come next election, they are just as likely to vote for the other party, the party who espouses social views one finds anathema. That party could be equally successful in codifying its social agenda.
God won’t let us down, but the politicians will. And in those very few instances in which they don’t let us down, we will, in all likelihood, end up wishing they had.
Friday, June 26, 2009
“LET’S (NOT) LOOK AT THE RECORD”
6/26/09
The Chicago Sun-Times reports in today’s (i.e., 6/26/09’s) edition that
“The City Council is mapping plans to hire an independent analyst to comb through the $1 billion in private insurance policies being lined up by Chicago 2016 (the Mayor’s blue ribbon Olympic cheerleading squad composed largely of those who will clean up financially should Chicago have to endure the misfortune of hosting the Olympics) to shield taxpayers from any risk beyond the $500mm the Council has pledged.”
The paper goes on to report that
“Aldermen also plan to hire their own experts to verify Chicago 2016’s construction budget and the Olympic committee’s representation of surpluses generated by past Olympics to make certain ‘they’re not cooking the books,’ (Alderman Joe) Moore said.”
Leave aside for a moment the utter hilarity of the Council’s considering its steps to “insure” that “only” $500mm of taxpayer money be spent on the Olympics when the city is broke to be a mark of fiscal vigilance, and consider possible ulterior, as opposed to just idiotic, motives:
If you were the Mayor and a bunch of hangers-on and toadies who stand to get even richer if the Olympics come to our city, how would you get around the resistance of the less starry-eyed of our citizens who demand more than hype and hoopla and insist on such spoilsport, mundane items as hard numbers and signs that someone around here recognizes the very real and large downside of this modern version of the bread and circuses various entrenched leaders have used throughout history to mollify a besotted and increasingly clueless populace? Here’s an idea:
Get a bunch of lapdog alderman (Joe Moore does not fit this description, but Joe Moore is utterly incapable of getting anything through a City Council dominated by yes-men and stooges without the endorsement of the Mayor.) to demand a review of Olympic insurance and costs by “independent” experts. Make sure these “experts” don’t take this “independence” thing too far. Have these learned experts produce a report certifying the fiscal rectitude of this latest and most expensive of the Mayor’s boondoggles. Watch yet another barrier to the Olympics fall in the face of this latest smokescreen, greasing the way for yet another scheme to make certain favored people rich at the expense of the people who really make Chicago work.
It’s brilliant!
The Chicago Sun-Times reports in today’s (i.e., 6/26/09’s) edition that
“The City Council is mapping plans to hire an independent analyst to comb through the $1 billion in private insurance policies being lined up by Chicago 2016 (the Mayor’s blue ribbon Olympic cheerleading squad composed largely of those who will clean up financially should Chicago have to endure the misfortune of hosting the Olympics) to shield taxpayers from any risk beyond the $500mm the Council has pledged.”
The paper goes on to report that
“Aldermen also plan to hire their own experts to verify Chicago 2016’s construction budget and the Olympic committee’s representation of surpluses generated by past Olympics to make certain ‘they’re not cooking the books,’ (Alderman Joe) Moore said.”
Leave aside for a moment the utter hilarity of the Council’s considering its steps to “insure” that “only” $500mm of taxpayer money be spent on the Olympics when the city is broke to be a mark of fiscal vigilance, and consider possible ulterior, as opposed to just idiotic, motives:
If you were the Mayor and a bunch of hangers-on and toadies who stand to get even richer if the Olympics come to our city, how would you get around the resistance of the less starry-eyed of our citizens who demand more than hype and hoopla and insist on such spoilsport, mundane items as hard numbers and signs that someone around here recognizes the very real and large downside of this modern version of the bread and circuses various entrenched leaders have used throughout history to mollify a besotted and increasingly clueless populace? Here’s an idea:
Get a bunch of lapdog alderman (Joe Moore does not fit this description, but Joe Moore is utterly incapable of getting anything through a City Council dominated by yes-men and stooges without the endorsement of the Mayor.) to demand a review of Olympic insurance and costs by “independent” experts. Make sure these “experts” don’t take this “independence” thing too far. Have these learned experts produce a report certifying the fiscal rectitude of this latest and most expensive of the Mayor’s boondoggles. Watch yet another barrier to the Olympics fall in the face of this latest smokescreen, greasing the way for yet another scheme to make certain favored people rich at the expense of the people who really make Chicago work.
