Wasting Votes on Democrats and Republicans

I voted early last week and I had to wait in line for 20 minutes on a regular weekday afternoon. The polling clerks—all volunteers, God blessem—said it’s been that way from the start. Thousands of voters, energized, wanting to share in our Republican form of government. (Yes, it’s Republican, not a Democratic format.)

Based on the age and somewhat grim comments of people in line, I don’t think there were a lot of people voting Democratic, but I could be wrong. It was pretty interesting to see how determined people were to vote—even though none of us got to dip our fingers in dye when we were finished.

The worst part of the experience was the voting itself. Let’s see, do I want to vote for the greedy pederast who guillotines puppies for sport or the slimy thief who has stolen $billions to support his heroin habit? Should I vote for the candidate who plans to launch a nuclear war against Massachusetts—after alerting Scott Brown to flee—or the one who wants us to apply for statehood in Yemen?

I truly cannot tell you what anyone stands for in these races. Frankly, I’m not sure I know what they stand for, or against, because it’s all personal attacks and sound bites.

You always sound really, really old and codgery when you start a sentence with “I remember a time…” but I remember a time….when candidates talked about themselves and their views in their campaign ads—hey, a shout-out to Dan Rutherford, who was actually foolish enough to talk about HIS ideas in one ad, proving himself unfit to be a modern politician.

Today, I can always tell who ISN’T approving the message; it’s whoever has his name mentioned the most.

Here’s the real tragedy of Tuesday, November 2, 2010. In every district, in every race, somebody will be elected. And that somebody is going to think the victory is an endorsement of all the views the candidate didn’t really spell out or, in some cases, think about, during the campaign. In almost all cases, they will be wrong.

Here’s the reality, Mr. and Mrs. Winner-to-Be. Nobody is voting for you. Almost everyone is voting against your opponent, just like you’ve asked them to do. You didn’t win the election. You came in third in the Most-Hated Contest, right behind your opponent and his best friend, Hitler.

In a way, of course, you won. You made the other person more disliked and mistrusted than you are. Only in politics does this count as a plus on your resume.

We have real problems in this country, including an aging infrastructure, outdated regulatory systems and a set of promises—mostly to the elderly, not to minorities—that we cannot keep without huge increases in taxes. These problems were small, once, but leaders of both parties, over the course of several decades, ignored the issues, knowing they could count on voters to be undemanding in the extreme. After Tuesday, the representatives of both parties will continue to do the same, because each will confuse his or her election as some kind of endorsement by THE PEOPLE.

The only way to make a statement this election is to vote for third-party candidates. Voting for Tea Partiers won’t do it, because they are all running under the Republican Party banner, instead of creating their own real party.

Vote for the Tea Partiers and it just looks like Republicans versus Democrats. Vote for Libertarians and Greens, though, and you make a clear statement that you’re sick of both of the major parties and their mishandling of their responsibility.

Yes, it’s entirely possible that a few third-party people would win or, at least, force some runoffs here and there. If so, great news. If a few Tea Partiers win seats in the House, it’s not a wake-up call. If a couple of Green Party congressmen take their oaths in a few months, even the most committed party loyalists will have to think about their job performance.

No. It’s not a wasted vote. It’s a principled statement that’s the best you can do until the ballot includes a box for none of the above.

And let’s face it. You don’t like most of the people on the ballot. Damaged goods, each and every one. Even without all the smear tactics and robocalls and hyperbolic manipulation of sound bites, you wouldn’t let most of these people babysit your children. So if you vote third party, you won’t be damaging the country. In fact, you’ll be making a very powerful statement to your own political party and to the entire political establishment.

So I went to vote last week and I voted for more third-party candidates than I’d ever thought about in my life. Next time, I hope that won’t be the Hobson’s Choice that greets me at the polls.

Thank you all. And God Bless America.

When the Moon is in the Seventh Month….

I’m liking the lunar calendar this week.

Rosh Hashanah starts on Wednesday night, which combines with Labor Day to make this a two-day workweek for me. Oddly, that’s not the reason I’m a big fan of the lunar calendar this year.

The calendar that sets the course of Jewish life varies not with the sun but the inconstant moon. Jewish timetables include just one solar calendar date (December 4/5 is when we start praying for rain.) and, for the life of me, I can’t recall why or how a Gregorian/Julian date slipped in there. Otherwise, it must be moonglow.

