“Most U.S. Births Outside Wedlock Before Age 30”
Lead story NY Times Feb.18th 2012
You want to talk “Social Change” with far reaching implications. First let me go back to Feb. 2010 I wrote a blog called, “Women Majority in Workforce.” In that piece I sighted an article I had written for the Harvard Business Review back in 1977 called “Three Men Two Women On a Raft.” From My experience on an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue river I concluded that men are not going to rollover and let women take their positions of power. With the shift in the workforce the issue of leadership power will also change. As a professional women my wife Kate was an early success in the corporate world. She often suggested, “what women need to be successful in position of leadership is a “critical mass.” Well, Kate your about to get it.
Talk “social change.” How about this? “Before age 30 MOST U.S. BIRTHS OUTSIDE of WEDLOCK.” NY Times Feb. 18th. We are not talking Black women on welfare. It’s a majority of white unmarried women. It reminds me of the the claims early in the Feminist Movement that “we don’t really need men. As far as procreation is concerned there’s always the “sperm bank.” Admitted that was extreme. Yet what is going on now could go there.
The male reaction to being supported by their professional wife is causing him to become far more cosmetically conscious. First Page NY Times Feb. 20th 2012. “Men Step out of Recession, Bag on Hip, Bracelet on Wrist.” Heah, the bag on hip stuff is just a “Pocketbook.” There is now a whole new line of men's beauty products including perfume. This week I received a new catalog of men's accessories. “This business has grown by 14 percent in last half of 2011.” NY Times front page Feb.20th.How about the new trend of fancy beards for the Peacocks?
Oh, you don’t know what’s going on here? Three major forces converging. 1.The loss of manufacturing jobs that gave the male the title “Breadwinner.” That was me from the 30s through the 60s. It was part of the post war boom that created the hugely successful middle class. The male worked on the shop floor brought home the bacon. Mama, the kids, the dog and the cat were all living “Happily Ever After.” Those Midwestern Manufacturing Towns are now rusting away into oblivion land.
2. As factories disappeared from Pittsburgh service industries took their place. The finance services, retail sales, education, medical services constitute a majority of the workforce. These are workplaces that women dominate. 3. I85 women now graduate from college to every 100 men. It’s the college education that is now the best predictor of success in the job market. Men are looking for ways to adjust to their new reality. Some are switching roles and staying home trying to play housewife. Others are spending their days in the bar with buddies commiserating, getting drunk or depressed sometimes both.
What society needs to do is help men get into non-traditional male jobs like nursing, hairdresser, medical technician, maybe even midwife. Wow and I remember when I was coaching women in non traditional jobs like electrician, coal miners, carpenters. All this in my very own lifetime. No wonder I sometimes ache all over.
PS. We went to see, "Venus In Furs" a very popular Broadway smash hit. It’s a two person piece and the women Nina Arianda is great at hamming it up. Okay, so what’s this playlit about? It’s mostly about a man who can’t seem to make up his mind what he wants from a women. The women character to a lessor extent suffers the same quandary. How does this back and forth about how they should behave toward the other end? He, poor soul is tied to a post pleading for Aphrodite. She of course is the Goddess of seduction. Not a bad reflection of the present dilemma of us men.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Winston Churchill's Bed
So many things to comment on but a bout with the Flu left me with an old tale to tell.
Some time in the early seventies while at the Ford Foundation the issue of youth Employment was always high on the agenda. Short time after the end of WW2 Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire England was made into a British American Conference Center to promote close collaboration understanding between the English speaking countries. For 300 years Ditchley was home to a very wealthy “Gentry” family.
So, one lovely spring day we turned into a driveway that I was sure was a mistake that I had been taken to one of the many castles owned by the Monarchy. The driver assured me otherwise. (My Socialist father described the landed gentry as the “bloodsuckers, profiteers who first exploited the English Peasantry and then went around the world doing the same thing in the Colonies.”)
I questioned the driver on the need for the two story high front doors? He said they could accommodate a mounted Knight in full regalia spear in hand. In the corner was a smaller door and a man in a sort of tuxedo outfit---the Butler--- took my suitcase. I gazed about this huge room in absolute amazement at its size with a fireplace large enough for me to stand in. In a booming voice the Butler announced to whom I know not. “Robert Schrank from the United States.” Not wanting to show my ignorance of the ways of royalty I decided I would just go along with whatever was going to happen. Keep in mind I grew up during the Great Depression when my family’s primary concern was food shelter and clothing. You can see why this Butler experience was pretty bizarre stuff.