It’s brilliant!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
WHO’S THE FARRAHEST OF THEM ALL?
6/25/09
In today’s news, the Supreme Court hands down a rather important privacy ruling. Mohsen Razaie, one of the opposition candidates in Iran decides to concede and the mullahs continued their crackdown on dissent, which appears to be growing more successful in tamping down resistance to the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A scheduled Paris meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and chief U.S. Mideast diplomat George Mitchell is cancelled, apparently over the settlement issue. Congressman Darrell Issa does not back down from his contention that Fed Chairman Bernanke engaged in a coverup regarding the muscling of Ken Lewis to proceed with the ill-advised purchase of Merrill Lynch. And South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, in what a former Palmetto State GOP Chairman so aptly described as “the damndest thing I’d ever seen” provides more evidence of the childish narcissism and overriding solipsism that is endemic to almost all of our public servants but lately seems especially prevalent in the GOP.
So what is the lead story on today’s (i.e., Thursday, 6/25’s) CBS radio news at noon? The death of Farrah Fawcett.
I have never seen Ms. Fawcett act in anything; I’ve never seen an episode of “Charlie’s Angels” and did not see “The Burning Bed.” My life is doubtless richer for the time I did not squander on such moronic fare. I am perhaps the only male who attended college in the late ‘70s who did not have a picture of Ms. Fawcett on my dorm room wall, probably because I went to the University of Illinois, where most of the women were far better looking than the extremely comely Farrah Fawcett. (And you thought it was the relatively cheap tuition that made everyone want to go to the Big U!) So I know very little of Ms. Fawcett other than what she looked like, and, again, she was quite impressive in that area. All that having been said, she did, from what little I know, appear to be a good person and conducted an epic, brave, graceful, and dignified struggle with her cancer. She deserves our prayers and respect, as do her family and friends.
So this post is by no means an attack on Farrah Fawcett, but rather on a society that is obsessed with fluff and nearly completely oblivious to substance but continually insists on its utter greatness, as if such greatness were achieved through some form of osmosis, or through the waves emanating from a television set. The next time you hear some blowhard, completely ignorant of history, among other things, insist that America’s best days are ahead of it, just remember the kind of mental cotton candy the American people think is worthy of “lead story” status.
In today’s news, the Supreme Court hands down a rather important privacy ruling. Mohsen Razaie, one of the opposition candidates in Iran decides to concede and the mullahs continued their crackdown on dissent, which appears to be growing more successful in tamping down resistance to the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A scheduled Paris meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and chief U.S. Mideast diplomat George Mitchell is cancelled, apparently over the settlement issue. Congressman Darrell Issa does not back down from his contention that Fed Chairman Bernanke engaged in a coverup regarding the muscling of Ken Lewis to proceed with the ill-advised purchase of Merrill Lynch. And South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, in what a former Palmetto State GOP Chairman so aptly described as “the damndest thing I’d ever seen” provides more evidence of the childish narcissism and overriding solipsism that is endemic to almost all of our public servants but lately seems especially prevalent in the GOP.
So what is the lead story on today’s (i.e., Thursday, 6/25’s) CBS radio news at noon? The death of Farrah Fawcett.
I have never seen Ms. Fawcett act in anything; I’ve never seen an episode of “Charlie’s Angels” and did not see “The Burning Bed.” My life is doubtless richer for the time I did not squander on such moronic fare. I am perhaps the only male who attended college in the late ‘70s who did not have a picture of Ms. Fawcett on my dorm room wall, probably because I went to the University of Illinois, where most of the women were far better looking than the extremely comely Farrah Fawcett. (And you thought it was the relatively cheap tuition that made everyone want to go to the Big U!) So I know very little of Ms. Fawcett other than what she looked like, and, again, she was quite impressive in that area. All that having been said, she did, from what little I know, appear to be a good person and conducted an epic, brave, graceful, and dignified struggle with her cancer. She deserves our prayers and respect, as do her family and friends.
