About 20 years ago I worked for a small company in St. Louis that was operated by the two men who had founded the enterprise. They were the original odd couple: One was an Italian Catholic and the other was a Jew.
By apparent coincidence, the staff of just under a hundred people was roughly split evenly between Jews and gentiles.
It was an eye-opener for someone who had never spent a lot of time with Jewish people. I got to ask all sorts of questions about Jewish traditions, beliefs and holidays. In fact, this company was the first place I ever worked where we had an annual Holiday Party to make sure everyone felt included.
We had our party after New Years to make scheduling easier. Look at the calendar sometime and figure out when you can schedule a celebration for a hundred people without bumping into some December religious observance, Christian or Jewish.
What got me thinking about that experience is the fact that, once again, the usual suspects are bleating about the war that the liberals and their misguided ideas about political correctness are waging against Christmas. The outrage of these people has become more predictable than the sunrise, making it pretty easy to ignore.
The usual target is the retailers who have instructed employees to wish customers Happy Holidays instead of a Merry Christmas. Those weak retailers bending to the will of the liberals. Predictable.
So the thing that really captured my attention was hearing people I know, people who don’t have talk shows and ratings to worry about, talking about the war on Christmas. Specifically, they’re railing against those who wish everyone Happy Holidays. So I decided it’s time to sound off.
Look, there’s one thing retailers care about, and it is not political correctness. It’s sales. Retailers like selling things to customers. Several years ago, they caught onto the fact that Jewish people like to buy things toward the end of the year and give them as Hanukkah gifts. With a strong desire to avoid alienating any potential customer, retailers started telling employees to wish customers Happy Holidays. That’s a greeting that covers everybody.
Trust me on this: Liberals have no influence over the retail industry. Unless they can drive down sales. If you think liberals have the power to dampen sales during Christmas and Hanukkah, you just don’t pay attention.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas. Or a happy Hanukkah. And if you don’t like hearing “Happy Holidays” from employees at particular store, shop at another store.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
The Cult of Mac
I still remember the very first time I saw a Macintosh computer. It was January 1986 and I had just been hired as a technical writer by McDonnell-Douglas. The man who hired me was building a team of outside-the-box thinkers and wanted us all to be working on an outside-the-box computer.
So I started writing on a Macintosh Plus. To say I was unimpressed is being kind. This was the beige box with a 9-inch diagonal black and white screen. At least it had an external hard drive to actually store some documents. I wanted a real computer--you know, an IBM PC.
Well, I got past that initial reaction and eventually fell in love with the cute little computer. I even bought one. I even found myself completely immersed in the cult of Macintosh. We cultists tolerated no criticism of our computer; I once even launched an email attack on the Chicago Tribune’s technology columnist because he damned the Mac OS with faint praise. Poor guy’s inbox was overwhelmed.
By 1995 I owned a PowerBook 190 and was attempting to run a freelance writing business using mostly that machine. Problem is, that machine was spending a lot of time in Apple’s Dallas repair facility.
It was in Dallas more than it was in my home. The cult couldn’t help me at that point.
That’s because, at about the same time, I got a project that involved an animated tutorial. The best software I could find to deliver what the client wanted ran only on Windows. And the price for the project was enough to justify buying a shiny new PC.
I discovered that Windows 95, for all the jokes, was pretty sweet. It was usable and I could deliver files to clients who insisted on PC native files. So I broke up with the Mac. I said good-bye to the cult.
Fast forward to today. I was looking for a small, light laptop with long battery life. Netbooks looked promising, but they seemed slow and underpowered for what I wanted a computer to do. You can beef some of them up, but then you’re spending almost as much as you do for a full-blown laptop.
“Get a Mac” is what I kept hearing. Apple’s making quality again, and Macs just work.
So I bit the bullet. In August I bought the 13-inch MacBook Pro. It supposedly had this long battery life, great keyboard and all sorts of other stuff.
