What’s shakin? Bacon!

I heard somewhere that the one food item that vegetarians found most difficult to part with was not the lofty filet mignon, or the humble hamburger, or even the eponymous main ingredient (after water) of chicken soup. Nope, what the meatless crave most is bacon.

Who can blame them?

Is there a better get-you-out-of-bed-in-the-morning smell than that wafting out of the frying pan, where a rasher or two (okay, why stop at two?) of bacon is popping and sizzling away in its own grease?

Is there any other ingredient that can so radically improve the most pedestrian of salads, going above and beyond what walnuts, dried cranberries, gorgonzola or barley are capable of?

Does anything hit the tummy spot faster on a summer afternoon than a BLT made with a fresh-picked tomato that actually smells, looks, and tastes like a tomato, not one of those pulpy pink substitutes that comes in the little plastic tray surrounded by cellophane?*

I am apparently not alone in my fondness for bacon:

In the past decade, bacon has grown into an industry generating more than $4 billion in annual sales. It has moved from a breakfast meat to a food trend touching an incredible array of consumer goods, both edible and not, from bacon-heavy fast-food burgers and bacon-infused desserts at fine dining restaurants to bottles of bacon-distilled vodka and even a sexual lubricant formulated to smell (and taste) like bacon. More than cupcakes, ramen, or kale, bacon has become the defining food trend of a society obsessed with food trends. (Source: Business Week)

Well, I don’t know about bacon-infused desserts, let alone about any bacon-ish sexual lubricant. (Sounds pretty ghastly to me.)

But I certainly can see that it would become more of a trend than the others.

Cupcakes I love. I have a niece who specializes in decorator cupcakes, and she’s come up with some great ones for family events over the last few years.

Last weekend, I went to a wedding that did without a wedding cake, and served cupcakes instead.

But I still don’t think that all these cupcake shops that have sprung up over the last few years are going to last. I know that one small chain – Crumbs? – went bust recently. And I just don’t see that the business model of selling cupcakes only is built to last. (For the record, there are at least four cupcake shops within a 10 minute walk of my home and, yes, I do occasionally buy cupcakes.)

Ramen I don’t see so much as a trend as it is an economic reality. Just as every young person who comes to Boston lives at some point in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood, so, too, does everyone who’s ever been a student go through a ramen phase. And it’s always good to have a package or two on hand when you only have five minutes to make yourself dinner and/or you have a salt craving and you don’t happen to have a deer lick nearby.

As for kale, I would characterize it as a crusade rather than a trend. I don’t mind kale, but I won’t go out of my way for it, and I prefer the ornamental variety to the edible.

Other food trends that are out there are food trucks, specialty coffees, Greek yogurt, and craft beer.

What sets bacon apart, trend-wise, is its origins.

Unlike most food trends, which start with the high-end foodie and/or hipster markets and find their way into the mainstream, bacon was in the mass market to begin with. And its boom isn’t being credited to some fancy-(checked-)pants TV chef coming up with bacon-infused anything. 

I’d never thought about the bacon market one way or the other, but it has historically been seasonal, peaking in the summer when BLT-lovers had access to the real-deal Ts:

When the tomatoes ran out by October, bacon retreated to the breakfast table till the next summer. The pork belly futures contract was born at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1961 as a result of this cycle: Farmers with an excess supply of pork bellies sold them to cold storage warehouses, thus locking in a price long before tomato season hit. Pork belly traders made money speculating on the spread between the price of bellies on those contracts and the price they got when they finally sold the frozen meat to a smokehouse, where it was made into bacon.

Who knew? Other than pork belly traders on the Chicago Merc…

Anyway, things chugged along, bacon-wise, until:

…the 1980s when powerful health and diet trends transformed the American food industry. Based on evidence that saturated fat and cholesterol were at the core of everything from heart health and obesity to cancer rates, eating lean became the collective mantra, and the food world responded by marketing to fat phobia. Diet sodas became the rage, margarine replaced butter everywhere, and the words “Fat Free” could sell a car. Bacon, which is essentially two-thirds fat, was doomed. “First the fat scare began, and then the nitrate scare,” recalls [Joe] Leathers [late of Hormel]. “That was big. That was really the first food scare. I’ll bet you bacon sales fell off 35-40 percent.”

Fear of fatness prompted the pork industry to come up with its “Other White Meat” campaign. Which was such a hit, it turned people further off of bacon. In fact, just as “we” did with cigarettes, pork producers – stuck with all those warehouses full of pork bellies no one wanted – started to export pork bellies. And:

…farmers tried to salvage what they could from leaner loins and chops by breeding thinner, more muscular pigs.

But there’s only so thin and muscular a pig can go, and there’s no doing away with the fact that,one way or another, a pig’s going to have a belly.

So pork farmers started pressing their industry to put less focus on the Other White Meat, and more on bacon.

They [Pork Board marketers] came up with a plan to reposition bacon as a “flavor enhancer” to the restaurant industry, because there was a greater chance of diners accepting bacon when they ate out.

And they also went after fast food, encouraging them to start adding bacon to burgers. This eventually took off thanks to improvements in precooked bacon technology, which yielded bacon that actually tasted like bacon, without the risk and bother of cooking bacon (grease fires, disposal).

One thing led to another, and:

“Around 2000 is when bacon became the third condiment behind salt and pepper.”

I don’t know about that, but all of a sudden pork bellies were bringing home the bacon, and the Pork Board shelved the Other White Meat strategy in favor or “Bacon Makes It Better.”

Which some top chefs decided was true. So they started adding it. (Someone had to be the first person to wrap a scallop in bacon.)

Then social media started spreading the word, and the word was bacon.

By 2008, bacon had completed its journey from an ignored, unwanted meat to a viral meme—the edible equivalent of cat videos. That year, according to the website Babycenter, 11 out of every million babies born in America were named Bacon.

Well, I suspect, or at least hope, that Bacon in these 11 in a million cases is a family name. As in Roger, or Francis, or Kevin.

In any case, we’re apparently on a health-be-damned bacon tear.

And it’s no wonder.

Let’s face it. One thing about bacon, it does make a lot of things better.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Actually, the answer is, yes, there is an even better bacon-based sandwich, and that’s the Gus.

Invented over 50 years ago by my brother Tom (a.k.a., Gus) and me, the Gus is easy-peasy to make, and may well be the best sandwich ever. A Gus is composed of bacon, lettuce, cheese, and kosher dill pickle, served on pumpernickel slathered with mayo.

Now, the original recipe called for American cheese and white sandwich bread, which were staples Chez Rogers, but, as tastes evolved, so did the Gus. Pumpernickel subs for the white bread of yore, and Cheddar is preferable (and more likely to be on hand) than American. Iceberg lettuce, however, was the original and, when it comes to the Gus, still the greatest.

I don’t indulge in a Gus all that often – far less frequently than I make myself a PBJ. But, when it comes to sandwiches, it’s still the one.

If you want to be Disney, well…

I once worked for a small software firm that had it’s eyes on the prize of becoming “the next billion dollar software company.” (Actually, saying that I “once worked for” this outfit makes it sound like I was in and out. In fact, I spent the better part of a decade there.) I joined in 1990, and, at the point, the billion dollar software company was Microsoft.

To say that we never quite reached our lofty goal is, ahem, an understatement.

I believe that we peaked at stated revenue of $40M, but this number was reached only because our ultra-crazy, ultra-conniving CEO counted money he managed to personally suck out of our investors as revenue. In actuality, I believe that our high water mark in terms of revenue earned the old fashioned way, by actually selling goods and services, was close to $10M. A far piece from $1B.

But a man’s reach – and a company’s, too – should exceed his grasp and all that.

Rovio, like my little software company, has a BIG AMBITION.

And their BIG AMBITION is not to be the next Microsoft. It’s to be the next Disney.

But Angry Birds has, apparently, been trying to build its empire one angry bird at a time. And it’s not working out quite as well as they wanted. As of last week, the company was mulling lay-offs of one-sixth of its workforce.

It’s been clear for some time that the best days for Rovio’s original business—smartphone games—were probably behind it. The premier Angry Birds game peaked in 2012, and the company’s decision to use the same characters in new titles hasn’t produced any blockbusters. Neither of its two newer releases, the racing game Angry Birds Go! or a game aimed at girls called Angry Birds Stella, are among the 250 highest-grossing smartphone games in the U.S. (Source: Business Week.)

(As an aside, it’s actually pretty stunning that there are enough smartphone games out there that someone keeps track of the 250 highest-grossing ones, isn’t it? Sometimes, I do just have to show my age. Say it loud, say it proud: I’m an old geezer.)

Apparently, Rovio hasn’t been able to keep up with changes in smartphone gaming, namely a shift to no upfront fee, but charging “for extra lives or other digital merchandise within the games themselves.”