When my boss Mike arrived also experiencing the same reaction to the Butler’s
welcome.Says, "So Schrank you thought you had to wait for the Revolution to be welcomed to the home of British Royalty. What would your old Bronx radicals say about this?” Like me Mike had grown up in with working class parents and we both spent much of our youth in the Labor Movement. Hearing the Butler declaiming each arrival gave us both the giggle fever that was tough to control.
I was assigned the very same bedroom that Winston Churchill used during the war on, “full moon weekend nights.” (On those nights the Germans did not bomb as they would be to easily spotted.) Churchill came to Ditchley with his whole Cabinet for a little R&R. Churchill’s bedroom was about 25 by 30. But what was almost as large was the bathroom. I was sure that the ceramic tub had been excavated from an Egyptian burial ground as a Royal Sarcophagus.
We were called to dinner in an elegant 18th Century dinning hall festooned with battle flags and clan identities. By each of the 25 settings was a long lineup of silverware. Fortunately I had been to a formal dinner. The young women sitting next to me noticing my uncertainties, whispered, “just start with the closest utensil on the left and with each course go to the next.” After desert the Director gave us the schedule of the meetings for the next several days.
I returned to Churchill's Bedroom. Upon sitting on the bed I found a huge sink hole smack in the middle. The mattress was sitting on one of those old springs that went from head to foot. I thought, hell if Churchill could sleep in it so could I. Well I couldn’t. Woke a couple of hours later with a screaming back ache. I now did what I had done many times in flea-bag Motels. As a doctor friend advised, “just pull the mattress down on the floor. You’ll do your back a big favor.”
Somewhere in a deep many zone sleep I thought I heard two knocks on the door and voice declaiming, tea knockup sir.” The door swings open and there in full Butler regalia, his right arm holding a tray was this bewildered fellow. He looks at the beds exposed spring and then glance down on the floor, where I’m peeking out from under the covers. The poor fellow almost drops his tray. I try to reassure him, “Oh its nothing I always sleep on the floor.” He blurts out in most agitated alarm. “My God the Yank has pulled Mr. Churchill’s mattress on the floor.” With that he abruptly leaves. Lost my first experience with “Tea Knockup.’
In the following days I was never again offered “Tea Knockup. I was told that everyone especially the kitchen help wanted to get a look at the Yank who sleeps on the floor. Oh the conference went fine. We reviewed all the reasons that youth are having difficulty finding jobs, “Unprepared, lack of jobs, in the wrong place shifting needs for high tech work. We also knew all the things that needed to be done to fix it. Heah, just like now.
PS> I was invited back to Ditchley several times never assigned to Churchill’s room.
.
Some time in the early seventies while at the Ford Foundation the issue of youth Employment was always high on the agenda. Short time after the end of WW2 Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire England was made into a British American Conference Center to promote close collaboration understanding between the English speaking countries. For 300 years Ditchley was home to a very wealthy “Gentry” family.
So, one lovely spring day we turned into a driveway that I was sure was a mistake that I had been taken to one of the many castles owned by the Monarchy. The driver assured me otherwise. (My Socialist father described the landed gentry as the “bloodsuckers, profiteers who first exploited the English Peasantry and then went around the world doing the same thing in the Colonies.”)
I questioned the driver on the need for the two story high front doors? He said they could accommodate a mounted Knight in full regalia spear in hand. In the corner was a smaller door and a man in a sort of tuxedo outfit---the Butler--- took my suitcase. I gazed about this huge room in absolute amazement at its size with a fireplace large enough for me to stand in. In a booming voice the Butler announced to whom I know not. “Robert Schrank from the United States.” Not wanting to show my ignorance of the ways of royalty I decided I would just go along with whatever was going to happen. Keep in mind I grew up during the Great Depression when my family’s primary concern was food shelter and clothing. You can see why this Butler experience was pretty bizarre stuff.
When my boss Mike arrived also experiencing the same reaction to the Butler’s
welcome.Says, "So Schrank you thought you had to wait for the Revolution to be welcomed to the home of British Royalty. What would your old Bronx radicals say about this?” Like me Mike had grown up in with working class parents and we both spent much of our youth in the Labor Movement. Hearing the Butler declaiming each arrival gave us both the giggle fever that was tough to control.
I was assigned the very same bedroom that Winston Churchill used during the war on, “full moon weekend nights.” (On those nights the Germans did not bomb as they would be to easily spotted.) Churchill came to Ditchley with his whole Cabinet for a little R&R. Churchill’s bedroom was about 25 by 30. But what was almost as large was the bathroom. I was sure that the ceramic tub had been excavated from an Egyptian burial ground as a Royal Sarcophagus.