Some things have been great. Macs in the past were difficult to network, and that’s putting it mildly. But the MacBook Pro latched onto our wireless network and Internet connection with just a couple of clicks. All I had to do was name this computer and type in the network password.
But at times the pre-installed Safari browser wouldn’t launch. So I got hold of Firefox and use it instead. But the battery life is about hald what was promised. And the DVD/CD drive choked on a DVD. The computer wouldn’t recognize the drive. I had to reset the System Management Controller, and a person on the Mac support forums said that, yeah, that problem sometimes just happens.
I had forgotten what it was like to deal with the cult. Mac believers will tell you that Macs just work, even when they obviously don’t. That problem sometimes just happens. PC owners bitch and moan about every little glitch in the Windows OS, but Mac owners gloss over them. That sometimes just happens.
Something tells me I won’t be renewing my cult membership anytime soon.
So I started writing on a Macintosh Plus. To say I was unimpressed is being kind. This was the beige box with a 9-inch diagonal black and white screen. At least it had an external hard drive to actually store some documents. I wanted a real computer--you know, an IBM PC.
Well, I got past that initial reaction and eventually fell in love with the cute little computer. I even bought one. I even found myself completely immersed in the cult of Macintosh. We cultists tolerated no criticism of our computer; I once even launched an email attack on the Chicago Tribune’s technology columnist because he damned the Mac OS with faint praise. Poor guy’s inbox was overwhelmed.
By 1995 I owned a PowerBook 190 and was attempting to run a freelance writing business using mostly that machine. Problem is, that machine was spending a lot of time in Apple’s Dallas repair facility.
It was in Dallas more than it was in my home. The cult couldn’t help me at that point.
That’s because, at about the same time, I got a project that involved an animated tutorial. The best software I could find to deliver what the client wanted ran only on Windows. And the price for the project was enough to justify buying a shiny new PC.
I discovered that Windows 95, for all the jokes, was pretty sweet. It was usable and I could deliver files to clients who insisted on PC native files. So I broke up with the Mac. I said good-bye to the cult.
Fast forward to today. I was looking for a small, light laptop with long battery life. Netbooks looked promising, but they seemed slow and underpowered for what I wanted a computer to do. You can beef some of them up, but then you’re spending almost as much as you do for a full-blown laptop.
“Get a Mac” is what I kept hearing. Apple’s making quality again, and Macs just work.
So I bit the bullet. In August I bought the 13-inch MacBook Pro. It supposedly had this long battery life, great keyboard and all sorts of other stuff.
Some things have been great. Macs in the past were difficult to network, and that’s putting it mildly. But the MacBook Pro latched onto our wireless network and Internet connection with just a couple of clicks. All I had to do was name this computer and type in the network password.
But at times the pre-installed Safari browser wouldn’t launch. So I got hold of Firefox and use it instead. But the battery life is about hald what was promised. And the DVD/CD drive choked on a DVD. The computer wouldn’t recognize the drive. I had to reset the System Management Controller, and a person on the Mac support forums said that, yeah, that problem sometimes just happens.
I had forgotten what it was like to deal with the cult. Mac believers will tell you that Macs just work, even when they obviously don’t. That problem sometimes just happens. PC owners bitch and moan about every little glitch in the Windows OS, but Mac owners gloss over them. That sometimes just happens.
Something tells me I won’t be renewing my cult membership anytime soon.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Simplicity of Writing
It was the legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight who said it as a putdown for a sportswriter he thought was particularly stupid.
"All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things."
Permit me to take offense for just a moment. I've been making my living by writing things for the last 30 years or so, which means I've never gone on to the greater things Knight had in mind. Being a writer, however, has introduced me to some fascinating aspects of the business world.
But once I'm over my pity party, I have to admit that Knight was right, in a way. Writing, at its essence, is a pretty basic endeavor. Most, if not all, of us really master the essential act of writing pretty early in elementary school.
