Craig's Corner

The Pope has been in the news this week.   Not all that surprising with Christmas being celebrated around the globe.   His Highness's high profile pardon made the bulk of the news coverage.    According to CNN : “ Pope Benedict XVI has pardoned his former butler, Paolo Gabriele, weeks after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking the pope's private papers .”   The Pope’s visit to the prison and his forgiveness of a long trusted ally nicely echo’d the spirit of Christmas.   The Pope even set up the Gabriele family with a new house and a stipend for the rest of his life.   That loving gesture is applied far too selectively by his Emminence. The Pontiff’s annual Christmas message to the world is one of the most important and listened to speeches of the year.   Per the Huffington Post :     “ He dedicated [his Christmas message] this year to promoting traditional family values in the face of gains by same-sex marriage proponents in the U.S. and Europe.   Be

Somewhere around age 10 I wrote a newsletter to family and friends and called it Here, There & Everywhere.   I’d ditto copy it on the machine at Dad’s school and mail it.   I can’t quite remember all the details, but I vaguely recall charging a subscription rate.   The originals are safely ensconced in a box in a storage facility somewhere in Southern California, but the ethos lives on.   The goal of that enterprise was to have entertaining and interesting tidbits that would interest readers.   A lot of things have changed since then, but today’s media environment requires even more effort to grab people’s attention, whether it be a family newsletter, a blog or mass media. Being able to multi-task and manage a variety of things simultaneously is a given in today’s fast paced world.   It’s interesting in a world that is more fractured, with more demands on our focus and attention that the media landscape has become more singularly focused.   Looking back over the p

HGTV’s “ Color Splash ” has been on the air since 2007 – transforming bland spaces into festive rooms thanks to the innovative use of color.   It’s often over the top, but an amusing distraction.   I don’t think host David Bromstad has ever used Tangerine Tango, the 2012's color of the year.   2013 is the year of emerald.    Pantione determines the color for each year – they are (per their site) “…known worldwide as the standard language for color communication from designer to manufacturer to retailer to customer.” Who knew?  Color me educated. Green M&M’s became developed a mythology that they were an aphrodisiac.   Green is also known as the color of envy and jealousy making it an interesting juxtaposition with the candy legend.   In fact, color has an entire psychology around it.   Studies have also been done on the impact of human behavior as it relates to color.   Given the identical set of information, people react one way if something is set against one color

In the sea of $16.3 trillion of debt that grows by another $3.5 billion each day ($1.3 trillion each year) – Congress has an innovative solution:   do away with the $1 bill.    Of course this issue isn’t really related to the debt – but I found it amusing with all of the fervor of the supposed fiscal cliff (that I earlier wrote is really a bump in the road ) there was actually a Congressional sub-committee that once again wants to replace the dollar with a coin.   They can’t seem to figure out how to balance the books - but let's focus on paper money and whether to dump the penny. Retire the Penny is a website sponsored by citizens who want to abolish the one cent piece.   The most obvious justification is that it costs 2.4 cents to produce each penny.   Each year it costs $120 million to produce currency that is worth $50 million.   Nickels are even worse – at a cost of more than 11 cents per. The Mint provided the sub-committee with a promise that they wil

I like planning ahead.   I get that from my Mom, not so much from my Dad who would inevitably be planning his lesson plan right up to the moment when the bell for class would ring.   I was also never a Boy Scout, well, at least in the official sense!  Being prepared is probably a control issue –if things are set up in advance then I have a higher likelihood of knowing the outcome.   Of course that’s a myth, but it makes me feel better.   When I see other people who plan ahead I generally have a positive reaction of a like minded soul.   That wasn’t the case with the planning that happened around the recent Presidential election. It was terribly amusing and a little bit embarrassing when Mitt Romney’s President-Elect website went live after he had conceded the election.   It became a metaphor for what didn’t work about his candidacy.   Humorous as it may be that the site went live when it shouldn’t have, it is comforting to know that there was planning going on in the event that

The potential death of the Twinkie has captured the imagination of the American media.   Like the snack cake itself the company is well beyond its expiration date.   Despite some hyperventilating this situation again proves Mark Twain’s famous saying:   “Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.”   It’s the type of story that seems tailor made for today’s media culture – no matter what your perspective there’s good guys and there are bad guys and the loser is nostalgia. Since its founding in 1930 the company has undergone more than 25 mergers and acquisitions, the first in 1937.   This activity indicates that from its inception the company has undergone significant and near constant change in its corporate structure and ownership as a variety of individuals, companies and conglomerates have attempted to maximize profits from the various breads and snacks they make and sell.   Despite America’s nostalgia for their products, this has never been a family run affair. The