So this post is by no means an attack on Farrah Fawcett, but rather on a society that is obsessed with fluff and nearly completely oblivious to substance but continually insists on its utter greatness, as if such greatness were achieved through some form of osmosis, or through the waves emanating from a television set. The next time you hear some blowhard, completely ignorant of history, among other things, insist that America’s best days are ahead of it, just remember the kind of mental cotton candy the American people think is worthy of “lead story” status.
YOU CAN’T GET ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT AT DONATELLA’S RESTAURANT
6/25/09
The “Personal Journal” section of the Wall Street Journal, with its articles on such vital matters as grading spray tan salons, is always good for lots of laughs…and very little else. However, an article in this morning’s Personal Journal, “How to Eat Out Without Spending a Lot” was revelatory on a number of fronts.
The article relates a number of tips from Donatella Arpaia, ironically the co-owner of a number of tony restaurants in New York City, on saving money when one is eating out. Two such suggestions were not, to no one’s surprise, eat at places like Sawa's Old Warsaw or Wonderburger and use coupons prodigiously. Instead, Ms. Arpaia advises refraining from ordering desert or bottled waters. Ordering desert in a restaurant has never occurred to me, unless it’s included in the price of the meal or I am at Culver’s, and ordering bottled water is perhaps the most absurd thing I had ever heard until finishing this article (Keep reading.), especially in a place like New York or Chicago where the tap water is outstanding. Can you imagine sitting down with your grandmother, if she were still alive, and telling her that you pay for water? She would reply that you had completely lost your mind and that, had she known such witless progeny were to be the result, she would have stayed in the old country rather than endure the travails of the boat ride over and the less flowery aspects of the immigrant experience.
Next, Ms. Arpaia advises cutting back on tips from her former customary 25% to “15% to 20%,” depending on the level of service. So Ms. Arpaia is advising Wall Street types, whose bonuses you, the taxpayer, have assured will continue at brobdingnagian levels, to save money by stiffing people who normally work very hard for relatively, or absolutely, little money and who are doubtless going through hard times of their own, difficulties that had much of their origin in the malicious machinations of those who are now saving money by stiffing them.
Even these absurdities could not prepare me for the sage advice contained in the last sentence of this article. Ms. Arpaia says that the adage “Never go to the grocery store hungry” applies to eating out. She says “I never go to a restaurant hungry.” She never goes to a restaurant hungry? Is there some kind of parallel universe out there of which I am not aware? Why does one go to a restaurant if one is not hungry? If one is looking to save money, perhaps one ought to consider staying home rather than going to a restaurant if one is not hungry.
Then another thought occurred to me. Could it be that many readers of the Wall Street Journal find the admonition “Never go to a restaurant hungry” a sage one? If that is the case, perhaps our current worldwide financial difficulties have their origin not in falling home prices or the profligate use of credit, but rather in our nation’s financial system’s being in the hands of those who think it thrifty, indeed wise, to “never go to a restaurant hungry.”
The “Personal Journal” section of the Wall Street Journal, with its articles on such vital matters as grading spray tan salons, is always good for lots of laughs…and very little else. However, an article in this morning’s Personal Journal, “How to Eat Out Without Spending a Lot” was revelatory on a number of fronts.
The article relates a number of tips from Donatella Arpaia, ironically the co-owner of a number of tony restaurants in New York City, on saving money when one is eating out. Two such suggestions were not, to no one’s surprise, eat at places like Sawa's Old Warsaw or Wonderburger and use coupons prodigiously. Instead, Ms. Arpaia advises refraining from ordering desert or bottled waters. Ordering desert in a restaurant has never occurred to me, unless it’s included in the price of the meal or I am at Culver’s, and ordering bottled water is perhaps the most absurd thing I had ever heard until finishing this article (Keep reading.), especially in a place like New York or Chicago where the tap water is outstanding. Can you imagine sitting down with your grandmother, if she were still alive, and telling her that you pay for water? She would reply that you had completely lost your mind and that, had she known such witless progeny were to be the result, she would have stayed in the old country rather than endure the travails of the boat ride over and the less flowery aspects of the immigrant experience.