That's where we learn about words. That's where we learn what nouns are, and verbs. That's where we learn the value of adjectives and adverbs. That's where we learn the practicality of prepositions.
If we're really lucky, that's also where we learn that writing really is a simple act. All we're doing is stringing together the best combination of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, with maybe some prepositions for spice, in order to communicate an idea to someone else. That simplicity is the beauty of writing. That simplicity is also the difficulty, because the quest for the "best combination" of words can be excruciating.
Nobody can tell us, in any situation, what the "best combination" of words will be. We have to find them on our own. That search is where the work is; for me, that search is where the joy of writing truly lives.
On that rare occasion when I know--I know--that I've found the best combination of words to convey my idea, I can say with conviction that Bobby Knight was flat-out wrong. That's when I know that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, greater than writing something very well.
"All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things."
Permit me to take offense for just a moment. I've been making my living by writing things for the last 30 years or so, which means I've never gone on to the greater things Knight had in mind. Being a writer, however, has introduced me to some fascinating aspects of the business world.
But once I'm over my pity party, I have to admit that Knight was right, in a way. Writing, at its essence, is a pretty basic endeavor. Most, if not all, of us really master the essential act of writing pretty early in elementary school.
That's where we learn about words. That's where we learn what nouns are, and verbs. That's where we learn the value of adjectives and adverbs. That's where we learn the practicality of prepositions.
If we're really lucky, that's also where we learn that writing really is a simple act. All we're doing is stringing together the best combination of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, with maybe some prepositions for spice, in order to communicate an idea to someone else. That simplicity is the beauty of writing. That simplicity is also the difficulty, because the quest for the "best combination" of words can be excruciating.
Nobody can tell us, in any situation, what the "best combination" of words will be. We have to find them on our own. That search is where the work is; for me, that search is where the joy of writing truly lives.
On that rare occasion when I know--I know--that I've found the best combination of words to convey my idea, I can say with conviction that Bobby Knight was flat-out wrong. That's when I know that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, greater than writing something very well.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Get Me Rewrite!
It’s a cliché scene in movies set in the Thirties. A reporter dashes to a phone booth—you can tell he’s a reporter because a card with PRESS printed on it is stuck in his hatband—and calls his newspaper. As soon as he’s connected, he barks, “Hello, sweetheart, get me rewrite!”
Rewrite, or the rewrite desk, was essentially a steno pool. The reporter would dictate his story into the phone and the rewrite desk would type it for use in the paper. Then he would close his notebook, hang up the phone, and dash off to the next story or the nearest bar.
Get me rewrite! No matter what I’m writing, at some point or another I hit a spot where I want to grab a phone and get connected to Rewrite. No, I’m not looking to dictate a news story; I’m needing help revising and/or rewriting. Unfortunately, the Rewrite desk is just not there. It’s like the time I mispronounced automatic transmission and it came out as automatic transition, and I realized immediately that having access to automatic transitions would make writing so much easier.
Having a Rewrite desk available by phone would be sweet indeed.
What I know about rewriting I learned the hard way. After a few years on a small weekly newspaper where I rewrote nothing, I got a job in the marketing department of a small company. One of my first assignments was writing something for the CEO; no, I don’t even remember what it was. What I remember is arriving at work the day after I turned it in to find the document on top of my desk.
Scrawled across the top were the words, “I thought we had hired a professional.”
Devastated, I went to my boss for an explanation. After admonishing me for not showing him my work before taking it to the CEO, he began patiently teaching me how to rewrite. He showed me how my document didn’t really say what I thought it said and advised me to concentrate on the message I’m trying to communicate.
He made me rewrite that document. Then he sat with me and marked up that version and made me rewrite it again. He worked with me to polish that document. I wish I could remember what that thing was about. What I do remember was the amount of effort we put into the rewriting. I also remember my boss telling me that I should never show anyone my actual first draft.