(As an aside, I can’t imagine paying for digital merchandise, unless it’s something consumable, like a book, a song, or a greeting card. Sometimes, I do just have to show my age. Say it loud, say it proud: I’m an old geezer.)

What Rovio has done to rev up its revenue is to expand in physical merchandise – surely you’ve seen at least one kiddo with an Angry Birds backpack – and is working on a movie.

This isn’t all that terrible a strategy, at least in the short term. Consumer products now make up nearly half of Rovio’s revenue.

But here’s the thing.

Not only didn’t the Disney Empire get to be the Disney Empire overnight. It also didn’t do it by relying solely on Mickey Mouse, which was, more or less, Disney’s Angry Bird.

Within a few years, Disney had introduced a few more characters who became staples, including Donald Duck.

And it branched out into non-Mickey, non-Donald cartoons, like the Three Little Pigs. (Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?) Not to mention full length features: Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Fantasia, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan. 

Beyond Mickey Mouse watches, I don’t know how much merchandising was initially done around any of the characters in these movies, but, with the exception of Fantasia, they all had merchandisable characters, most of which have stood the test of time. Stuffed Dopey doll, anyone?

By the mid-fifties, Disney had a TV show – The Mickey Mouse Club – and the merchandising had definitely begun. (C.f., Davey Crockett coonskin caps.)

Disney also started producing full length “real” movies, like Old Yeller. (“Here, Yeller. Come back, Yeller. Best doggoned dog in the west.”)

Then Disneyland opened. The opening was, I believe, televised. It might have been brought to us in The Wonderful World of Color, which was the Disney Sunday night show for years, but in our house, I was watching the opening of Disneyland in black and white. Which was still plenty enthralling.

All this is to say that the Disney Empire wasn’t built on Mickey Mouse’s narrow little shoulders alone.

From the get-go, Disney was adding away.

The kid who hated Donald Duck might like Scrooge McDuck.

If you thought Bambi was a sap, you could fall in love with Dumbo.

All those Mouseketeers to develop a crush on. (My heart throb was Tim Considine, the cutie-pie who “starred” in Disney’s Spin and Marty series.)

And so on down to every little boy in the world wanting to be Buzz Lightyear, and brides-to-be wanting to wear a gown just like Princess Elsa’s in Frozen. 

Angry Birds?

I suppose you can vary the color and the expression a bit, but, basically, yawn.

I’m no business genius, but the way to build a Disney Empire is to do what old Walt did: experiment and diversify.

As Walt’s Cinderella taught us, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”

But a business, it seems to me, is a wish your brain makes. (That and a little bit of luck…)

Please make sure all personal items are stowed in the bicycle basket, take your feet off the brakes, and prepare for landing

Throughout our many years together, my husband and I had a couple of prime travel destinations. Foremost over the years was New York City, the place where, in fact, Jim would have preferred we live.

In our early days, we often took the long-gone Eastern Shuttle, which ran pretty much every hour and required no reservations. You just showed up and Eastern pretty much guaranteed that if you didn’t get on the first flight, they’d put on a “second section” for the overflow passengers. We used to lollygag around the waiting area, hoping that there’d be a second section, and that we’d get on it. This was because the second section was often an older plane that featured this sort of living room configuration where you sat face to face opposite your seat-mate. It looked more like what you’d find in a comfy train compartment rather than what you’d find on a plane.

I’m sure that they were the standard airplane seats of the time, but I kind of remember them as cushy arm chairs.

Of course, compared to today’s steerage class seats, they were cushy arm chairs.

And those skimpy, narrow-gauge crammed-in seats may be going to go from bad to worse.

Some economy-class seats have already lost about 30% of their weight in the past 10 to 20 years, says René Dankwerth of RECARO, a seat-maker. But there is scope to do more: padding is being made thinner by replacing foam with netting; reclining mechanisms are being removed from some short-haul planes. Most of the extra room thus created is used to squeeze in extra rows of seats.

Skift, a research firm, notes that this has prompted a seating war among the planemakers. First, Airbus increased capacity on its A320 short-haul plane from 180 to 189 to match that of Boeing’s 737. Boeing responded with a new, 200-seater 737. So Airbus is now promising a 240-seater. The new planes will be no longer than their older versions.(Source: The Economist)

But wait, there’s more. Or less. Because there are only so many ways to cram more seats in to a fixed amount of space. And the answer on how to do so isn’t all that obvious or easy. This is not the airline equivalent of asking Sarah Tucker how to make “pudding in a cloud.” This is a tough one. And Airbus, bless their body-packin’ little hearts, has come up with one possibility. The company:

… has patented a bicycle-style seat on which air passengers would perch rather than sit.

If you’re wondering what this might look like, Business Insider dug up the patent application for us:

Airbus knows that being stuck in a cramped space on a plane is uncomfortable, and admitted as much in the patent filing. But the company apparently believes passengers would be willing to handle the discomfort in exchange for a cheap flight.

"[To maximize financial returns on aircraft for low-cost airlines], the number of seats in a cabin must be increased, to the detriment of the comfort of the passengers," stated Airbus in the patent filing. "However, this reduced comfort is tolerable for passengers in as much as the flight lasts one or a few hours."  (Source: Business Insider)

I guess this will preclude the heavy-set from flying, since they would no longer be able to buy the adjacent seat. I guess this would preclude folks flying with babies, unless they wanted to bring along the kiddie-carrier seats they used on their own bikes. I guess this would preclude any passengers “requiring special assistance” – who’s going to help granny up and down off her bicycle seat? I guess this would preclude anyone getting any work done, grazing the Sky Mall catalog, or just taking a nap. Or enjoying a pack or pretzels and a shorty can of apple juice.

But at least you wouldn’t have to worry about the passenger in front of you relaxing his seat back into your lap. And it would only be for a flight lasting only one “or a few” hours.

What next?

Strap-hanging? Piling folks up like stacks of cordwood? Offering baggage-class, in which passengers could opt to fly in the cargo hold?

If they stick with the bicycle seat approach, maybe they could add pedals, and have passengers pedal to keep the cabin lights on. They could award “persistent pedaler” miles.

Admittedly, Airbus may never actually put this plan into action. But at least they’ve got the specs ready if they need them.

Me? I might just stay at home from now on.

Brookstone to the rescue

Pink Slip has been a long-time fan of Sky Mall, and was quite disturbed last spring when the rumor mill had it that they might be closing up their highly entertaining and eccentric shop.

Since that terrible news broke – say it ain’t so! – I’ve flown a few times, and was very grateful to see that fabulous catalog tucked in the pocket of the seat in front of me. Not that I’ve ever actually purchased anything from Sky Mall, mind you. But just to see what I’m missing. Oh, what a relief it is!

I was also relieved to get a Brookstone catalog in the mail the other day.

Actually, it came addressed to my husband, who was quite a Brookstone fan, especially when you take into account that he was one of the least materialistic, least shopaholic people I know. (I would say that he was the least, but then my brother Rich comes to mind…)

Over the years, we got a few items from Brookstone.

Our Tempur-Pedic mattress and pillows. A couple of fans. A clock-thermometer combo. A tiny ceramic heater. An air filter gizmo. The occasional gift item. And, quite infamously, a massage chair that I finally made Jim get rid of.

Brookstone was one of the few stores that Jim actually enjoyed browsing around in.

And I always considered it fairly high end.

Then I opened the catalog…

All I can say is that they seem to be giving Sky Mall a run for its money.

No, I’m not talking about those plushy robes that look an awful lot like a Snuggie. Or all those, ahem, “personal” massagers that I don’t remember ever seeing on the shelves when Jim and I strolled around a Brookstone store. That stupid looking wine and snack tray. Or even the cordless, Pre-lit Cone and Berry Kissing Ball with Hanging Chain.

No, what I am talking about is the Drop Shots Magnetic Beer and Shot Glass Set.

What, you may be asking yourself, is this one for.

Well, if you really want to know:

Finally, a way to drink boilermakers, depth charges and other shot-infused drinks without having the shot glass fall back and hit you in the face.

How do they do it?

The shot glass has a magnetic bottom that sticks to the magnetic bottom of the beer glass.

Only $29.99 for a set of two. (Come on, who wants to drink a boilermaker on their own?)

Seriously, is this really a problem?

Seems to me that if you’re drinking boilermakers to begin with, you’re probably not all that concerned if a shot glass drops out and smacks you in the nose.

Use Drop Shots to make: Boilermakers, Sake Bombs, Skittle Bombs, and More…

But don’t forget to:

Drink responsibly.

Sure thing.

Then there’s some kind of apparatus (also $29.99) that lets you chill a single bottle of beer. And for those beer drinkers of the can persuasion – and with a few more bucks to indulge their drink accoutrement needs – there’s the Outlaw Beer Holster ($34.99).

Clips to pants. In Black, Brown, and Pink.

Oh, sure, thanks for the pink version. But no Hello Kitty?