The Jewish calendar—Chinese, Muslims and others use a lunar calendar, but in different ways—is a model of messiness. The sun rules the seasons, so the ancients had to figure out ways to keep fall holidays like Sukkoth from sliding into spring, and vice versa for Passover. And so, while the solar calendar has a one-day adjustment every four years, the Jewish calendar adds a leap MONTH seven times in every nineteen years. By comparison, the Muslim calendar has no leap month, so Ramadan can be in any season as the years progress.

And did I mention that the Jewish New Year begins, not on the first day of the year, but on the first day of the seventh month? Oy.

It’s the variation of the calendar that has me pumped. Rosh Hashanah is very early this year, about as early as it ever comes when measured by the solar clock that guides most of our lives. Over the coming years, the holiday will slide back and forth, sometimes beginning in early October and other times during the week before Labor Day.

Of course, the more pious Jews will tell me Rosh Hashanah isn’t early at all. I’m just reading the wrong calendar. But, hey, let them get their own blog. This is mine.

And on my blog, the timing of Jewish Holidays is an occasional reminder that our lives are ruled by more than one calendar, more than one clock. There’s just one clock we look at each day, the increasingly analog and bloodless LED screens that flash their precision as a mocking display of exactitude.

It’s 3:47, not a quarter to four, so don’t betray your human fallibility by rounding off the numbers. Learn to speak my binary language. 3..4…7. Now 3…4…8. Now 3…4…9. Puny mortal.

We don’t exactly worship the clock, but we do pay so much attention to the standard clock and the standard (solar) calendar that we can forget the arbitrary nature of our temporal taskmaster. Chronological noon is almost never the same as solar noon, the new year occurs neither on a solstice nor an equinox and the importance of our agendas is only as large as we make it.

The fault lies not in the sun, but in ourselves, that we are slaves to Lord Chronos.

So it’s nice when another Timekeeper comes up, taps us on the shoulder and reminds us to think about the other clocks and calendars and measurements of time.

Hey, buddy, it’s that time of day when the kids are up and the homework’s done and they’re ready to wrestle in the family room. Look, the rain just ended and you only have a few minutes to catch a whiff of the cool air. Wow, the kids are actually getting along and having a conversation that’s not about boogers. You better stop and watch this; you might never see it again.

Tempus fugit. Another year begins.

Urgent, but totally unimportant

I’m leaving for several days on a trip–Attention, burglars, there is an alarm system and toxic waste in the house–and I am in a panic about my online life.

I actually checked out my various blog/networking sites, took a last look at my ever-so-important FaceBook friends and made sure there were no incredible new job offers on LinkedIn before I leave. After all, who could ever leave home while FaceBook friends were waiting for a reply.

Thankfully, all is quiet on the home front, which is what all the cognoscenti call the World Wide Weboblogosphere. None of the news I missed while out of town last week was all that important and it will most likely turn ou…….

Wait a minute.

Every time I take a flight and bring aboard two months of reading that piled up and seemed terribly urgent, I read through about 8,000 pages and recognize that it wasn’t urgent at all. And every time I return from a trip and start going back to “older posts” and older and older, it’s the same thing. In fact, I cannot remember the last time, or any time, that I scrolled through a million social networking posts and found something I really truly needed to know.

Perhaps, just maybe, possibly, this is one of those things that seems to be terribly important, urgent, even life-changing, but ultimately isn’t. Maybe I can survive without checking in on FaceBook and LinkedIn and all the other social networks that define my Socialite existence.

Maybe it’s safe to take an old fashioned vacation, after all. Wish me luck. It’s been a long, long time.

Excess Baggage

I picked up a new project recently, which means I had to clear the decks, and the desk, to accommodate the work flow. I was overdue for a cleanup, as the office was looking like Max’s room in Where the Wild Things Are and the floor was beginning to sag into the basement. Just a bit.

Time to toss all that material about executive relocation and technology consulting, the remnants of the magazine publishing assignment and the memo about office equipment leasing. Five-year-old directories, month-old magazines, expired coupons from Office Depot….gone gone and gone.

Clearing out the detritus requires more than a day. One garbage can is already full, but there are still too many piles to consider the job done. I’m going through all the old magazines and newspaper clippings and letters/emails that seemed important at the time. I saved them until I could give them all the attention they deserved. Now, though, I read through them and realize I’ve merely delayed the recycling truck’s pickup.