We were called to dinner in an elegant 18th Century dinning hall festooned with battle flags and clan identities. By each of the 25 settings was a long lineup of silverware. Fortunately I had been to a formal dinner. The young women sitting next to me noticing my uncertainties, whispered, “just start with the closest utensil on the left and with each course go to the next.” After desert the Director gave us the schedule of the meetings for the next several days.
I returned to Churchill's Bedroom. Upon sitting on the bed I found a huge sink hole smack in the middle. The mattress was sitting on one of those old springs that went from head to foot. I thought, hell if Churchill could sleep in it so could I. Well I couldn’t. Woke a couple of hours later with a screaming back ache. I now did what I had done many times in flea-bag Motels. As a doctor friend advised, “just pull the mattress down on the floor. You’ll do your back a big favor.”
Somewhere in a deep many zone sleep I thought I heard two knocks on the door and voice declaiming, tea knockup sir.” The door swings open and there in full Butler regalia, his right arm holding a tray was this bewildered fellow. He looks at the beds exposed spring and then glance down on the floor, where I’m peeking out from under the covers. The poor fellow almost drops his tray. I try to reassure him, “Oh its nothing I always sleep on the floor.” He blurts out in most agitated alarm. “My God the Yank has pulled Mr. Churchill’s mattress on the floor.” With that he abruptly leaves. Lost my first experience with “Tea Knockup.’
In the following days I was never again offered “Tea Knockup. I was told that everyone especially the kitchen help wanted to get a look at the Yank who sleeps on the floor. Oh the conference went fine. We reviewed all the reasons that youth are having difficulty finding jobs, “Unprepared, lack of jobs, in the wrong place shifting needs for high tech work. We also knew all the things that needed to be done to fix it. Heah, just like now.
PS> I was invited back to Ditchley several times never assigned to Churchill’s room.
.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Facebook Linkidin Twitter etc. Versus J.Edgar Hoover
I can’t resist this. Can you believe we have reached a point in our Country where the biggest stock offering is going to be Facebook? What exactly does Facebook produce? Oh, you got my point. Facebook doesn’t make a damm thing you can put your hand on. It's going to make a ton of money because you are probably a member and they can custom target advertising that you wont be able to resist. Amazon does that already with me and it’s ”One Click” seducer.
Getting back to J. Edgar. Far fetched, you think? Yes I did too until I began to compare what Hoover’s, 700 page FBI File on me says and what Facebook or Google could say about me. When Hoover was collecting information on me he primarily had four different sources. Tapped phones. Physical surveillance, Informers, Intercepted mail. Physical surveillance meant sending Agents to record what I said at a meeting or actually approaching me for an interview. The latter consisted of this clumsy, “Hi, Bob can we talk to you? It’ll only take a few minutes of your time. So, has your family? Daughter doing well over there at Music and Art.” All that sweet talk was suppose to soften you up by showing how friendly they are and yes we already know a lot about you so why not tell us about some other people we happen to be interested in?
840 million members on Facebook Linkedin 135 Million Members. I get repeated invitations to be somebody's “Friend.” Often, no most of the times it’s not a person I’m even familiar with. Usually I click yes. Why? Underneath I am really sorry for people who have to create lots of friends through social networking. You know Facebook wont accept more than 5,000 friends? Isn’t that too bad? Now think about all the stuff they know about you. Oh, maybe it’s my McCarthy years paranoia that worries me about how much information the Digital Network is collecting about us?
Then I began thinking about all the various present day institution who have been collecting data on me for years. First there’s my credit cards. Then there’s Facebook, Linkdin. Google they all have loads of information about my, purchases, (books movies, DVD’s) looked at all together one could easily figure out my politics, my relations to other like minded people my movements, who I visited with, who I might have shared a trip with. What I published and who visited my blog.
Hoover had to get a court order to tap my phone. I can buy a unit in Radio Shack so I can listen to other peoples cell phone. So can the Social Networks. Yes, they target my advertising based on my digital purchasing. Google has stuff about me that comes from 3rd hand sources. Quotes of what I was supposed to have said in somebody's book. Yes you want a State that can easily trace your every move? We got it.
Oh, you think it doesn’t matter because it was the Internet that launched the Arab Spring? On balance would you call this information gathering an asset or a liability? Yes I know there are lots of folks who believe it was the Internet that was the mobilizer of those hundreds of thousands that took over Tahrir square in Egypt and similar places across the Middle East. I agree that the Internet can be a great, instant protest organizer.