Then there’s something that I’m not quite sure what it’s used for.

It’s called Slot Shots, and it’s a divided shot glass (two slots or three slots), enabling you to “pour different ingredients into separate compartments for amazing drink infusions.”

I’m all in favor of oddball mixed drinks, and love looking at the oddball mixed drink menu when I go out.

But do you need a divided shot glass to make one?

And what do you call a drink that combines scotch and gin in equal parts, which is one of the “recipes” on the coasters that come with the divided shot glasses? Sounds pretty nauseating to me.

I don’t mean to be picking on the drink-related items. Not at all.

It’s not as if I’m some sort of Carrie Nation.

So I’ll move on to Perfect Bake, a $69.99 baking set – three bowls, a scale, an oven thermometer, and a tablet stand that comes with a free app that coaches you through the baking process.

The recipe being demonstrated is the one for chocolate chip cookies that comes on the back of the Nestlé's chocolate bits package.

I have three bowls, a scale, and an oven thermometer that I paid nowhere near $69.99 for, and, seriously, who needs “real-time baking instructions” for chocolate chip cookies. Just follow the recipe on the back of the package.

And I don’t see the point of the Hickies Elastic Lacing System that “turns your shoes into slippers” by replacing the laces with multi-colored elastics. Seems to me that, if you don’t have your slippers with you, you can just uses those sneakers as sneakers as, well, slippers. (Or is this just another way for grown-ups to weasel out of teaching their kids to tie their shoes?)

I will say that the 3Doodler, “The World’s First 3D Drawing Pen”, caught my eye. Looks like a lot of fun – and only $99.99.

Why do I think that my personal 3Doodles would look nothing like the scooter, dog, glasses, or bicycle?

Mine would, no doubt, look like a messy blob of melted crayons.

Still, it was the one Sky Mall type item that was actually of interest.

Not that I’m going to order anything, but note to Brookstone: please keep sending that catalog along.

I just had to laugh…

I suspect that it will be quite a while before I stop getting mail addressed to my husband.

In truth, I don’t want it to stop.

I like looking through his alumni rags from Rutgers and Harvard.

I like thumbing through the catalogs that come in his name.

I like seeing his name in print, even when it’s on junk mail that gets his last name wrong. (I.e., uses mine.)

And some of that junk mail just brings a crazy smile to my face.

As in the missive received the other day from Glen’s Custom Tailors (H.K.) Ltd, The Suit Connoisseurs, offering my late husband “luxury at an affordable price.”

I just had to laugh, as would anyone who knew Jim and his sartorial habits.

I am no one’s idea of a fashionista, but Jim made me look like I’m besties with Anna Wintour.

Where to begin with Diggy’s closet?

He owned one suit, worn for the last time to a wedding in 2011. That suit was a very good one, but it was probably 30 years old.

Jim had had it tailored a few times, as even before he became ill he had decided to lower his BMI a bit and dropped down a size or two. But, hey it was a sack suit, and as long as the jacket and pants were taken in, and taken in, it looked like a reasonably well-fitting sack suit.

Jim wore the suit with one of his Brooks Brothers dress shirts, and a tie I brought for the occasion.

Although he seldom wore one, Jim had  a few decent ties, including a bowtie that I actually managed to tie once. We were heading out to dinner at a Fancy French Restaurant in NYC, back in the day when you had to get dressed up to dine at a Fancy French Restaurant in NYC. I think the restaurant was La Caravelle.

Anyway, it took me forever to tie that bowtie – we had to call the restaurant a couple of time to push our reservation out a bit – but I final succeeded. Unfortunately, it was only after I’d completed the job that I realized Id been following the instructions for the little boy version. Oh, well. It was a tie. It was tied. And Jim looked cute.

In addition to his suit, and those ties, Jim had a couple of sports jackets – one Navy blue (what else), the other an Irish tweed (what else).

In addition to whatever Brooks Brother’s shirt Jim wore to that wedding, he had a few other dress shirts (mostly from Brooks Brothers) and a handful of  more casual long-sleeved and short sleeved collared shirts (mostly from L.L. Bean). Plus a bunch of polo shirts – logo-wear I cadged from clients, or ones I ordered from L.L. Bean.

I knew that those shirts were still hanging in his closet –  I’m hanging on to them, and suspect I will to infinity and beyond; they’re mine to have and to hold, for better or worse (as with most of Jim’s clothing, they lean to the worse side). But I was surprised that his suit and sports coats are still here. I thought I’d given those to St. Francis House. (Tomorrow they go to the dry cleaners.)

Jim also had a couple of pairs of wool slacks, a couple of pairs of khakis, and a couple of pairs of jeans. A spring jacket; a rain parka (corporate swag from my corporate days); and a parka.

He owned one pair of sneakers; one pair of casual shoes; one pair of dress shoes; and one pair of boots. Two belts. A summer hat (white cotton), and a wool scally cap.

As with any of his clothing items, these were replaced when they were falling apart and no longer capable of repair.

Although Jim generally watched out for his footwear – if he had a flapping sole, he went to the cobbler - I was generally the one to force the clothing retirement issue – from socks and undies to dress shirts. I would hold up some near-rag item - a frayed shirt, holey sock, stretched out Jockey shorts - and ask him why he hadn’t tossed it out. He would just shrug and say, “I thought you would.”

It goes without saying that Jim hated to shop. And when, on occasion I brought something new home for him (other than something free with a corporate logo on it, which he always liked to see coming), he always insisted that he had more than enough clothing.

Honestly, Jim would have been just as happy living in the Old West where, from what I take from the costumes on Bonanza and Gunsmoke, men were issued one outfit when they reached adulthood, and that one outfit took them through the remainder of their life. (Or at least for the duration of the TV show’s run.)

For the last year or so of he life, Jim mostly wore comfy pants – pull on exercise pants, nylon or fleece; comfy shirts – polo shirts, the softer the better; sweat shirts; and fleece tops. That and heavy socks.

After his death, I laundered everything that was decent and that I thought a homeless person could use and brought it over to St. Francis House.

I threw out the undies and anything that was not even rag-bag worthy.

I will now add figuring out what to do with the rest to my to-do list.

But the thought of Jim’s name finding its way onto a mailing list for a bespoke tailor who’s going to be in Boston for a few days in a few weeks…Even though, given he had absolutely no butt to speak of, and could definitely have used a pair or two of bespoke pants.

Well, I just had to laugh.

Something sure gang agley with our Secret Service

Over the years, I’ve worked in plenty of chaotic, dysfunctional organizations – organizations where things slipped through the cracks, where warning signs were ignored, where morale was abysmal, where people on all levels were acting out, where folks on the lower rungs eventually gave up trying to tell those on the upper rungs that things were gang agley.

And you know what?

Most of these organizations are long gone.

But it doesn’t take someone who punched many a clock in an f’d up organization to recognize that there is something terribly wrong with the Secret Service.

There’s no doubt in my mind that members of this service have a difficult job to do. It’s tense – especially if you’re charged with protecting the President or the VP. It’s demanding – especially if you’re charged with protecting the President or the VP. And, I’m guessing, not spectacularly well-paid.

Oh, yes, and – especially if you’re charged with protecting the President or the VP – you’re expected to quite literally take a bullet if one comes their way, or the way of their wives and kids.

Secret Service agents – at least the ones that are on protection detail vs. those who track down bogus $20 bills – have a tough and dangerous job, one that I suspect is, plenty of the time, plenty boring.

A few years back, the big scandal was that some of the agents were consorting with prostitutes during a Presidential visit to Colombia.

Well, that’s starting to look like good clean fun.

What can we say about the fact that, a few years back, some a-hole fired shots at the White House, hitting a window in the family quarters when one of the Obama girls and her grandmother were there.  Bad enough that this a-hole got close enough to fire shots at the White House.  But to wait a few days to actually notice that the White House was shot at? And to have the person notice be a housekeeper who found broken glass and crumbling plaster?

The Secret Service initially chalked what might have been the sound of shots being fired to a car backfiring.

Now, I don’t know all that much about cars’ backfiring, but I think it pretty much went the way of the Beverly Hillbillies’ jalopy once the catalytic converter was introduced.

Fast forward a couple of years and some mentally imbalanced vet jumps the White House fence – bad enough – and then manages to make it all the way into the White House before someone tackled him and took him down.

I can get one guard being asleep at the wheel, but this jamoke managed to breach several supposed layers of security.

Then there’s the latest revelation that, somehow, an armed civilian managed to share an elevator car with the President on a recent trip to Atlanta. Fortunately, that civilian wasn’t in an anti-Obama and/or trigger happy mood.

Yowaa! What is up with the Secret Service?

Rarely do I agree with anything that comes out of the mouth of Congressman Darrel Issa, who seldom lets an opportunity to posture, rave, exaggerate, play fast and loose with the truth, and otherwise get his mush on the news go by. But, with Issa, “I’m extremely concerned.”