The job must be completed before I can move forward. I can’t find space or time for the new assignments until I get rid of the old stuff that’s cluttering up my workspace.

It’s no different from the rest of life, of course. It’s tough, sometimes impossible, to move forward until we get rid of the junk that’s making a mess of our lives today. We can’t launch a new journey with the same old baggage.

Sometimes, the mess that holds us back is absolutely obvious. Sometimes, it’s invisible. Visible or not, though, we can count on it to be long-tenured and much less important than we assumed it to be. Once we look at the materials we’ve been saving, the anchor chains of our life, we find they aren’t as meaningful, or critical, or valuable, as they seemed when we decided to hold on to them.

What do I need to clear off my desk, or from my mind, to accelerate my progress? How do I take a fresh look at the keepsakes that turn out to be monkey’s paws rather than rabbit’s feet?

Every so often, it’s important to reboot.

Sacred Time

Susan and Stephanie were having a Sister Day.

Two or three times a year, they get together simply to enjoy each other’s company and share the joy of being sisters. Usually, it involves some self-indulgent activity like manis or pedis or shopping and, sooner (usually) or later, consumption of alcohol. Sometimes, in the evening, the boys are allowed to join them.

Sister Days are sacred time, not to be interrupted by social engagements or family demands or work. The girls put up a wall around their time together and decline the opportunity to bring the rest of the world inside.

Sometimes, the rest of the world might bristle, just a bit, at their practice. If something comes up, why can’t the girls postpone their day? There are a million opportunities for them to spend time together, so why not make an adjustment to fit in a new engagement?

Which got me to thinking, as most things do, about time and priorities. How we spend time—our most precious resource—is a measure of our values. When do we bend, when do we break and when do we hold firm? What or who comes first on our list and when do we move people aside—including ourselves—for someone else’s benefit?

If a customer called with a problem, would we be expected to interrupt our honeymoon? Skip a funeral? Work on New Year’s Day? What if it wasn’t a honeymoon, but a long-delayed dinner? What if it wasn’t a funeral, but a long-awaited visit to the zoo? And what if it wasn’t a customer, but one of many friends who suddenly can fit us into THEIR schedule?

Would we forgive someone for declining to meet with us because they were riding a bicycle, reading a book or having a Sister Day? Could we acknowledge that their schedule of personal time is just as valuable, just as critical, as their career?

If you had been working for 21 straight days and had blocked out Day 22 for simply sitting in the house and reading a book, would you feel comfortable letting the world know about your choice? If mom or the boss or a friend from college called on the evening of Day 21 to suggest lunch the next day, could you decline the offer? Could you disclose the reason for your choice?

Some days, we’re the highest priority on somebody’s list. Other days, we’re not. It doesn’t make us, or them, bad people. Sometimes, it’s just a conflict of sacred times.

It Seemed Like Such a Good Idea at the Time

Every so often you get a brilliant idea. You wake up in the middle of the night and say, GADZOOKS, THIS IS GENIUS. And maybe you grab a note pad by your bed and write down your $billion$ idea and then, when you wake up the next morning, you look at the note and try to figure out what you meant when you wrote, “put it online and phzilkygiiisz.”

I know how you feel. My penmanship, which is somewhere between doctor and dachshund, gets even worse in the middle of the night. If I could have read the notes about all my great ideas the next morning, I’d be so rich right now that I’d have someone sitting by the bed all night, just waiting to take dictation.

Until then, I’ll just have to content myself with the recognition that some of those billion-dollar ideas might not have panned out quite as well as hoped. For every idea that hits it big—pet rocks, hula hoops, carpal tunnel syndrome—another fifty or hundred prove to be expensive flops. I know, because I invested in most of them.

There is something much worse than a bad idea that flops, however. Far more expensive and irritating are all the bad ideas that succeed. We are plagued daily by timesavers and solutions that cause much, much, much more trouble than they are worth. They might have seemed like good ideas at the time, but they come from a box labeled Pandora.

My own Hall of Shame includes:

Automatic faucets. Okay, just move your hand a little closer; no, just a bit more. Oh, did the water just soak your sleeve? Bwaahahahahahah. Automatic faucets seem like such a convenience, but we have no control over the water temperature, how much water comes out or, in some cases, whether the water comes out at all. Don’t you love it when an overly aggressive faucet sprays onto your pants and you walk out of the restroom with the appearance of a person who just….? If only there was some kind of manual override for these things, maybe a handle of some sort that could turn the water on and off and adjust the temperature? Someday, perhaps, such a device could be invented.