That first rewriting lesson was a hard lesson. Rewriting is a skill I’m still struggling to master. If I ever nail it, I’m writing a book on how to do it.
Until then, I’ll keep dreaming of the day I can pick up the phone and bark, “Hello sweetheart, get me rewrite!”
Rewrite, or the rewrite desk, was essentially a steno pool. The reporter would dictate his story into the phone and the rewrite desk would type it for use in the paper. Then he would close his notebook, hang up the phone, and dash off to the next story or the nearest bar.
Get me rewrite! No matter what I’m writing, at some point or another I hit a spot where I want to grab a phone and get connected to Rewrite. No, I’m not looking to dictate a news story; I’m needing help revising and/or rewriting. Unfortunately, the Rewrite desk is just not there. It’s like the time I mispronounced automatic transmission and it came out as automatic transition, and I realized immediately that having access to automatic transitions would make writing so much easier.
Having a Rewrite desk available by phone would be sweet indeed.
What I know about rewriting I learned the hard way. After a few years on a small weekly newspaper where I rewrote nothing, I got a job in the marketing department of a small company. One of my first assignments was writing something for the CEO; no, I don’t even remember what it was. What I remember is arriving at work the day after I turned it in to find the document on top of my desk.
Scrawled across the top were the words, “I thought we had hired a professional.”
Devastated, I went to my boss for an explanation. After admonishing me for not showing him my work before taking it to the CEO, he began patiently teaching me how to rewrite. He showed me how my document didn’t really say what I thought it said and advised me to concentrate on the message I’m trying to communicate.
He made me rewrite that document. Then he sat with me and marked up that version and made me rewrite it again. He worked with me to polish that document. I wish I could remember what that thing was about. What I do remember was the amount of effort we put into the rewriting. I also remember my boss telling me that I should never show anyone my actual first draft.
That first rewriting lesson was a hard lesson. Rewriting is a skill I’m still struggling to master. If I ever nail it, I’m writing a book on how to do it.
Until then, I’ll keep dreaming of the day I can pick up the phone and bark, “Hello sweetheart, get me rewrite!”
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Juan Williams
Everyone in the world seems to be sounding off on National Public Radio's decision to dump news analyst Juan Williams. So I will too.
And I'll admit my bias right up front: I don't like Juan Williams, and I haven't liked him for some time. Unlike most other NPR staffers, his reports have always been slanted. Even his supposedly straight news reports have always been crafted to support and highlight right-wing positions.
For years, Williams has also had a part-time gig sharing his opinion on FoxNews. As I understand NPR policy--and I don't mean to be an expert here--Williams was a rarity. As far as I know, only Williams and Mara Liasson were allowed to appear regularly on any commercial TV show. Both of them were regulars on FoxNews.
So here's the situation: Juan Williams was getting special treatment from his main job and allowed to appear on commercial TV on a regular basis. Even there, his full-time employer asked him to refrain from saying the kinds of things that he would not be allowed to say on his main job.
Williams disregarded what his full-time employer asked, and he lost his job. For everyone who's up in arms about this, I suggest you look into your employer's policies. You might find out that your employer, like mine and Williams' former employer, has a written policy forbidding you from expressing certain opinions in your role as an employee. In other words, you can't go on TV as an Acme employee and state an opinion that Acme doesn't like.
If you did that once, you'd be disciplined. If you kept doing it, you would reach a point where Acme would fire you. You had, after all, violated policy.
That's what Juan Williams did. NPR did not censor him, they have not violated his right to speak his mind. They merely terminated their business relationship with him. Williams still has the right to speak freely; he no longer has the right to speak on NPR and receive a regular paycheck.
Because of all that, I'm just fine with the NPR decision.
And I'll admit my bias right up front: I don't like Juan Williams, and I haven't liked him for some time. Unlike most other NPR staffers, his reports have always been slanted. Even his supposedly straight news reports have always been crafted to support and highlight right-wing positions.