“Most organizations have acceptable losses, in other words they’re right 97 percent of the time. In the case of the Secret Service, they have to succeed 100 percent of the time,” Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on NBC’s “Nightly News” on Monday. “I’m extremely concerned.” (Source: Politico)

But I’ll give the final Congressional word to local boy-o, Congressman Stephen Lynch, D-South Boston, another pol who I don’t always agree with. These Secret Service incidents definitely got Stevie’s Irish up. In his words, “This is beyond the pale.”

Yes, I know that the Secret Service have a tough job, and a thankless one, at that.

As with so many jobs, no one notices what you’re doing one way or the other until you screw up.

But I’ve been in enough dysfunctional organizations to recognize one when I see one.

Maybe they just need a fix to their processes. Maybe they need an infusion of tech. Maybe they need a management shake-up. Maybe they need a head or two to roll – which happened yesterday, when Secret Service Director Pierson resigned.

But something’s definitely gang agley with this outfit.

But do they accept Medicare?

One of my cousins is currently on a spectacular transpacific cruise, with a mid-cruise stay in Sydney, a circumnavigation of Australia, and a flight that stops over in Dubai for a couple of days on the way home. (Another of my cousins has just finished up a one month post-retirement stay in Paris with her husband. What am I doing wrong???)

Anyway, although Dubai is all sorts of modern, and has all those wacky man-made islands, and indoor desert skiing – amazing what you can do when energy is no object – I really don’t have much interest in visiting the Mideast. (I have already confessed to my Euro-centric travel interests. No need to re-harp on it here.)

What I hadn’t realized was that, if you look beyond the wacky man-made islands and the fabulous malls, Dubai has also become something of a mecca for medical tourism.

Already one of world’s ten most visited cities, Dubai is counting on more people like [Russian Maria] Ivanova to mix their holidays with high-end treatments for a luxurious form of medical tourism, rivaling Thailand and India. Now, it’s trying to attract 500,000 such visitors, adding 2.6 billion dirhams ($708 million) to its economy by 2020, according to a Dubai Health Authority plan announced this year. (Source: Bloomberg)

A lot of that medical tourism is cosmetic in nature. Ivanova is heading there for liposuction. And, Dubai being Dubai, the hospital digs can get pretty fancy.

Other than a doctor or two, I don’t know what the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Hospital has to do with American anything. The pictures sure don’t look like anything I’ve seen in the American hospital system, that’s for sure.

 

Don’t recall anything quite like this at Mass General.

Then again, we weren’t there for liposuction or a nose job.

“The presentation and the aura are just as important as the quality of care we provide,” said Michael Stroud, chief executive officer of the hospital, the largest of its kind in the Gulf region. “We are capitalizing on Dubai’s luster.”

Me? Quality of care is actually more important than “aura”, but what do I know?

That Dubai luster does nothing for me, but I will be getting a full report from my globe-trotting cuz when she gets back. Maybe she’ll be able to convince me that it’s worth a look-see.

As for their medical tourism industry, Dubai is up against price pressure from India and Thailand, and quality competition from the U.S. and Europe. So the country – I almost typed “company’ in there -  positioning itself as the high-end, luxury choice. Which is pretty much how they position themselves as a tourist destination. After all, I don’t imagine there’s much to see or do there that doesn’t have to do with gawping at things like a really tall building, a seven-star hotel, and that indoor ski slope. That and shopping ‘til they drop. To me, it would be like visiting a Flash Gordon planet.

There’s pretty good reason underlying Dubai’s focus on cosmetic surgery. It’s kind of their starter-medical area. Excel here, and then start focusing on the boring stuff that, like, kills people.

Dubai Healthcare City representatives say its focus on elective surgeries and a plan to build a wellness center will create a niche market. It’s still working to improve its care in areas such as oncology and cardiology to keep locals from going abroad for more complicated procedures….

“With any new country, you basically build up your health system,” said Amer Ahmad Sharif, managing director of the education division at Dubai Healthcare City. “No matter what you do, there will be some specialized types of care that you will not be able to cater for at a certain volume.”

Focusing on breast implants and tummy tucks sure make an interesting way to build up your medical system, but I guess it’s where the money is.

Anyway, I recently applied for and received my Medicare card, which I can begin using in a short while.

Not that I’m necessarily looking forward to having this memento mori staring me in the face every time I look in my wallet, but, hey, even when you factor in what you pay for Part B, and top it off with supplemental Part C and Part D, I’ll still be saving a few hundred bucks a month. Which I intend to earmark for my travel fund. (Let the travel begin!)

I don’t imagine that any of that travel will be medical tourism. Am I really going to start worrying about a bumpy nose at this point?

But if I were to do some medical touring, I’m wondering whether they’ll take Medicare.

Maureen Rogers, County Whatever, Ireland

I have some friend in Ireland with whom I exchange Christmas greetings.

When I send their cards off, I am always a bit amused that a couple of them don’t have street addresses with numbers, let alone zip codes. The cards just sort of go to a neighborhood in their small towns, and somehow wend their way to the right household.

Still, when I put their cards in the mailbox, the addresses always strike me as odd and incomplete.

Like many parts of rural Ireland, the town [of Abbeyfeale, County Limerick]  doesn't use house numbers. Some addresses don't even carry street names. And unlike the rest of Europe and most of the industrialized world, Ireland also doesn't have postal codes—the equivalent of a ZIP Code in the U.S. (Source: WSJ Online)

In Abbeyfeale, despite the fact that there are several Patrick Murphys who live in the same ‘hood, mail has pretty much always made it’s way to the right Patrick Murphy.

The Abbeyfeale postman first delivered mail to the Patrick Murphy who had lived in the village the longest, and they worked it out from there.

"My neighbors would get it first," said Mr. Murphy [the relatively recent blow-in], 40 years old. "They'd have a good read, and they'd go, 'No it's probably not us.' "

Come next spring, Ireland will be implementing is first postal code system. And, in pure Irish fashion, they’ll be overcompensating:

It promises to be one of the world's most specific—assigning an individual number to every residence and business.

That is far more precise than in the U.K., where a unique code might encompass more than a dozen homes. In the U.S., a ZIP Code can include an entire town.

This sounds like Zip-Plus 4 on steroids, but I’m sure at some point it’ll be coming our way, too.

The Irish, in pure Irish fashion, are not 100% enthused about the new system.

…It's intrusive, they say. And they worry it could affect property values. It's secretly designed to make it easier to collect taxes, others allege. Some Irish citizens just want their snail mail to stay slow.

"The bloody post codes…don't start with me on those," said Grainne Kenny, 76, of Dún Laoghaire, a town southeast of Dublin. "They're a necessary evil, maybe, but I think Ireland is losing its charm. We're a small country."

Can't find the right house? "Stop somebody on the road," Ms. Kenny said. "They'll say, 'Over that hill there.' "

"It's absolutely ridiculous," said Paul Davitt, 51, whose address is simply Badger Hill, Ashford, County Wicklow. "No postmen get lost. They all know their own routes. Who's it for?"

But others are giving it a céad míle fáilte. After all, not everyone wants a parade of other Patrick Murphys making “a good read” out of your personal Patrick Murphy mail.

Every once in a while, I get an e-mail for one of the other hundred or so Maureen Rogers in the United States. One was from an Australian landscaper. Even if I had some landscaping beyond the meager front garden I tend, I wouldn’t want to be paying the travel costs of an Aussie landscaper.

But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten snail mail for another Maureen R.

Then again, we have full addresses, and postal codes. Because we’re not, like Grainne Kenny’s Ireland, a small country.

But it’s a small country that’s going to have an ultra-detailed postal code system.

One of the drivers is having a postal system that keeps up with a country that rightfully prides itself on its technology prowess:

"You're portraying yourself as a very modern, fast-moving country," Mr. [former Irish government minister Noel] Dempsey said. "You're way to the forefront in IT, and so on, and you haven't got a post-code system? Embarrassing would be the word I'd use to describe it."

Ireland will, no doubt, continue to deliver mail that lacks a specific address. Apparently, if you send something to “Paul Hewson, Ireland”, it gets delivered to Bono. (My husband once got a letter addressed to “Jim Diggins, Beacon Hill, Boston”.)

Anyway, I just went and googled “Maureen Rogers Ireland” and found the death notice of a namesake, giving the address: Coolaha, Ballymackney, Carrickmacross, Monaghan. What I wouldn’t give to have Coolaha as my address…

May the other Maureen Rogers rest in peace, but who needs a postal code when you have an address like Coolaha?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Rather than tip my scally cap to my sister Kathleen for pointing this article out to me, I googled “Kathleen Rogers Ireland” and found a late, lamented namesake for her, too. Her address?Dernabruck, Cloontia, Ballymote, Sligo

A degree in six degrees with Kevin Bacon

When I was in college, back in the day when a college degree didn’t cost as much as a sprawling house in the burbs, I heard a number of interesting speakers. Most of them weren’t coming to my school – a small, no-name “St. Elsewhere” place – but I was in Boston, which offered plenty of opportunities to hear people speak for little or nothing.