Next, Ms. Arpaia advises cutting back on tips from her former customary 25% to “15% to 20%,” depending on the level of service. So Ms. Arpaia is advising Wall Street types, whose bonuses you, the taxpayer, have assured will continue at brobdingnagian levels, to save money by stiffing people who normally work very hard for relatively, or absolutely, little money and who are doubtless going through hard times of their own, difficulties that had much of their origin in the malicious machinations of those who are now saving money by stiffing them.
Even these absurdities could not prepare me for the sage advice contained in the last sentence of this article. Ms. Arpaia says that the adage “Never go to the grocery store hungry” applies to eating out. She says “I never go to a restaurant hungry.” She never goes to a restaurant hungry? Is there some kind of parallel universe out there of which I am not aware? Why does one go to a restaurant if one is not hungry? If one is looking to save money, perhaps one ought to consider staying home rather than going to a restaurant if one is not hungry.
Then another thought occurred to me. Could it be that many readers of the Wall Street Journal find the admonition “Never go to a restaurant hungry” a sage one? If that is the case, perhaps our current worldwide financial difficulties have their origin not in falling home prices or the profligate use of credit, but rather in our nation’s financial system’s being in the hands of those who think it thrifty, indeed wise, to “never go to a restaurant hungry.”
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
“LAST NIGHT I WENT TO SLEEP IN DETROIT CITY…”
6/24/09
A representative of something called the Kauffman Foundation appeared this morning on CNBC to expound on plans the Foundation has for reviving Detroit (the city, not the industry). Those plans involved plenty of futuristic endeavors dripping with that esoteric, politically correct fragrance that often emanates from plans derived by people with a big sense of purpose but little of their own skin in the game; the representative talked about biotech, wind turbines, and such, arguing, for example, that the manufacture of wind turbines is not all that different from the manufacture of certain automobile components. There was very little talk of what could be done right now, in a concrete way, to help a city in desperate need of help. What the woman from the Kauffman Foundation had to say resonated with me on a number of levels.
I lived in the Detroit area in 1982-83, a time in which the Big 3 were faced with an unprecedented, at that time, crisis. Just as is the case today, foundations, public officials, and other self-styled omniscient do-gooders were developing grandiose plans to diversify the Detroit economy, and those plans involved things like, mirabile dictu, health care, wind and solar energy, etc., industries that were in the even more distant future than they are today. One got the distinct impression that all this was a sort of charade, and one can understand why. Even though times were hard in the early ‘80s, there was a chance that things would blow over and the auto industry would return to its halcyon days. If that were the case, why would anyone want to diversify away from the car business? Detroit, a city and an area that has long been one of my favorites, full of kind, considerate, fun-loving people who appreciate hard work, a good time, family, faith, and tradition, had and has gotten used to hosting one of the most lucrative industries in the world. The auto industry, when it works, or worked, has a number of features that make it very attractive, the greatest of which is its ability to generate enormous amounts of spondulicks and to spread that wealth to everyone involved, from auto execs to entrepreneurial suppliers to the local financial community to the guy without a college education working on the line. When the industry is, or was, good, it is very, very good. That was why, back when I lived there, Detroit led the country in percentage of owner occupied housing. That, combined with being situated in a breathtakingly beautiful geographic region teeming with venues for water and other outdoor sports, everyone seemed to own a boat in Detroit, and many people had a “place up north.” The auto industry’s ability to make people from all walks of life well off attracted people from all over the world seeking their piece of the American Dream and thus led to one of the most diverse and interesting populations in the country. A trip up and down the radio dial provided audible evidence of the attractiveness of the industry, featuring everything from classical music to jazz to (of course) Motown to country to polka to an enormous concentration of holy-roller preacher types. As a one time boxing fan, I was always amazed at the number of big fights have historically taken place in Detroit in either the old Cobo Hall or Briggs Stadium. Once I realized and saw the enormous power the car industry had to put blue collar people in a position in which they had money to spend on things like title fights, I suddenly understood why, say, Jake LaMotta and Joe Louis spent so much time plying their trade in Detroit. So when things got bad, diversification might have looked like a good idea, and people talked about it, but, in reality, they were just waiting for the automotive good times to roll again. And they always did…until now.