Yes, I wonder? Is that what takes the sting out of the Protest? Precisely because it vented the anger? BUT the protest had no real plan for what kind of change it wanted. That’s what is happening in the Middle East today. There has been no clear program for the protesters to fight for. Ahhh yes, except for the Muslim Brotherhood. Their very existence is evidence for what I am talking about. So there’s the rub. Yes the Internet is a remarkable organizing tool. It may be acting as a pressure relief valve letting off steam from angry citizens. It also may become a critical source of socio political information that can be used egregiously by government forces controlling an angry citizenry. Not an easy choice.
Getting back to J. Edgar. Far fetched, you think? Yes I did too until I began to compare what Hoover’s, 700 page FBI File on me says and what Facebook or Google could say about me. When Hoover was collecting information on me he primarily had four different sources. Tapped phones. Physical surveillance, Informers, Intercepted mail. Physical surveillance meant sending Agents to record what I said at a meeting or actually approaching me for an interview. The latter consisted of this clumsy, “Hi, Bob can we talk to you? It’ll only take a few minutes of your time. So, has your family? Daughter doing well over there at Music and Art.” All that sweet talk was suppose to soften you up by showing how friendly they are and yes we already know a lot about you so why not tell us about some other people we happen to be interested in?
840 million members on Facebook Linkedin 135 Million Members. I get repeated invitations to be somebody's “Friend.” Often, no most of the times it’s not a person I’m even familiar with. Usually I click yes. Why? Underneath I am really sorry for people who have to create lots of friends through social networking. You know Facebook wont accept more than 5,000 friends? Isn’t that too bad? Now think about all the stuff they know about you. Oh, maybe it’s my McCarthy years paranoia that worries me about how much information the Digital Network is collecting about us?
Then I began thinking about all the various present day institution who have been collecting data on me for years. First there’s my credit cards. Then there’s Facebook, Linkdin. Google they all have loads of information about my, purchases, (books movies, DVD’s) looked at all together one could easily figure out my politics, my relations to other like minded people my movements, who I visited with, who I might have shared a trip with. What I published and who visited my blog.
Hoover had to get a court order to tap my phone. I can buy a unit in Radio Shack so I can listen to other peoples cell phone. So can the Social Networks. Yes, they target my advertising based on my digital purchasing. Google has stuff about me that comes from 3rd hand sources. Quotes of what I was supposed to have said in somebody's book. Yes you want a State that can easily trace your every move? We got it.
Oh, you think it doesn’t matter because it was the Internet that launched the Arab Spring? On balance would you call this information gathering an asset or a liability? Yes I know there are lots of folks who believe it was the Internet that was the mobilizer of those hundreds of thousands that took over Tahrir square in Egypt and similar places across the Middle East. I agree that the Internet can be a great, instant protest organizer.
Yes, I wonder? Is that what takes the sting out of the Protest? Precisely because it vented the anger? BUT the protest had no real plan for what kind of change it wanted. That’s what is happening in the Middle East today. There has been no clear program for the protesters to fight for. Ahhh yes, except for the Muslim Brotherhood. Their very existence is evidence for what I am talking about. So there’s the rub. Yes the Internet is a remarkable organizing tool. It may be acting as a pressure relief valve letting off steam from angry citizens. It also may become a critical source of socio political information that can be used egregiously by government forces controlling an angry citizenry. Not an easy choice.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Internet The Voice of Protest !
Lead story,NY Times Feb. 3rd, has once again got me thinking about the role of the Internet as a voice of protest. One of my favorite organizations is Planned Parenthood. Remember when I was seven my mother dies from a botched abortion. In my blog Feb. 10, 2011 "On Abortion" was about that nightmare. The extreme right wing has been forever trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business. The Susan Komen Breast Cancer Cure Foundation decides suddenly to withhold its annual contribution of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood. Komen decided they could not contribute to P.P. because an entirely separate budget does abortions. Clearly the hand of the right wingnuts who oppose even "family planning" is at work here.
For the second time in a couple of weeks the rolling anger expressed through the Internet has forced a major issue on to the front pages. Even Mayor Bloomberg jumped into this bruha with a $250,000 donation. In California all seven of the Komen affiliates took exception to the decision. fact is that PP is the major Breast Cancer screening organization in the country. That simply means poor women have a place to go to get a checkup.
A short time ago there was an another eruption on the Internet over a Congressional Bill to start censoring the Internet over “copyrighted or intellectual ownership” of Internet published stuff. That outcry caused a bunch of GOP Congressmen to have their names removed from the Legislation. Then of course there is the whole Arab Spring phenomena. Many observers have said it was generated by the Internet and especially the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. I must admit that my early response was mostly doubt. Now I am working hard to try and understand this phenomena. Anyone interested in social change cannot afford to ignore this new informer agitator, organizer.