The two that stand out the most were polar opposites: Howard Zinn and Ayn Rand. (For the record, I thought he was great and she was nuts.)

For my graduation, the speaker was Congresswoman Margaret Heckler, who, despite the fact that she was a Republican, was chosen to speak to us 400 “Catholic girls” – 395 the daughters of Democrats – because she was a Catholic woman, her maiden name was O'Shaughnessy, and she was herself a graduate of a Catholic women’s college (though not ours). I don’t imagine that Peggy Heckler was paid more than $500 for her star turn. Then again, she wasn’t exactly a cool, hip, happening celebrity. She was a boring, middle of the road politician.

The University of South Florida apparently has more money – thank you, taxpayers of Florida –to throw at speakers, and a greater desire than Emmanuel College to bring someone to campus who was going to provide entertainment.

And the University of South Florida had no problem throwing $70K Kevin Bacon’s way last April:

…to discuss philanthropy, social engagement and the pastime he inspired: “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

“It’s 1994 and I’m just out there minding my own business, making movies and trying to support my family and all of a sudden people start talking to me about this game,” said Bacon, best known for his role as a dancing rebel in the 1984 film “Footloose.”

“It had taken off as this drinking game spreading across campuses, and I thought I was going to be responsible for all this young alcoholism.”

The crowd laughed as Bacon paced in black jeans and a black leather jacket, telling jokes and doing impressions.

And Bacon laughed all the way to the bank. $70K! Talk about bringing home the bacon!

Florida is not the only state frittering away funds to bring on celebrity speechifiers.

UNLV paid Hillary Clinton a whopping $225K to speak there last June. Arguably, Clinton brought more gravitas with her than did Kevin Bacon (three times as much, if you look at the speaker fees). Still, however you do the math, that’s nine students each taking on $25K worth of debt to offset this fee. (Okay, some/all of the money probably comes out of student fees, but let’s assume for a moment that all monies are purely fungible.)

Then there’s California, where state universities have shelled out more than $7.5 million in the last couple of years to hear from Tony Bennett ($110K) and William Shatner ($75K).

William Shatner? Beam me down and give me anyone within six degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon.

Schools in Florida paid Ron Paul $65K, Larry King $63.2K, and Sarah Silverman $50K. Apolo Ohno made $55K for speaking at a SUNY school.

Such fees “highlight the misdirection that besets our universities,” said David Neidorf, president of Deep Springs College, in Big Pine, California. The school’s 26 students do manual labor on a cattle ranch in the desert, while reading the likes of Shakespeare and Karl Marx.

“Five-figure speaking fees for anyone, let alone celebrities, are an embarrassment to anyone who cares about the moral and intellectual life of universities,” he said in an e-mail.

Manual labor on a desert cattle ranch?  (And, I looked at their web site: no smoking near hay bales.)

I have a couple of nieces who are seniors in high school, and I don’t think either one of them will be applying to Deep Springs, thank you. But I completely agree with David Neidorf.

Many of the big buck speakers are placed through speakers bureaus, which skim a significant percentage off the fee. So it’s no surprise that such agencies would defend the practice:

“It does change lives to see real people on a stage,” said Theo Moll, vice president of the college and university division at Keppler Speakers Bureau in Arlington, Virginia. “There’s also a lot of value in bringing prestige to the university.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Yes, it no doubt does change lives to see real people on a stage.

I suspect that, for everyone at Ford Hall Forum who thought Ayn Rand was a nutter, there was someone who thought she was on to something (and a great writer). And while most of those who saw Howard Zinn – speaking for free at BU, as I recall – probably decided to become more political, a few in the audience were probably driven into the arms (and wooden prose) of Ayn Rand.

But, sorry, seeing Kevin Bacon or William Shatner is probably not going to change anyone’s life.

I’m sure I’m being an anti-celeb snob here.

I actually think it’s okay that the University of Southern Florida paid Jane Goodall $60K a few weeks back.

But Kevin Bacon?

Come on!

At least it wasn’t someone from the cast of Real Houswives of Miami, I suppose.

Here’s an idea for a speaker-related learning experience.

Have the students line up a headlining speaker, but don’t let them fully pay for it out of student funds. Have them sell tickets to make up the difference.

This could sharpen a lot of skills: reading the market, negotiating, marketing, sales…

At South Florida, Bacon talked about his charity, sixdegrees.org, which seeks to connect celebrities with other small charities to spread awareness of social issues. Speaking without prepared remarks, he covered topics including his wedding anniversary, the birth of his children, the power of social media and his movie career.

As celebrities go, I actually don’t mind Kevin Bacon. He’s a decent actor, not all that glittery, and seems to be socially conscious.

But is he really worth $60K for a canned speech?

It’s one thing for corporations to do this.

I worked for a company that paid Jack Welch a quarter of a million to flog his book at a client event. And, as I recall, Jack insisted that we hire Charlie Rose (to the tune of $75K) to interview him. This turned out to be a colossal waste of money, but we were just screwing our shareholders.

But to think that kids are paying thousands in student fees and/or taxpayers are subsidizing public universities so that students get a “free” ticket to see William Shatner. Well, it’s enough to make Ayn Rand’s skin crawl.

T.G.I.F. (Pink Slip scrounges up a last minute post.)

The unthinkable has happened.

Pink Slip, which always has enough posts stockpiled for at least a day or two ahead, has skated out onto thin ice that finds me sitting here at 11:14 p.m. on a Thursday with nothing to post for Friday. Which would break a pretty long and mostly unbroken streak of daily posting.

Oh, the horror.

I have some excuses.

• A client who asked me to help out with an extensive editing job on a piece written by a fellow-freelancer who, I can only imagine, will not be doing much more fellow-freelancing for that particular client. (I punched the clock on that one at 11:13 p.m.)
• Combing through my slush pile of topics that I’ve begun noodling around with – and may well fully get to so day – and finding myself meh, meh, mehing one after the next. (Meh.)
• Ending up the first anniversary of the glorious week I spent with my husband in NYC last fall. Our last trip together… And a glorious one it was, with Jim, even while in the midst of what turned out to be the last chemo gasp, with enough energy to take long walks every day, explore new restaurants, and even introduce me to a place in The City that I’d never been to: Gracie Mansion. A week or so after he got home, up popped the met to his brain. Our last trip together…And a glorious one it was. But one that makes me so damned sad when I think about it. So this week I spent a bit of time letting myself feel sad, listening to soppy music, staring off into space, just plain missing Diggy…

Thus, in the long dark night of the blogging soul, Pink Slip got nada, zilch, zippo.

Other than this litany of headlines – ripped from today’s online news – that might have made for a post. If I’d had the willingness to do one.

Haspel's New Take on Seersucker Is Tailor-Made for Fall. (Bloomberg/Business Week)

Sorry, no. Unless you’re in the tropics, seersucker, like straw hats, linen, and white shoes, should only be worn between Memorial Day and Labor Day. And if you don’t believe me, go ask Brooks Brothers.

Twin Peaks: 'Hooters Just Wasn't Racy Enough' (Bloomberg/Business Week)

Well, seersucker might not make the cut. (After all, it’s after Labor Day.) But a post on a restaurant chain that strives to outdo Hooters. Coming up shortly. (Never having heard of the Twin Peaks chain, I clicked on this one just to see what the connection was being Twin Peaks the TV show and Hooters. It’s tough living in a blue state that doesn’t have a ton of breastaurants. There are things we just can not know.)

Polaroid Goes After GoPro With a $99 Action Camera (Bloomberg/Business Week)

I didn’t even know Polaroid was still in business? Or did I? I’ll have to look back through the Pink Slip archives.

Apple Rebuts Charges of Bending iPhones (WSJ Online)

Bend me, shape me, anyway you want me, but I remain unbending in my commitment to keep saying ‘no’ to the iPhone. Seeing last Saturday’s colossal line outside the Apple Store on Boylston Street did nothing to budge me here. (Let’s see what I end up doing when my trusty Blackberry bites the digital dust.)

Misdirected script text from Walmart drove guilt-ridden killer to drive across US and confess to woman's 1997 cold-case murder (Daily Mail – UK.)

Huh? I say, huh, huh?

12 Seriously Underrated Perks Of Being Single (Huffington Post)

I don’t think I’m quite ready to go there yet. All I can think of are two: more closet space, less trash. Other than that…

A couple of months before Jim died, but when we knew he didn’t have long, my wonderful friend Marie and I were talking and she said, “Just think of all the times you were sitting there wishing that you had the house to yourself. And now…” We shared a melancholy laugh – the kind that I think that only 50-year friends can. Fast forward a few months after Jim’s death, and Marie was gone as well. What a rotten two-fer this has been.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually someone who likes being by herself. (Good thing.) I’m not afraid of being alone, of going places by myself, or sitting here in the quiet. Still, the joys of being single remain, at least at this juncture, seriously overrated.