The pundits and politicians are hyperventilating about “the fiscal cliff” as if the end of civilization is at stake.   It’s not a cliff at all – more like a pothole.   The Federal Government has been spending more than it brings in for generations.   As part of a bipartisan agreement in August 2011 Congress and the President agreed to raise the so-called ‘debt ceiling’ to meet the ongoing spending deficit only if certain ‘draconian’ cuts kicked in starting in 2013.   The theory was that the cuts would be so unpalatable politically that the politicians would have no choice but to compromise.   It’s these very cuts that Congress and the President agreed to that they are now saying are going to destabilize the western world and the global economy which is, of course, not quite true. The approx. $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts and the expiration of the Bush-Obama tax breaks to the rich would have a significant impact on the U.S. economy if they all happened at once, which is

This week most American’s ‘gained’ an hour with the end of Daylight Savings time.   The ‘additional’ hour provided many the ability to get some more sleep but it doesn’t solve the fact that part of the US is always ahead of the rest of it.   For those of us who like to be in the know as events happen, some events happen in real time while others are held with the hope that those in different time zones won’t need a spoiler alert. Major cultural or sporting events have an accommodation where people simply adjust to realities of a varied timeline.   Many reality competition shows are tape delayed to keep with the structure of prime time viewing habits.   ‘Major events’ are different.   The Oscars are presented in Los Angeles with people arriving on the red carpet at 4pm in the afternoon so that the show can begin at 5 – or at 8pm on the East Coast.   To do the show at the traditional 8pm on the West Coast would mean that a large part of the country wouldn’t see it since it wou

It’s raining, It’s Pouring. This old man was snoring.   I was fortunate that the Superstorm Sandy had nary an impact on me – other than a deluge while walking the dogs.   ( That happened in St. Paul too, but that soaking came with a sound and light show.)   Sandy’s devastation has been significant – and the most telling impact is in how people prepared.   Some got water, prepped food, put out sand bags, etc.   Others, like me, went to great efforts to make sure that the laptop, the phone and the Kindle were charged.   I even have a hand crank gizmo that I can wind up to generate a charge for a device. Approx. 8.2 million households went dark during the height of the storm – and huge numbers of people won’t see power return for days or even weeks.   Hollywood has kept us entertained over the years imagining a world without electricity. Reality is the scariest storyline of all. The U.S. electric grid is described as a “complex matrix of transmission and distribution lines.”

I just dispatched my ballot back to the registrar – and for longtime readers it will not come as a surprise that I have voted Libertarian .   Over the years as I’ve proudly voted twice for Harry Browne (RIP) once for Michael Badnarik, held my nose voting for Bob Barr and just ticked for Gary Johnson.   While it’s nice to be enthusiastic about the individual carrying the torch, I vote not for the person, but for the party.   Rather old fashioned, and not at all consistent with today’s personality driven campaigns.   Since my candidate (and party) is going to lose, is my vote a waste? Voting matters.   It makes a statement.   It’s not about whose going to win.   That’s a sporting match.   Voting for a party (or a person) that aligns with your own beliefs cannot be a waste.   There are six candidates who have qualified on the California ballot for President.   Only two of them will have gotten any substantive media analysis and coverage – with the former being pretty superficial.  

I am both for death and against death this election season.   Californians will vote on Proposition34 that would abolish the death penalty.   In Massachusetts Question 2 would permit assisted suicide (under a whole range of rules and conditions, like in Portland, OR).   I would vote to allow individuals and their families to choose a dignified death while I oppose state sanctioned death.   The two ballot choices have death in common, what matters is who makes the decision. My father and I had many conversations over the years about dying.   Some were esoteric intellectual musings that disintegrated into rambling diatribes about the meaning of life.   In later years after his stroke the discussions became more personal.   I researched and studied all of the various options and we corresponded regularly about it.   There were two conversations in this process that remain with me.   One was sitting at the Dining Room table with both my parents filling out a very det

Pigs are flying.   Wonders have ceased.   Hell must have frozen over.   The United States Congress has investigated a government agency and issued a damning indictment .   The Homeland Security & Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations criticized counter terrorism reporting and found significant examples of waste, fraud and abuse. “It’s troubling that the very ‘fusion’ centers that were designed to share information in a post-9/11 world have become part of the problem. Instead of strengthening our counterterrorism efforts, they have too often wasted money and stepped on Americans’ civil liberties,” said Senator Tom Coburn, the Subcommittee’s ranking member who initiated the investigation. Examples of the fusion center difficulties (from the report): •                    Blaming a Russian for hacking into the Springfield IL Water District's systems. It was actually an employee logging in while vacationing in Russia. •                    Impl