Voice mail. Voice mail is the greatest wealth transfer mechanism in the universe, bigger and more far-reaching than Social Security, Health Care Reform, credit cards, online pornography or professional sports. Millions of companies decide to save the cost of having people answer phones and take messages; then pay their few remaining employees to leave messages for somebody else. Voice mail seems to save money, because companies know how much they once spent on secretaries. Watch how much time employees spend talking to machines, however, and it’s clear this experiment has gone horribly wrong.

Rolling luggage. Luggage without the lugging. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, the rollers and handles add weight to the bag and take up storage space, so the bag is heavier and totally unwieldy when we actually have to pick it up. Worse, these things take up too much space in the overhead bins, which leaves room for fewer suitcases and other carry-ons, while the boarding process is delayed at least ten minutes while various klutzes try to stuff their roll-aboards in the A-B bins. Perhaps airlines should start charging a toll for each axle? I discovered a final flaw on the shuttle bus to Sky Harbor last week as a boulder on wheels slammed into passengers each time the bus turned, bounced, slowed…

Reply All. Whenever I’m driving and I decide to take a shortcut, I end up getting lost, taking more time and traveling more distance than would have been the case if I’d just stayed on the original route. Reply all is like that, a shortcut in name only. Send an invitation to ten people and nine will hit reply all to announce whether they intend to show up, ask about the dress code, mention that they’re lactose intolerant…. If people had to type in the names of their recipients, all of us could spend more time watching television.

Social Networking. Let’s see. I’m spending about two hours a day scrolling through FaceBook entries and LinkedIn entries and checking out tweets. Most of the stuff is boring, so I don’t bother responding. My posts are brilliant, but my online friends are too busy shouting “look at me” to notice my wit. Meanwhile, thanks for calling, but I can’t take an hour off to meet you for lunch today. I’m too busy being social. All alone. At my desk. Surrounded by friends I’ve never met and strangers I used to know. If you post your thoughts online and nobody responds, do you really exist?

Drive-Through. I don’t have to get out of my car to pick up the dry cleaning, buy my breakfast, drop off a deposit at the bank or mail a letter. I’d be saving tons of time, except that idiot in front of me can’t decide whether to get the hash browns or the tater tots and the guy before him didn’t like the foam on his latte and I had to wait five extra minutes while they resteamed his non-fat yak milk. Hey, look over there. That family of four that was going in when I pulled up here is done with their breakfast and heading to their car. I can’t understand why they didn’t take advantage of this convenient drive-through lane like me.

Loyalty Programs. Booking a plane ticket on the company’s dime and earning free trips as a result? Now that’s what they mean when they say ‘something for nothing.’ Except that the flights aren’t available and there’s a fee for cashing in the points and the number of miles needed for a free trip goes up and up. Whether its hotels, airlines, book stores, restaurants, hardware stores or grocers, I’ve been seduced and abandoned by half of corporate America. I’d stop the madness, except I’m only 3,200 points away from a free pencil. Without a doubt, points are the crystal meth of marketing.

Supersize. Do I really have to explain this one?

The list goes on and on, but all this whining is tiring me out. Time for me to go take a nap and dream up some great new ideas to improve our lives. If we’re really lucky, I’ll forget all about them before I wake up.

How to Succeed In Business….

….As we continue our life lessons for the recent grads and suddenly-minted grown-ups who are out in the workplace, earning a living, and trying to hold onto a job. (Of course, if they haven’t read Your Name Here: Guide to Life yet, none of this great advice will work. JK.)

________________________

A number of years ago, we had an opening for an administrative assistant, paying something in the $14,000 range. Yes, it was a long time ago and, no, it wasn’t a queen’s ransom even then. One woman who interviewed for the job was the executive assistant to the president of a major institution. I don’t remember if it was a university or a hospital, but it was absolutely a big-time organization.

So I asked her why she was interviewing with us, since this was not a top administrative job and our pay level was about a third of what she was earning in her then-current position. And she told me, “They expect me to be nice to everyone. People come in to see my boss and I’m supposed to show them around and treat them like they’re important. I don’t know these people and I’m tired of having to treat them like I care.”

Not quite a word-for-word quote, but pretty darned close. Surprisingly, I decided not to hire her and force her to be nice to any of my clients.