Now, post accomplished!

It’s nearing midnight.

Gotta get into bed with a good book.

Gag me with a spoonful of creamed corn. (And turn up your nose at turnip, while you’re at it.)

There was a fun piece over on the Huffington Post in which Yagana Shah listicle’d 13 childhood foods that her fans nominated as the ones they would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever eat in adult life.

I was sure in agreement with some of them.

Creamed corn? That would be right up (down?) there on my list of must avoids. You really want to put something on your kid’s plate that already has the look and feel of vomit and expect them to eat up without producing the real deal?

But how did creamed spinach not make the veggie list?

Creamed spinach was not quite as terrible in at least one respect (color) as creamed corn, yet, for a child who didn’t like spinach to begin with, it was just plain yuck.

And perhaps none of the nominating committee was ever forced to eat a waxed bean from my grandmother’s garden.

Other than the fact that wax is tastier and easier to swallow, I actually thought they were made out of wax.

The only way to get one of these babies down was to pool enough milk in your mouth to float one down your gullet.

My final veggie nominee would have been turnip.

Not that we were ever forced to eat it as children. Even my mother, an ardent believer that you should (and would) eat whatever she put in front of you, never tried to force turnip on us. To this day, I dislike turnip intensely. Maybe it’s the smell… As we used to chant on the occasions when my mother did make turnip (New England boiled dinner night?), which I suppose she and my father ate: “Turn up your nose at turnip.”

Words to live by, my friends. Words to live by.

(All this said, I have two perfectly rational cousins who actually like turnip. They are the only people I know under the age of 85 who do so.)

The other item on the list that I’m 100% in agreement with was liver and onions.

I think my mother force-fed us this dish once or twice a year, perhaps when we were looking a bit peaked, as if we were suffering from iron-poor blood. Or maybe she and my father had, on occasion, the urge to relive the Depression.

The comparatively delicious and easy-to-eat Spam and Jello were both on the yuck list.

No, I would not eat Spam on a bet at this point in my life, but as a kid I liked it. Since my father had spent 4 years in the Navy, we weren’t allowed to have it when he was around. But when he was away, we clamored for it. Very nice served up with home fries.

And while I could take or leave Jello, I did like it as a kid, as kind of an emergency dessert when my mother didn’t have the chance to bake.

Some of the items on Yagana’s list I just flat out disagree with.

Fish sticks, for one.

This was a foodstuff that I rather liked. My mother always served it with a big tossed salad, and I liked when the Ken’s Italian dressing ran off the salad and onto the fish sticks.

Sure, the smell was a bit disgusting, and the taste a bit fishy, but I did like Fish Stick Fridays.

And Kraft Dinner? Yes, you did have to overlook the “radioactive orange” color, but if you got beyond that…

We never had canned ravioli as kids, but we did have Franco-American Spaghetti for an occasional lunch.

Franco bore no resemblance whatsoever to “real” spaghetti, it was just mushy and bland, but I liked it well enough. It was not anywhere near as good as my mother’s spaghetti. For a German girl married to an Irishman, she made an excellent spaghetti sauce.

I can’t imagine opening a can of Franco nowadays, but – perhaps because I was deprived of it as a kid – I have been know to enjoy a single-serving Chef Boyardee ravioli, which is fine, as long as you put the idea of real ravioli out of your mind.

Tuna noodle casserole? Pot pies?

What’s not to like? As long as it wasn’t one of those times when your mother was cheaping out and got the lousy brand that only had upper crust, and used nasty bits of dark meat chicken or turkey, rather than tasty white chunks.

What didn’t make the list that I can still get the old gag reflex going on, although it’s probably been 50 years since I had it put in front of me?

Creamed chipped beef.

Served with creamed corn, this would certainly make a fine dining combo.

But my father liked it, so my mother made it on occasion. (He also liked finnan haddie and milk toast, but my mother never made us eat either of those delectables. What were the here-and-no-further standards being exercised Chez Rogers, in that mostly we had to eat the yucky stuff (c.f., creamed chipped beef), but occasionally we didn’t (c.f., finnan haddie).

As a child, I would only eat an egg that was fried as hard as leather. If there were any sign of runny yolk, I nearly went into cardiac arrest. Today, if someone put a fried egg in front of me that was cooked so hard there was no runniness to it, I’d take a pass. (One time, my mother served me an egg with some offending runny yolkiness. I showed her! I had a rather large baby doll with broken eye sockets, so that when you tilted its head and the eyes rolled, they left an open gap. Easy enough to stuff that egg in there when Mom’s back was turned.)

Anyway, one of the best parts about being a grown up is having pretty much total say over what you eat. The exception, of course, is when you eat at someone else’s home. But it’s hard to imagine anyone inviting you to dinner and serving liver and creamed corn, isn’t it? (Turnip loving relatives be warned!)

If only I had Photoshop, who knows where my business might go

Last week, I came across an article about a lawyer in California who’s likely to lose her license for six months because her web site had all sorts of pictures of her chumming around with famous people. Pictures that weren’t exactly for real. One step up from having someone snap a shot of you with your arm draped around a cardboard Fathead cutout, but phony baloney nonetheless.

I looked through the gallery of Very Important People on Svitlana Sangary’s publicity page. Many of them, I didn’t recognize. But there she is, tête-à-tête, with Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden. Al Gore. Barack Obama. And, from the other side of the aisle, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump.

Non-political celebs aplenty: Morgan Freeman. Dr. Phil. Anne Hathaway. Leo diCaprio. Pierce Brosnan. James Gandolfini. Ellen DeGeneres. Warren Beatty. Alec Baldwin.

While I certainly have no problem with someone wearing the same outfit in so many of the pictures. Who among us doesn’t double up on the fancy outfits?  But really canny viewers, even if they don’t quite know who the celebrity is, might have noticed that the face, hair, angle, and outfit is exactly the same in a couple of the pictures.

Well, why let a good head shot go to waste, but you might not want to show them side-by-side.

Personally, I wouldn’t select an attorney based on whether they’d had their picture taken with John Stewart or one of the Kardashians. And Svitlana Sangary doesn’t exactly say that she knows these folks. But rules is rules, and the California State Bar recognized that the images were photoshopped, and considered it deceptive advertising.

Although the State Bar Court’s decision is awaiting approval from the California Supreme Court, the recommendation from State Bar Court Judge Donald Miles condemns attorney Svitlana Sangary’s “demonstrated lack of insight and her contemptuous conduct during these proceedings.”
In addition to concluding that she violated the Bar’s rules on deceptive advertising, Miles also notes that Sangary generally refused to cooperate with the investigation, according to the Recorder.

Miles also criticized the attorney’s “failure to remove the deceptive images from her website, even after the State Bar brought this issue to her attention.” (Source: Washington Post.)

Sangary sent the Bar a response in which she cited Natalie Portman’s winning an Oscar for Black Swan, even though her head was superimposed on a real ballerina’s body. Sangary also noted that she “recently received an email from President Obama, with the subject line ‘I need your help today’, asking SVITLANA SANGARY for an additional donation.”

I’ll have to keep all those e-mails from Elizabeth Warren that I’ve been getting…

All in all, it sounds like Sangary is a bit loosely wrapped. Maybe it’s because they’re both originally from the USSR, she reminds me quite a bit of Orly Taitz, the birther movement queen.

In describing her work on her own website, Sangary writes:

The Law Offices of Svitlana E. Sangary has developed a deserved reputation for utilizing the strategy and tactics of handling the case in to advance  the Clients’ success by delivering smart, aggressive, and creative representation, achieving victorious solutions, accomplishing Clients’ goals, and oftentimes even exceeding Clients’ expectations.

I have no doubt that she provided “creative representation.”

Her clients seem to return the favor.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Svitlana Sangary deserves to get a 15!
Ludmila Privorotsky

There are no famous names on the testimonial list, by the way, so it wasn’t as if she Larry King proclaiming her a 15 – make that a 15!

No, her reviewers are everyday folks like Mandy Tanny, Bogdan Polunets, and Semen (sic) Zikner. (Non-legal, free advice to Semen (sic) Zikner: you might want to consider changing that first name of yours. Have you thought about calling yourself Sam?)

But the whole thing gets me thinking about who I’d want to appear with, if I ever decide to set up a web site and include a publicity page. Of course, I already have my starter picture. That’s me – in real life - with Hall of Famer and Red Sox great Carlton Fisk. Not that I’d pretend for a moment that he endorses my skills as a marketer. But he probably could speak to my devotion as a lifer Red Sox fan, able to spot one of the old boys 25 years of so after he hung up his spikes.