David Brooks, In the same issue of the Times, writes a column about how many young people have found a way to express themselves through the Internet. He voices a concern that these people are very good at expressing frustration with existing institutions. Brooks says, “This seems to be a moment of fervent protest movements that are ultimately vague and ineffectual.” He says the problem is they have no ideas as to how to replace these broken institutions. Brooks suggests that these people were taught to think for themselves. The result is they have no ideas to ground them in how to see alternatives to what is.
Brooks, unkowingly referred to people like me who were taught to think like Marxists. Yupp, that's right and that what helps me see how we might change institutions so that they are more responsive to the needs of the 99 percent.
“RUMMAGE THE PAST FOR A BODY OF THOUGHT THAT HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND AND ADDRESS THE SHORT COMINGS YOU SEE." Thank you David Brooks. That is precisely the kind of education I got as a child from my Socialist family. No I don’t want to exchange capitalism for what existed in the Soviet Union. That was not Socialism. That was an abomination called “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Just a new version of the old Czar Ivan the Terrible. No, I think of socialism as lived by the early Kibbutz settlers in Israel. Yes of course we could argue all these issues but it gives me a jumping off point for correcting some of the present days worst offenses against equal opportunity for all as suggested in the Constitution.
The Internet needs a large dose of discussion about alternatives to what is. The Arab spring is a good example of what happens when there is not any clear ideas about what to transform in the existing order of things to berth a new order. That is except the Muslim Brotherhood. They have a pretty good idea of what they want. The Tahrir Square demonstrators demanded Democracy. That’s nice. It doesn’t say how the society institutions are to function. That's what our Founding Fathers spent a couple of years figuring out. Even that has needed adjustments as an agrarian society became an industrial one. Yes I am becoming more understanding of the Internet as a voice of protest. Good but not enough. How do we make it a place where ideas for new more equitable ways of organizing society is presented as alternatives to the status quo?
For the second time in a couple of weeks the rolling anger expressed through the Internet has forced a major issue on to the front pages. Even Mayor Bloomberg jumped into this bruha with a $250,000 donation. In California all seven of the Komen affiliates took exception to the decision. fact is that PP is the major Breast Cancer screening organization in the country. That simply means poor women have a place to go to get a checkup.
A short time ago there was an another eruption on the Internet over a Congressional Bill to start censoring the Internet over “copyrighted or intellectual ownership” of Internet published stuff. That outcry caused a bunch of GOP Congressmen to have their names removed from the Legislation. Then of course there is the whole Arab Spring phenomena. Many observers have said it was generated by the Internet and especially the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. I must admit that my early response was mostly doubt. Now I am working hard to try and understand this phenomena. Anyone interested in social change cannot afford to ignore this new informer agitator, organizer.
David Brooks, In the same issue of the Times, writes a column about how many young people have found a way to express themselves through the Internet. He voices a concern that these people are very good at expressing frustration with existing institutions. Brooks says, “This seems to be a moment of fervent protest movements that are ultimately vague and ineffectual.” He says the problem is they have no ideas as to how to replace these broken institutions. Brooks suggests that these people were taught to think for themselves. The result is they have no ideas to ground them in how to see alternatives to what is.
Brooks, unkowingly referred to people like me who were taught to think like Marxists. Yupp, that's right and that what helps me see how we might change institutions so that they are more responsive to the needs of the 99 percent.
“RUMMAGE THE PAST FOR A BODY OF THOUGHT THAT HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND AND ADDRESS THE SHORT COMINGS YOU SEE." Thank you David Brooks. That is precisely the kind of education I got as a child from my Socialist family. No I don’t want to exchange capitalism for what existed in the Soviet Union. That was not Socialism. That was an abomination called “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Just a new version of the old Czar Ivan the Terrible. No, I think of socialism as lived by the early Kibbutz settlers in Israel. Yes of course we could argue all these issues but it gives me a jumping off point for correcting some of the present days worst offenses against equal opportunity for all as suggested in the Constitution.
The Internet needs a large dose of discussion about alternatives to what is. The Arab spring is a good example of what happens when there is not any clear ideas about what to transform in the existing order of things to berth a new order. That is except the Muslim Brotherhood. They have a pretty good idea of what they want. The Tahrir Square demonstrators demanded Democracy. That’s nice. It doesn’t say how the society institutions are to function. That's what our Founding Fathers spent a couple of years figuring out. Even that has needed adjustments as an agrarian society became an industrial one. Yes I am becoming more understanding of the Internet as a voice of protest. Good but not enough. How do we make it a place where ideas for new more equitable ways of organizing society is presented as alternatives to the status quo?
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