I was reminded of my cantankerous applicant a few days ago while flying home from an assignment. (Actually, we weren’t flying home at all. We were sitting on a tarmac in St. Louis, waiting to refuel, because weather delays at O’Hare meant the plane didn’t have enough fuel to get all the way to Chicago.)

My seatmate and I were talking about the tough job market for recent grads and the lack of preparedness many feel about their entry into the real world. Both of us agreed that it’s very easy to succeed by making customers happy, but that most companies and their employees expend huge efforts to achieve the opposite effect. (Did I mention we were customers of an airline when the topic came up? What a coincidence!)

As we talked, I noted that we didn’t have to cite some major management guru or the hottest new reality show about apprentice bachelors lost in hell’s kitchen. It’s tough to succeed in business without really trying, but it doesn’t take much effort to get ahead of the competition.

For recent grads seeking the not-so-secret bits of wisdom that practically guarantee success, here are a few that we discussed while stranded on the tarmac:

1. Ask the customer. The customer is the ultimate arbiter of value, so her opinions are important. Why does she buy from you? Why won’t she buy something else that you sell? What are you doing that makes her loyal and what are you doing to push her away? Many people are afraid of rejection, so they don’t want to ask for trouble. The people who do ask are rare, but appreciated. Even better, they get the chance to identify and resolve issues before the customer leaves forever.

2. Return the phone call. FaceBook and LinkedIn and blogs (yeah, I get the irony) are a bunch of people talking without really anticipating a response. Phone calls are different, though, and people want to be called back. So many calls are left in voice mail forever—or can’t be left because the mailbox is full—that the person who returns calls promptly is miles ahead. There’s a corollary to the statement, “If it’s important, they’ll call back.” It’s also true that, “If YOU”RE important, they’ll call back.” If you’re not that important, they’ll move on to someone more responsive.

3. Prep for the meeting. Few things are more annoying in a meeting than wasting everyone’s time by reviewing what they should all know already. Even worse, some people proudly announce that, “I didn’t get a chance to read the materials, so I’ll just listen for a while.” Translated into English: “No point inviting me to future meetings because you’ll just be paying me to sit here and add nothing.” If it’s in the package you got before the meeting, read it. And if you somehow are unable to read it, don’t brag about your ignorance.

4. Follow up. I recently had a $1 million account relationship to place, so I contacted three businesses to get proposals for the package. Two responded with proposals within a few days of the meeting. One didn’t follow up for nearly three months, which was about ten weeks after they were out of the running. It’s not always this dramatic, but major points come from following up quickly.

5. Offer help. When a problem comes up, 75% of the people in this world will offer one of the following responses:
• It’s not my fault.
• Our policy doesn’t cover that.
• Are you sure you didn’t break this intentionally?
• There’s nothing I can do.

The other 25%, the successful ones, will offer to help. “Let’s see how we can fix this,” is a good start to a repaired relationship. Even if the problem cannot be fixed, the customer doesn’t blame you, because you’re the one who tried. When someone’s initial response is, “There’s nothing I can do,” they get no points if the problem is ultimately resolved.
…..
My seatmate and I agreed that technical skills and trade secrets offer little assurance of career achievement. Simple skills, the kind of stuff we all were supposed to learn in grade school, represent the fundamentals tools for careers, as well as the rest of life.

Pass this note on to your friends, kids, kids’ friends and anyone you know who’s starting out in the working world. Only a small percentage will actually follow these simple rules, but those happy few will be very grateful to their mentors.

Immigration and Ockham’s Razor

Fourth of July Note: Before posting this item, I passed it by some friends, both conservative and liberal and somewhere in between. None has unfriended me on FaceBook and they still take my phone calls, so it’s just possible there’s some truth in common sense. And isn’t this great country all about common sense, common people and the commonwealth? As Sarah Palin would say, “You betcha.”

__________________________________

I am continually amazed at the people who think immigration reform is a controversial topic of some sort. When you approach it like a true American, it’s so simple that even a child couldn’t screw it up.

Thank God we have Congress to handle it for us. Or not handle it, as the case may be.

ABOUT THIS COUNTRY

The United States is a really special country and part of what makes us special is our history of accepting all kinds of people from all kinds of places and turning them into AMERICANS. We’re all hyphenated Americans of a sort, but most of us end up with the second half (xyz-AMERICAN) in all caps.