We are seeing the consequences of this inability to act today, but who can blame the people of Detroit for wanting to hold onto a very good thing, especially when the alternatives look, and looked, more appropriate for a Jetsons episode than for the real world the consequences of which its residents are suffering? Pretending at solutions while hoping answers to one’s problems will arise spontaneously is a very human tendency. How many people spend their time beating themselves up over the past or making grandiose plans for a future that will unfold only when certain all but impossible conditions arise? Why do we (and, boy, do I mean that “we” literally!) do this? Because torturing ourselves over stupid, thoughtless, or even despicable things we did a long time ago and making plans that have very little chance of ever having to be put into place is a LOT easier than actually doing something to address our current problems or right rightable wrongs. Even though dwelling on the past or fantasizing about a never to be future are very human proclivities, they are worse than a waste of time; they are counterproductive because they take time and effort away from the hard work and thought necessary to do one’s part in alleviating life’s current obstacles and problems.
It is understandable that Detroit has remain stuck on the auto industry, especially when that industry has been so good to the former fort at the chokepoint on the passage to the upper Great Lakes and the alternatives presented for diversification come from people who are clearly more familiar with navel gazing on other people’s dimes than with actually solving problems and generating wealth. We’d all rather hope that wonderful things with which we have grown comfortable will return, that the good times will roll again. But overcoming this tendency to glance lovingly at the closed door rather than to look for a realistic open door is part of human growth and development and is essential to our survival, not only as going human concerns but also as geographic regions.
A representative of something called the Kauffman Foundation appeared this morning on CNBC to expound on plans the Foundation has for reviving Detroit (the city, not the industry). Those plans involved plenty of futuristic endeavors dripping with that esoteric, politically correct fragrance that often emanates from plans derived by people with a big sense of purpose but little of their own skin in the game; the representative talked about biotech, wind turbines, and such, arguing, for example, that the manufacture of wind turbines is not all that different from the manufacture of certain automobile components. There was very little talk of what could be done right now, in a concrete way, to help a city in desperate need of help. What the woman from the Kauffman Foundation had to say resonated with me on a number of levels.
I lived in the Detroit area in 1982-83, a time in which the Big 3 were faced with an unprecedented, at that time, crisis. Just as is the case today, foundations, public officials, and other self-styled omniscient do-gooders were developing grandiose plans to diversify the Detroit economy, and those plans involved things like, mirabile dictu, health care, wind and solar energy, etc., industries that were in the even more distant future than they are today. One got the distinct impression that all this was a sort of charade, and one can understand why. Even though times were hard in the early ‘80s, there was a chance that things would blow over and the auto industry would return to its halcyon days. If that were the case, why would anyone want to diversify away from the car business? Detroit, a city and an area that has long been one of my favorites, full of kind, considerate, fun-loving people who appreciate hard work, a good time, family, faith, and tradition, had and has gotten used to hosting one of the most lucrative industries in the world. The auto industry, when it works, or worked, has a number of features that make it very attractive, the greatest of which is its ability to generate enormous amounts of spondulicks and to spread that wealth to everyone involved, from auto execs to entrepreneurial suppliers to the local financial community to the guy without a college education working on the line. When the industry is, or was, good, it is very, very good. That was why, back when I lived there, Detroit led the country in percentage of owner occupied housing. That, combined with being situated in a breathtakingly beautiful geographic region teeming with venues for water and other outdoor sports, everyone seemed to own a boat in Detroit, and many people had a “place up north.” The auto industry’s ability to make people from all walks of life well off attracted people from all over the world seeking their piece of the American Dream and thus led to one of the most diverse and interesting populations in the country. A trip up and down the radio dial provided audible evidence of the attractiveness of the industry, featuring everything from classical music to jazz to (of course) Motown to country to polka to an enormous concentration of holy-roller preacher types. As a one time boxing fan, I was always amazed at the number of big fights have historically taken place in Detroit in either the old Cobo Hall or Briggs Stadium. Once I realized and saw the enormous power the car industry had to put blue collar people in a position in which they had money to spend on things like title fights, I suddenly understood why, say, Jake LaMotta and Joe Louis spent so much time plying their trade in Detroit. So when things got bad, diversification might have looked like a good idea, and people talked about it, but, in reality, they were just waiting for the automotive good times to roll again. And they always did…until now.