For years, Williams has also had a part-time gig sharing his opinion on FoxNews. As I understand NPR policy--and I don't mean to be an expert here--Williams was a rarity. As far as I know, only Williams and Mara Liasson were allowed to appear regularly on any commercial TV show. Both of them were regulars on FoxNews.
So here's the situation: Juan Williams was getting special treatment from his main job and allowed to appear on commercial TV on a regular basis. Even there, his full-time employer asked him to refrain from saying the kinds of things that he would not be allowed to say on his main job.
Williams disregarded what his full-time employer asked, and he lost his job. For everyone who's up in arms about this, I suggest you look into your employer's policies. You might find out that your employer, like mine and Williams' former employer, has a written policy forbidding you from expressing certain opinions in your role as an employee. In other words, you can't go on TV as an Acme employee and state an opinion that Acme doesn't like.
If you did that once, you'd be disciplined. If you kept doing it, you would reach a point where Acme would fire you. You had, after all, violated policy.
That's what Juan Williams did. NPR did not censor him, they have not violated his right to speak his mind. They merely terminated their business relationship with him. Williams still has the right to speak freely; he no longer has the right to speak on NPR and receive a regular paycheck.
Because of all that, I'm just fine with the NPR decision.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Questions for Tea Baggers
For the last several months I've been chuckling at the Tea Party crowd. I can't help it--they're so angry and so sincere but usually so ill-informed that they seem positively silly.
Most of the Tea Baggers are absolutely livid over the national debt, but they were never angry before January 2009. Why did they become so angry then? A lot of them say that FoxNews "opened their eyes." And I believe that, because FoxNews acted like the national debt didn't exist between January 2001 and January 2009.
Along with their alarm over the size of the national debt, Tea Baggers are apoplectic about the rate of spending. Again, spending didn't seem to concern them before the current president was sworn in. So they're very concerned about the spending in "Obamacare," even though they didn't raise a fuss in 2003 when a Republican Congress passed Medicare Part D.
Sigh.
Finally, driven in part by their concern that "Obamacare" flies in the face of the United States Constitution, Tea Baggers want us to return to the "constitutional basics." Got it?
All those concerns have the Tea Bag crowd angry. They're really angry. And they want their country back. Okay, but I have some questions for them. I'd like to know specifically what they plan to do with their country once they get it back. After all, I live here too.
So, for any Tea Baggers who care to answer, what exactly do you mean by returning to the basics of the Constitution? Do you want to go back to the 13 original states? Can you name the 13 original states? Hint: Florida wasn't one of them.
Would you favor the repeal of the 17th amendment to the Constitution? That's the one that gave us direct election of U.S. Senators--before that amendment, state legislators picked the Senate's members.
What about the 19th amendment? That's the one that gave women the right to vote. A return to constitutional basics would mean that white land owners are the only Americans who could vote.
You want to cut back on "runaway spending," so what spending would you cut? Social Security? Medicare? Highway and other transportation spending (including federal subsidies for airports?)? Weapons programs that the Pentagon doesn't want, even if they provide jobs in Republican districts?
Would you get rid of federal departments and agencies in your quest to cut spending? Which ones? The Department of Education is a favorite target--what about the Department of Labor? Agriculture? Energy? How about the Environmental Protection Agency?
I'm asking these questions because the Tea Bagger crowd has gotten a pass from the media on all of them. Nobody has pressed for specifics on what the Tea Baggers would actually do if they got control of government. All we've heard is "anger" and "constitution."
Well, I'm angry. And I demand answers. Anyone care to step up?
Most of the Tea Baggers are absolutely livid over the national debt, but they were never angry before January 2009. Why did they become so angry then? A lot of them say that FoxNews "opened their eyes." And I believe that, because FoxNews acted like the national debt didn't exist between January 2001 and January 2009.