The ability to take in boatloads of people and transform them in a generation or two is such a quiet and consistent process in this land that we sometimes forget it exists. Like the cleanup teams at Disneyland, the work is so silent and efficient that you can forget it’s going on.

ABOUT IMMIGRATION (THE LEGAL KIND)

We all take pride in saying this is a nation of immigrants and, in fact, most of us are no more than two or three generations removed from the people who grabbed a batch of clothes and a fry pan and hopped on some ship—in steerage. Most of us, I suspect, have actually met the person who was the first of our family to set foot on these shores, even if that person is no longer with us today.

We believe in the American Dream, the ability of strangers who know nothing of this country or its culture to become a part of us and to succeed. Many (most) of us recognize that the American Dream has been at work in our own families.

People come here to pursue the American Dream and you don’t see a whole lot of people begging for a chance to leave. The exit door is open, but there’s a lot of cobwebs on the hinges. The American Dream involves work and most people come to work. You can see it in the fast food joints, the donut shops, dry cleaners, landscaping companies, factories—pretty much anywhere that the wages are low and the work is difficult. It’s the first step on the ladder and they’re ready to jump on it.

Immigration is good for many reasons. It brings in new workers—people with drive and ideas—enriches our overall culture and builds our economy. Everyone in this country needs to eat, to sleep, to have a roof overhead, to attend school and buy clothes and pay for texts. Strip away all the political spinning and lies and you find that population growth builds the economy and immigration is a good way to build population.

By the way, population growth is one reason the United States might fare better than many European countries that are aging faster and have few younger workers to pay taxes. Whatever we might think about Social Security and Health Care Reform and other government programs, it’s an absolute fact that each of us pays less taxes than we would if there were fewer people to support the system. If anything, immigration is a good way to reduce the burdens per capita from unaffordable programs.

ABOUT IMMIGRATION (THE ILLEGAL KIND)

First, let’s stop saying politically correct things like “undocumented.” Using euphemisms makes people sound fearful, unable to address topics head-on.

The challenge in discussing illegal immigration is that the distinction is legality, not immigration. Lots of people who don’t like immigrants, other than their own grannies, will talk about immigrants as if all are illegal. Lots of people who see legality as a mere technicality talk about illegals as if they don’t represent a problem at all.

So we come to the question: Why does legality matter? If a person comes to work, as most do, why do we care if they come with papers or not?

There are two simple answers here:

First, if we cannot know whether Jose or Piotr or Winston has entered the country legally, we cannot know if Osama bin Laden is here, either. Knowing who is in the country is a national security issue. It’s not particularly dangerous when Pedro comes to harvest fruit or Mani overstays his visa to keep writing code, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore their presence. In the world of security, you can’t inspect only the bad guys, because they tend to hide among the good ones.

Second, illegal immigration creates a number of distortions in our country. Illegal immigrants are more likely to be abused in the workplace and less likely to report a crime. Illegal immigrants with native-born children run the risk of being deported, leaving their citizen offspring behind. Illegal immigrants are more likely to work for cash, and be off the tax rolls, although lots of American shrimp boat operators in the Gulf are suddenly discovering the downside of that gambit as they need to show BP how much income they’re losing.

The cost of illegal immigrants to the nation is really hard to calculate, although you can find very specific numbers trumpeted on both ends of the political noise machine. If an employer pays illegal immigrants in cash and provides no benefits, that employer’s income rises and he pays more taxes as a result. Assuming our law-abiding employer is actually paying the full amount of his taxes owed, the government might see a net gain in its income—because the employer is paying at a higher marginal tax rate than his worker. As money circulates through the economy, the total impact of Illegal/legal immigrants might not vary much, but there could be large displacements as local school boards get less, for example, and the state government or feds get more.

Illegal immigration also creates distortions in law enforcement. Local police have fewer cooperating witnesses when the victims of crimes have the threat of deportation hanging over their heads. More federal dollars go to tracking down and deporting criminals here illegally, people who would be simply local/state targets if they were citizens or, in some cases, legally within our borders. As a result, less federal time and dollars go to anti-terrorism efforts.

WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?

Okay, assuming everything above is true, which it is, what do we do? We benefit from immigration, but illegal immigration creates costly displacements in the economy. Is there, perhaps, a three-step solution to fix all of this?

Why, yes, there is.