We are seeing the consequences of this inability to act today, but who can blame the people of Detroit for wanting to hold onto a very good thing, especially when the alternatives look, and looked, more appropriate for a Jetsons episode than for the real world the consequences of which its residents are suffering? Pretending at solutions while hoping answers to one’s problems will arise spontaneously is a very human tendency. How many people spend their time beating themselves up over the past or making grandiose plans for a future that will unfold only when certain all but impossible conditions arise? Why do we (and, boy, do I mean that “we” literally!) do this? Because torturing ourselves over stupid, thoughtless, or even despicable things we did a long time ago and making plans that have very little chance of ever having to be put into place is a LOT easier than actually doing something to address our current problems or right rightable wrongs. Even though dwelling on the past or fantasizing about a never to be future are very human proclivities, they are worse than a waste of time; they are counterproductive because they take time and effort away from the hard work and thought necessary to do one’s part in alleviating life’s current obstacles and problems.
It is understandable that Detroit has remain stuck on the auto industry, especially when that industry has been so good to the former fort at the chokepoint on the passage to the upper Great Lakes and the alternatives presented for diversification come from people who are clearly more familiar with navel gazing on other people’s dimes than with actually solving problems and generating wealth. We’d all rather hope that wonderful things with which we have grown comfortable will return, that the good times will roll again. But overcoming this tendency to glance lovingly at the closed door rather than to look for a realistic open door is part of human growth and development and is essential to our survival, not only as going human concerns but also as geographic regions.
THE KID IS ALRIGHT
6/24/09
A very smart friend and relative (indeed “another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life,”) asked me what I thought of Illinois Comptroller and fellow former 19th Warder Dan Hynes. I thought my reply sufficiently informative and entertaining to merit a post:
6/24/09
A little story, which isn’t especially revelatory…
When I was working on the junk desk at First Chicago, one of the Hynes kids, who was in the First Scholars Program, worked with us on one of his rotations, crunching numbers, getting coffee, running downstairs to get us Swedish fish, etc. So when Dan Hynes ran for comptroller a few years later, I called Anthony Melchiorre (who did the same thing with much more aplomb but had since moved to NY and was, at the time, trading junk bonds at a big Wall Street firm, either DLJ or Paine Webber at that time, on his way to running what is now a multi-billion dollar hedge fund…another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life, but that is another issue) and asked if that was the same Hynes who used to get us coffee who was now on the verge of becoming Comptroller. (Anthony kept in touch with his fellow First Scholars.) He replied that, no, that was not the same Hynes who used to get his coffee, but, rather, his little brother. Hmm…The musings of a frustrated old man can indeed be entertaining.
But seriously, though, folks, what do I think of Dan Hynes? He has done a respectable job, though I don’t know how to properly evaluate the job of Comptroller of the State of Illinois. He lost to Barack Obama in the primary for U.S. Senate despite heavy Machine backing, but no disgrace in that. He is politically ambitious and would like to move up. Though his father’s (former Assessor and 19th Ward Committeeman Tom Hynes) influence has waned considerably with age, the younger Hynes still has the backing of the still formidable 19th Ward organization, even though he no longer lives there, I think.
So Dan Hynes has done a competent job and has kept his shoulder pretty much to the wheel, as far as I can tell, despite his ambition for a bigger job. He, of course, would not be anywhere near where he is now were it not for his last name, but if we’re going to fault people for that in this state, we have to fault a long list of people, including almost all of his potential opponents in whatever race he might enter. So I don’t have anything bad to say about the guy. Everything said in this paragraph about him, by the way, I could say about Lisa Madigan. They seem to be running on a parallel track, but with Lisa a bit (but not as much as one would think from casual observation) ahead on that track.