But if I wanted to add to my rogues gallery, who would I Photoshop myself with?

They’re mighty cute, but what good would Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney do for my business?

Oh, well, if I do decide to Photoshop myself into a bunch of celebrity pictures, at least I’ll know better than to use the same head shot multiple times.

Glockenspiel Redux

There’s nothing I like better than reading about a family feud.

It’s not that my own personal family is one blissful, life-long love fest, but all of us, across the boards, seem to have inherited the get-along gene. It no doubt helps that there’s never been all that much to get riled up over, dollar-wise, which seems to be the root of so much family feuding.

Not that money is always present where extreme family dysfunction is found. I have a friend who has a particularly feuding branch in her family tree. This one family – which had 10 kids – was led by a matriarch who, at any given point in time, was only speaking to half of her kids and grandkids. (The original “issue” that set all this off was incredibly trivial.) All the side-taking and shifting alliances dictated who got invited to weddings and who would show up for wakes.  Auntie M was so nasty that, on her death-bed, she forbid the currently favored children to let the unfavored half of her brood know that she had died. Her attitude: let them read it in the obituaries. Fortunately, a couple of the chosen few broke ranks and let their sibs know that their mother had passed on to the Great Snitfest in the Sky.

But this attitude has trickled down to my friend’s generation. She recently attended the wake of her cousin, one of the 10 “kids” in this family. There, she ran into another cousin – the deceased’s brother – who had, in fact, read about his sister’s death in the newspaper. In the online notice, most of this woman’s siblings went unmentioned.

So it doesn’t necessarily have to be about the money.

In fact, although at first glance it appears to be about the money, the ongoing saga of the Glock family feud shows that sometimes, it’s about the business, it’s about the job.

It is, of course, difficult to separate out what’s money and what’s job, as they tend to go hand-in-hand. And we all know that enough, except for very rare individuals, is never enough.

But in this case, it seems that Frau Glock and the three Glock kinder are mostly ticked off because they’ve been shut out of the family business that they’ve all devoted their lives to.

Okay. I’m ignoring cherchez la femme for a moment. There is, in fact, another woman involved – wife number two, a woman young enough to be Gaston Glock’s granddaughter. But mostly, I’m going with: this is about the business, this is about the jobs.

From the outset, Helga Glock played an instrumental role in turning the Glock family business, helping transform a modest curtain rod manufacturing company to one of the best known, and most lucrative, gun slingers in the world.

Gaston and Helga married in 1962, just as they launched the family business. Brigitte arrived soon after. Gaston Jr. was born in 1965, and a year later, Robert. While raising the children in Deutsch-Wagram, outside Vienna, Helga also handled invoices, tax records, and wire transfers…

From the beginning, Helga says, Glock was a collaborative enterprise. By the late 1960s she had three children, a full-time job with the family metal shop in suburban Vienna, and a husband who expected hot lunch and dinner served every day. “I still ask myself how I managed this,” she says. In the company’s early stages, she and Gaston Sr. manufactured curtain rods and other house fittings. Her husband assured her that one day they’d be rich, and on that promise, at least, he kept his word. (Source: Business Week)

Well, at some point in there, a light bulb went off and the Glocks figured out there was more to be made in fire arms than curtain rods, and that light bulb going off made the collective day for the Glock family.

Then Gaston Glock had a near death experience, decided he wanted to spend the remainder of his life with the woman he loved – the one who was 50 years younger than he – and went ahead and reorganized the company. Well, what’s a reorganization without a few senior heads rolling, and the heads that rolled at Glock were those of Helga, and the Glocks three offspring. None had ever held a job outside of the family biz. All along the way, they were assured by their parents that someday, the business would be theirs.

The severance package was pretty good. No one week’s pay for every year worked, or any such nonsense. They were all set for life.

Set financially, but, hey, if you’re used to getting up and going to work at the same place since you could crawl, well, you might find yourself missing going to work at a place that you considered your life’s work.

The children never considered careers other than the family trade. Brigitte had joined in 1983 after graduating with a business degree from a technical school. She helped Helga with administrative work. In the next years, Gaston Jr. carved out a specialty in information technology, Robert in sales and marketing. Gaston Jr. ruefully recites “the famous quote from my father: ‘You don’t need to go to university. Come to work for me, and you will learn the most.’ ”

Gaston, Sr. sure wasn’t kidding. This probably was an environment where Gaston, Jr. would “learn the most.” About human nature, trophy wives, and getting screwed.

As so often happens when folks are laid off, the Glock children have changed careers. While they and their mother try to resolve the legal issues that are playing out, they’ve found something else to do with their time. (Helga is not going down without a fight, that’s for sure.) Brigitte owns a pet store. Gaston Jr. runs an online high-end hunting clothes company; Robert runs a couple of restaurants.

But, alas, it’s not the family gun works.

Aww, shoot.

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Here’s my original post on the Glocks.

Tourists

While my bucket list contains a couple of places I’d like to visit, I have to confess that – thanks to my narrow Euro- and U.S. centric focus – I’ve pretty much been to most of the places I consider “must see.”

No, I haven’t been to Venice. And I do need to check off Portugal at some point so that I can complete my full, Western Europe sweep. In these United States, I need to get to Alaska, North Dakota, Kentucky and Tennessee in order to complete the nifty fifty before I kick. (I may lower my standards and say I’ve been to Kentucky because that’s where the Cincinnati airport is, and I have been to Cincinnati. And I once had a layover in Memphis…)

Sure, I’d like to get to Australia and New Zealand at some point. Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam. If I could get dropped in to India for a couple of hours to see the Taj Mahal, and if I could get dropped into China for a couple of hours to see the Great Wall, I’d like to go.

Buenos Aires? I’m sure it’s muy bueno.

And, yes, I would likely enjoy a luxury safari to Kenya or South Africa or wherever the safest safaris take place.

But if I’m crying on my death-bed, it won’t be because I never saw Mt. Fuji or Mt. Kilimanjaro or Machu Pichu.

Personally, see Pittsburgh and die is more up my travel alley.

I guess you might say that the travel bug that bit me was decidedly parochial and limited.

And while there are plenty of places that would be nice-to-haves out there, I also have a list of MUST NOTS.

North Korea ranks right up near the top of that list.

Okay, if I were absolutely forced to take a trip, and the choices were Sudan, Syria and North Korea, I’d be brushing up on how many variants of kimchi exist.

But I really have no desire at all to see for myself what a totalitarian, spectacularly repressive, art-less (in every meaningful sense) country being run by a third-generation personality cult regime looks like. (“Oh, the mountains are beautiful. The children are adorable. The streets are clean.”)

And yet there are those who, for whatever reason that I cannot fathom, actually want to go there.

One of them was Matthew Miller, a young Californian who traveled to North Korea and, once there “ripped up his visa so he could go to prison and expose human rights violations”, and who a few weeks ago was “sentenced to six years of hard labor.” I suspect that what the North Koreans call “hard labor” is just that. Nothing as namby-pamby as stamping out license plates (not needed in North Korea to begin with, since so few people are car owners) or manning retail call centers (not needed in North Korea to begin with, since so few people have any discretionary money and there’s nothing to buy, even if they did). (Source of quoted material: CNN.)

Miller is one of three Americans imprisoned in North Korea. Of the other two, one appears to be a naïve but well-intentioned ninny who, having been warned against going to North Korea, left a bible in a public place.  A well-known no-no. The other is a Korean-American evangelist who’s had more serious charges lodged against him.

As for our young friend from Bakersfield:

While traveling, Miller reportedly tore up his visa and declared himself “not a tourist.” The court said he intended to “experience prison life so that he could investigate the human rights situation." (Source: LA Times)

Well, I’m quite sure that the world did not need Matthew Miller to “investigate the human rights situation” in North Korea, which is widely documented and well known.

And yet, whatever the drivers – idealism, naiveté, hubris, egomania, desire for notoriety, mental illness - Matthew Miller’s there, and has now double-dog-dared himself into a six year prison sentence.

Naturally, he is appealing to the government for help:

In his awkward interview with CNN, Miller called on the U.S. government to help him and complained that officials in Washington were not doing enough to assist in his case. “I’ve written a letter to my president with no reply,” he said. “For this reason, I am disappointed in my government.”

By most political standards, I’m a nanny-stater, but, jeez Louise, here’s one nanny stater who’d just as soon let this cry-baby (as long as he’s not shown to be mentally ill) stand there in his crib crying.

I really have a hard time exercising any of my well-flexed sympathy muscle on someone who deliberately goes out of his or her way to put themselves in a dangerous situation, and then expects the government to bail them out. Whether it’s the couple who had to send for the U.S. Navy to rescue their sick one-year old while the family was sailing around the world on the adventure of a lifetime. The young American hikers who wanted to trek off the beaten trail in Iraq/Kurdistan (let’s do go camping in a war zone) and ended up spending a couple of years off the beaten trail in an Iranian prison. And now Matthew Miller. You really think the president is supposed to answer the letter of every jackass who does something dumb while out of the confines of the U.S. of A. and finds himself in trouble?