1. Secure the borders. It costs much less to keep the border secure than to try to find and address issues across 50 states. By borders, I’m talking about the coasts and Canada, along with Mexico. This is a national security issue, not a Mexican immigrant issue. We do need to invest more heavily in the South, as a practical matter, but people who speak only of the southern border betray more of their beliefs than they might realize. This government, like every government, has all good reason to know who is and isn’t coming into the country. Why waste money on immigration enforcement in the States when it takes about a week for a deported person to re-enter our space? Secure borders are a necessity. In fact, nothing works without secure borders, because people who are thrown out find it far too easy to come back.
2. Open the gates. Bring in immigrants by the truckload and encourage them to become citizens. Yeah, there’s no more room here, but that’s what they said when our grandparents were getting off the boat, too. We have room and we have opportunity—that American Dream thing we like to talk about. People on the left love Zero Growth when it comes to environment, but not immigration. People on the right love Zero Growth when it comes to immigration, but not the environment. They’re both wrong. When we make it easier to come legally, we reduce the incentive to come illegally. Fewer criminals enter, including terrorists, because the border is secure, and people who are deported are likely to stay deported, for the same reason. The good, hard-working people who want to become Americans will be able to do so and we will know how to keep the others out of our fine nation.
3. Create a path to citizenship. Let’s face facts. We aren’t going to deport 12-20 million people. First, it might not be possible for us to identify and process that many people in a lifetime and we would end up with multi-trillion-dollar costs in doing so. In addition, the movement of 12-20 million people, many of them employed and, contrary to public opinion, paying taxes, would cause gigantic disruptions to our economy. Not to mention the violent battles in the streets of our nation.

If we eliminate the impossible, as Sherlock Holmes said, we’ll arrive at the truth. The truth is that we would benefit immensely from having 12-20 million additional tax-paying, voting, engaged citizens. (NB: Republican fears that all will be Democratic votes might not come to pass. Contrary to much punditry, Latino doesn’t equal Liberal.) Bringing illegals out of the shadows, to the extent they are hiding now, will also accelerate their acculturation as Americans.

The Puritanical side of me believes all the illegal immigrants should have to pay fines and back taxes and otherwise jump through flaming hoops to become citizens. The common sense part of me says we should make the path attractive—even it it isn’t free—and naturalize as many as we can as fast as we can. It will be less expensive, less time consuming and less disruptive over the long term.

Sometimes, we make situations more complicated than they need to be. In seeking or insisting on the perfect solution, we give ourselves the excuse to provide no solution at all. The problem gets worse, as has been the case with government spending, Social Security shortfall, state pension programs, personal debt and so on. We pass the problem on to our children like an heirloom that is not only priceless but also unaffordable.

Every so often, Ockham’s Razor is the scalpel we need. Every so often, we must decide whether we want to be vindicated in our beliefs or simply choose to resolve an issue. Immigration reform is simple, if we want it enough to choose common sense, decency and practicality over ideology.

And, on this Fourth of July, isn’t it nice to recall that common sense, decency and practicality are fundamental strengths of this great nation?

You betcha.

Velodrama

“When you’re a spy,” Michael Weston informs us, the key to survival is to trust no one and look for danger everywhere. The Burn Notice character has nothing on cyclists.

Yes, it’s summer again and all us weekend warriors are pumping up our tires and confidence as we take on deadly threats unimagined by mere mortals. It’s a miracle any of us survive, but miracles do happen. All you need is a little luck and the instincts of a ninja, plus a download of The Intersect. Sorry, wrong show.

On the surface, bicycling is a pleasant way to spend a weekend afternoon. Beneath the veneer, it’s mortal combat. When you’re a spy, you only wish you had the instincts of a savvy cyclist.

When you’re a cyclist, you watch out for mom. Not every mom and probably not your own mom, but the one coming out of the shopping center. Two kids in the back, Blue Tooth engaged, focused on her next errand, she’s MULTITASKING as she rolls across the sidewalk and noses into your slice of road. If you don’t move fast enough, she gets a new hood ornament.

When you’re a cyclist, you avoid killer sewers. Lots of towns use sewer grates with slats that are exactly the width of a bicycle tire, positioned lengthwise to catch tires and send cyclists headfirst over the handlebars. Try to avoid these deathtraps and you come dangerously close to the giant mirrors of that tricked-out mini-van driven by a Killer Mom. Do the guys in the Streets Department have a betting pool going each summer for that year’s head count? You gotta wonder.