One item of concern that has nothing to do with him personally: I wonder if his ambitions will be thwarted and/or he will be overshadowed, by the smarter, more impressive, and even more politically ambitious Tom Dart, who currently is Cook County sheriff (following in the footsteps of his mentor Mike Sheahan). How many people can even the 19th Ward sponsor?
For background, and I don’t know whether this serves to enhance or detract from my credibility on this issue, I’ve never met Tom Dart, Dan Hynes, or Lisa Madigan. I knew Tom Hynes to say hello and always found him a pretty good guy despite his foolish, almost oafish, run for mayor in 1987. Such political dropped balls were very uncharacteristic of this very skilled ward committeeman. I knew Mike Sheahan a little better than I knew Hynes; he used to go to Sacred Heart (along with his brother Skinny (Jim)) once in awhile and I’d run into him there at post-Mass coffee on the first weekend of the month. And I probably knew Skinny better than I knew either (though not very well) from running into him around the neighborhood before we defected.
A very smart friend and relative (indeed “another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life,”) asked me what I thought of Illinois Comptroller and fellow former 19th Warder Dan Hynes. I thought my reply sufficiently informative and entertaining to merit a post:
6/24/09
A little story, which isn’t especially revelatory…
When I was working on the junk desk at First Chicago, one of the Hynes kids, who was in the First Scholars Program, worked with us on one of his rotations, crunching numbers, getting coffee, running downstairs to get us Swedish fish, etc. So when Dan Hynes ran for comptroller a few years later, I called Anthony Melchiorre (who did the same thing with much more aplomb but had since moved to NY and was, at the time, trading junk bonds at a big Wall Street firm, either DLJ or Paine Webber at that time, on his way to running what is now a multi-billion dollar hedge fund…another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life, but that is another issue) and asked if that was the same Hynes who used to get us coffee who was now on the verge of becoming Comptroller. (Anthony kept in touch with his fellow First Scholars.) He replied that, no, that was not the same Hynes who used to get his coffee, but, rather, his little brother. Hmm…The musings of a frustrated old man can indeed be entertaining.
But seriously, though, folks, what do I think of Dan Hynes? He has done a respectable job, though I don’t know how to properly evaluate the job of Comptroller of the State of Illinois. He lost to Barack Obama in the primary for U.S. Senate despite heavy Machine backing, but no disgrace in that. He is politically ambitious and would like to move up. Though his father’s (former Assessor and 19th Ward Committeeman Tom Hynes) influence has waned considerably with age, the younger Hynes still has the backing of the still formidable 19th Ward organization, even though he no longer lives there, I think.
So Dan Hynes has done a competent job and has kept his shoulder pretty much to the wheel, as far as I can tell, despite his ambition for a bigger job. He, of course, would not be anywhere near where he is now were it not for his last name, but if we’re going to fault people for that in this state, we have to fault a long list of people, including almost all of his potential opponents in whatever race he might enter. So I don’t have anything bad to say about the guy. Everything said in this paragraph about him, by the way, I could say about Lisa Madigan. They seem to be running on a parallel track, but with Lisa a bit (but not as much as one would think from casual observation) ahead on that track.
One item of concern that has nothing to do with him personally: I wonder if his ambitions will be thwarted and/or he will be overshadowed, by the smarter, more impressive, and even more politically ambitious Tom Dart, who currently is Cook County sheriff (following in the footsteps of his mentor Mike Sheahan). How many people can even the 19th Ward sponsor?
For background, and I don’t know whether this serves to enhance or detract from my credibility on this issue, I’ve never met Tom Dart, Dan Hynes, or Lisa Madigan. I knew Tom Hynes to say hello and always found him a pretty good guy despite his foolish, almost oafish, run for mayor in 1987. Such political dropped balls were very uncharacteristic of this very skilled ward committeeman. I knew Mike Sheahan a little better than I knew Hynes; he used to go to Sacred Heart (along with his brother Skinny (Jim)) once in awhile and I’d run into him there at post-Mass coffee on the first weekend of the month. And I probably knew Skinny better than I knew either (though not very well) from running into him around the neighborhood before we defected.
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