Along with their alarm over the size of the national debt, Tea Baggers are apoplectic about the rate of spending. Again, spending didn't seem to concern them before the current president was sworn in. So they're very concerned about the spending in "Obamacare," even though they didn't raise a fuss in 2003 when a Republican Congress passed Medicare Part D.
Sigh.
Finally, driven in part by their concern that "Obamacare" flies in the face of the United States Constitution, Tea Baggers want us to return to the "constitutional basics." Got it?
All those concerns have the Tea Bag crowd angry. They're really angry. And they want their country back. Okay, but I have some questions for them. I'd like to know specifically what they plan to do with their country once they get it back. After all, I live here too.
So, for any Tea Baggers who care to answer, what exactly do you mean by returning to the basics of the Constitution? Do you want to go back to the 13 original states? Can you name the 13 original states? Hint: Florida wasn't one of them.
Would you favor the repeal of the 17th amendment to the Constitution? That's the one that gave us direct election of U.S. Senators--before that amendment, state legislators picked the Senate's members.
What about the 19th amendment? That's the one that gave women the right to vote. A return to constitutional basics would mean that white land owners are the only Americans who could vote.
You want to cut back on "runaway spending," so what spending would you cut? Social Security? Medicare? Highway and other transportation spending (including federal subsidies for airports?)? Weapons programs that the Pentagon doesn't want, even if they provide jobs in Republican districts?
Would you get rid of federal departments and agencies in your quest to cut spending? Which ones? The Department of Education is a favorite target--what about the Department of Labor? Agriculture? Energy? How about the Environmental Protection Agency?
I'm asking these questions because the Tea Bagger crowd has gotten a pass from the media on all of them. Nobody has pressed for specifics on what the Tea Baggers would actually do if they got control of government. All we've heard is "anger" and "constitution."
Well, I'm angry. And I demand answers. Anyone care to step up?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Just a Pound Puppy
Rachel Ray once referred to herself as a “pound puppy.”
Sh was describing her lack of a pedigree in the form of culinary school training. The situation that brought it up was chopping onions in front of a live audience. Seems Rachel chops onions the way your mom does, not the way a trained chef does.
The other day I got to thinking of myself as a pound puppy. Not that I lack a pedigree; I have a Master’s degree, after all. No, it’s because of my fondness for all types of writing.
A coworker and I were discussing an assignment I’d just received. It’s a technical writing assignment, and my coworker mentioned his disdain for that sort of work.
“I can do technical writing,” he said “I’ve done it, I’ve studied it, but I really don’t want to do it at this point in my life.”
We both spend most of our time at work writing various marketing materials, from brochures to websites to whatever else is needed. I really enjoy those writing projects. I also enjoy writing a good user manual or a solid proposal in response to an RFP.
I love writing. It continues to knock me out that I make my living by writing stuff.
So I don’t mind that my body of work lacks any sort of pedigree. I suppose that makes me a pound puppy. And that’s okay with me, as long as I get to keep writing.
Sh was describing her lack of a pedigree in the form of culinary school training. The situation that brought it up was chopping onions in front of a live audience. Seems Rachel chops onions the way your mom does, not the way a trained chef does.
The other day I got to thinking of myself as a pound puppy. Not that I lack a pedigree; I have a Master’s degree, after all. No, it’s because of my fondness for all types of writing.
A coworker and I were discussing an assignment I’d just received. It’s a technical writing assignment, and my coworker mentioned his disdain for that sort of work.
“I can do technical writing,” he said “I’ve done it, I’ve studied it, but I really don’t want to do it at this point in my life.”
We both spend most of our time at work writing various marketing materials, from brochures to websites to whatever else is needed. I really enjoy those writing projects. I also enjoy writing a good user manual or a solid proposal in response to an RFP.
I love writing. It continues to knock me out that I make my living by writing stuff.
So I don’t mind that my body of work lacks any sort of pedigree. I suppose that makes me a pound puppy. And that’s okay with me, as long as I get to keep writing.
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