When you’re a cyclist, road crews are your mortal enemy. When road work needs doing, the bike lane or sidewalk becomes a trash pit. Asphalt boulders and holes the size of canyons can blow a car tire, but they present an existential threat to pedal pushers. Hmm, do I want to drop into that hole in the ground and flip over or swerve left in front of that dump truck that’s closing in? Do the guys in the Streets Department have a betting pool…..?

When you’re a cyclist, you must yield to cars, trucks, boats, cars hauling boats, boats hauling mopeds and anything else that burns dinosaur poop instead of carbs. That’s on the street. On the bike path, we also have to yield to pedestrians, horses, deer and badgers. If it moves, or it doesn’t, we have to yield to it. We’re second-class citizens, but nobody protests on our behalf. We’re on our own, friendless, like John Rambo or Tony Hayward.

When you’re a cyclist, you survive by reading the signs and knowing they aren’t written for you. All signs are like that old game in which you end each fortune cookie message with the words, “in bed.” For us, the magic words are, “for cars.” No Outlet means No Outlet for Cars, which can be a lifesaver as a small sidewalk or footpath frees us from traveling on a 50 mph road.

When you’re a cyclist, you use cars as your protection. That guy who’s about to make a left turn across your path isn’t going to worry about you, but he won’t challenge oncoming traffic. If there are cars coming in the same direction as you, it’s safe to keep moving. If your side of the street is empty, it’s Defcon 1.

When you’re a cyclist, you know eye contact isn’t just for dating. It’s impossible for the driver on your left to miss you in your bright yellow Spandex and matching helmet. And yet, he’s achieving the impossible. He’s looking to the left, because he’s about to make a right turn and he wants to be sure nobody is going to hit him. He hasn’t bothered looking to the right—you can tell because he’s not giggling at how silly you look in yellow Spandex. To him, you are only an unlikely possibility, like the Loch Ness monster or cable guys who show up on time. Until you make eye contact, consider yourself a statistic.

There’s much more, of course, but you get the picture. That paunchy old guy who’s already having an asthma attack as he coasts down the driveway this morning? He’s a hero. Not just a hero, but a hero on par with Navy Seals, demolition squads and whoever it is that cleans up Grant Park after Taste of Chicago.

Summer cycling is a dance with

the Reaper. We only wish we had it as easy as burned spies.

Chicken Butts are Forever

We’re sitting on the tarmac in St Louis. It was supposed to be Chicago, but one of those summer storms that sweeps across the Midwest sent us into a holding pattern and then we ran out of fuel and, well, American doesn’t fly ultralights, so we stopped at the nearest filling station.

I scored an upgrade to first class, sitting across from a dad and his daughter who were up front while mom and the other daughter were in back. I think the girl back in steerage with her mom was unaware of how cheated she was by all of this; she probably doesn’t even resent her sister for this abuse. Yet.

But the plane is on the ground now, so the second daughter comes up for a visit with her sister and it took me back in time, because they sounded just like my girls.

Do you know what?

Chicken butt.

Stop saying that.

It’s funny.

No it’s not. I don’t want you to do that anymore.

Okay.

You know what?

Chicken butt.

I told you ‘no.’

I know but it’s in my head.

How did chicken butt survive 20 years? Like Dracula or I Love Lucy reruns, it never sleeps, never disappears. Like that joke that goes, “So the policeman said, ‘Are you looking for trouble,” and Shut Up said. ‘How did you know?’”

Do these things go dormant for 37 years like the swine flu, only to rise up again with a vengeance to irritate moms and dads everywhere? Or maybe it’s the aunt who has all those cats in her house, the one who thinks she’s still hip and wants the kids to know she knows all the humor that kids know. Only the kids didn’t know it until she re-infected them.

Or maybe there’s some kind of passing of the torch within a secret society of children. Is the last kid to turn five instructed to turn to the newest four-year-old and pass on the humor of a thousand generations?

And it might be more than 1,000 generations. Biblical scholars report that Cain asked Abel, “Knowest ye whateth?” and Abel said, “Chicken butteth,” and it all went downhill from there.

Clearly, bad childhood humor has the survival skills of cockroaches and will outlive us all. As the girls were jabbering about chicken butts, I noticed the six-month-old boy in the first row. His mom was holding him, but he was paying just a bit too much attention to the conversation two rows back.

(Originally posted at 5minutesforparenting.com)