We’re not talking about journalists, those working on humanitarian efforts in awful places, or even missionaries who get caught up in a rebellion.

We’re talking about someone who went out his way to bite his thumb at the notoriously thin-skinned and harsh North Korean government, and, it would seem, got exactly what he asked for.

Meanwhile, Miller had been on a tour run by a New Jersey outfit called URI, which specializes in trips to North Korea, a country it states has a “unique culture and distinct way of living.”

Well, I guess you might call a dictatorship run by a personality-cult leader “unique”. And I suppose you might say that a country that has demonstrated a continued willingness to allow vast numbers of its citizen to starve to death has a “distinct way of living.”

URI’s web site asks, is it safe? Is it legal?

But it doesn’t ask the one question that anyone considering going to North Korea should be asking: DOES IT MAKE ANY FREAKING SENSE?

Holey Moley (Bring me the head of Fulton Sheen)

If the 20th century was the American Century, then the 1950’s were the American Catholic Decade.

No longer a swarm of unwashed immies, “we” had triumphed: Catholic schools, colleges, hospitals, were everywhere. Edwin O’Connor’s Last Hurrah was a best seller. “We” had given the world Joe McCarthy and Jack Kennedy, and our triumphalism was headed for a peak when “our” guy, JFK, was elected in 1960.

One place where we weren’t so apparent was on TV.

Oh, sure, we knew Ed Sullivan, Perry Como, and Loretta Young were Catholics – who didn’t?– but most of the characters who peopled comedies and dramas were deracinated, generic Protestants. Even when they were so obviously meant to be Catholic. As my father pointed out when we watched The Honeymooners, in real life, Ralph Kramden would have been Timmy O’Brien. Or Jackie Gleason. (Fast forward a couple of decades and why, pray tell, was Archie Bunker’s name not Timmy O’Brien? Or Carroll O’Connor?)

To see Catholics in action on the large or small screen, we had to watch reruns of 1930’s movies in which Jimmy Cagney played the gangster and Pat O’Brien played the priest. Or wait for a Wagon Train episode that had a nun in its story line. Truly, the only Catholics that appeared regularly as characters were the bad guys on The Untouchables. (Not that religion was mentioned, but all those Italian names…)

But then – mirabile dictu, mirabile visu – there was Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, appearing weekly in our living rooms to talk about Catholicism.

Why, he even won two Emmys.

Who needed Uncle Miltie when we had Uncle Fultie?

Just how influential was Fulton Sheen?

Forget those two Emmys.

Consider for a moment that Martin Sheen’s real last name is Estevez. Funny to think that Martin Sheen would adopt the name of someone as reactionary as Archbishop Sheen, given that Martin Sheen is a pretty well known lefty…

There was also a boy in my grammar school named Fulton after the good archbishop.

Anyway, Fulton Sheen, who’s been dead for 35 years, is back in the news.

He’s suddenly newsworthy because Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is in a tug of war over his remains with Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois.

Here’s the story.

Although most of Sheen’s career was spent in The Big City, he was born and ordained in Peoria. Seizing on this connection, the Diocese of Peoria went ahead and built a museum in Sheen’s honor, and has also been out there promoting Sheen’s candidacy for sainthood.

It has [also] drawn up blueprints for an elaborate shrine in its main cathedral to house his tomb and sketched out an entire devotional campus it hopes to complete when its campaign to have him declared the first American-born male saint succeeds. (Source: NY Times)

The problem is that Sheen has already been lodged in a home-away-from-home:

Since his death in 1979, his remains have been sealed in a white marble crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, the city where he spent much of his life. And though the Peoria diocese says it was promised the remains, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, who considers Archbishop Sheen something of a personal hero, has refused to part with them, citing the wishes of the archbishop and his family.

In a seeming snit over Cardinal Dolan’s refusal to give Sheen’s body up, Bishop Jenky backed off the work that Peoria had been doing to support the Sheen sainthood initiative, just at a time when Sheen was on the verge of beatification, the final step before being declared a saint. (If you want to know more about the process, I’m quite sure there’s some YouTube or another out there that’s got Fulton J. Sheen pontificating (archbishop-icating?) on the topic.)

There are precedents for divvying up saintly remains.

St. Catherine of Siena is enshrined in Rome, but her head is revered in a basilica in Siena, Italy. St. Francis Xavier, the 16th-century missionary, is entombed in Goa, India, but his right arm is in Rome, in a reliquary at the Church of the Gesu.

I had not been aware that Catherine of Siena had a revered, severed head, but I am quite familiar with Francis Xavier’s arm. When I was in first grade, it toured the country and came to our church. So my sister Kath and I got to kiss the glass case  containing said arm. (Now, if you think there’s something weird about a religion that has six-year-old kids kissing the mummified arm of a long-dead saint, well, all I can say is go watch Fulton J. Sheen, why don’t you.)

Cardinal Dolan, apparently, is not interested in the type of compromise that would result in letting Peoria have an arm or a leg. Let alone a head.

Cardinal Dolan’s latest offer to Bishop Jenky was that he could have bone fragments and other relics from Archbishop Sheen’s coffin.

This should have yielded enough material to satisfy both Peoria’s desire that they have some remains to venerate, and the sainthood rule that stipulates that:

By canon law, the body should be exhumed and authenticated before beatification, and relics — bone fragments and other physical remains — taken for the purpose of veneration.

But it apparently wasn’t good enough for Peoria, and Cardinal Dolan was not about to let Bishop Jenky get his hands on the full body. Joan Sheen Cunningham, an elderly relative of Fulton Sheen, has speculated on this:

“I think the cardinal was worried that maybe Bishop Jenky would cut off a hand or an arm or something.”

Having visited the cemetery where the bulk of my husband’s ashes are buried on a few occasions, and having now made several trips to spread bits of the remaining ashes around in places and on the graves of people that were special to Jim, I know all about venerating remains. In fact, once I get through Jim’s list, I will be keeping a bit of him – the part that’s getting rocketed into space this October – with me on my mantle.

But holey moley, this haggling over the remains of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen really is the house of weird, isn’t it?

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And a tip of my bishop’s mitre to my sister – and fellow Francis Xavier arm venerator – Kathleen for pointing this article out to me. Bless you, my child.

Walmart’s right: you really can’t have your PR guy caught lying on his résumé

How, in this day and age, can there be anyone in any position of seniority at all in an American corporation who somehow thinks that he or she can get away with a résumé fudge?

A little white résumé lie is a double-wham-whammy in terms of risk.

First off, organizations increasingly vet what you’re saying about yourself.

Second, once you’re outed, you’re outed. It’s no longer just some mid-level functionary in Human Resources who knows, and your boss, into whose ear the Human Resources functionary has whispered that one or two of the sweet somethings on your c.v. are actually sweet nothings. Nope, every one with access to the Internet will know, and will, pssst, pass it on, through blogs and tweets.

And once those baying hounds start baying…

Honestly, you’d think that anyone who’s got a smidgeon of a smudge on their résumé would come clean and expunge that smidgeonly smudge before it becomes public, when all of a sudden it’s liar, liar,  résumé on fire.

It should be easy enough, no?

Say, I just noticed that there’s an error on my résumé. Hard to believe but, heh, heh, when I had a résumé service create it for me, they put down that I had a degree from Harvard College, when what I’d actually told them was that I’d taken an Intro to Accounting course at Harvard Extension. Blame it on my terrible handwriting, and piss-poor proofreading abilities. Heh, heh.

Now I know that you didn’t hire me because you thought I had a Harvard degree. So I’d just like make sure you knew that my degree was actually from Excelsior Correspondence Junior College.

Okay, okay.

No one would buy it.

But why not correct your résumé, apply for another job, get out of Dodge, and start your new gig with a clean slate and an honest story line?

Maybe all the folks with the pack o’ lies résumés all came of age before anyone really checked things out, and they’ve just let things sit there (and the lies propagate). And they’re just getting caught now.

There sure have been plenty of lost-the-job, publicly humiliated stories out there that someone would give pause before putting something untrue on paper.

I mean, a bit of inflation and puff-up here and there is fine. But a fake degree (or job or military service/honor) is definitely a no-no.

As David Tovar of  Walmart has learned the hard way.

Tovar, until recently, had been:

…the most public of Wal-Mart Stores’ vast public-relations team. For the past year or so, in addition to responding vigorously to any criticism of the retailer, he’s been sending mass e-mails to journalists with helpful tips about how to report on worker protests, among other more cheery musings. Sample e-mail subject lines include: “Exciting changes,” “American Pride,” “Taco Plate,” and “Hmmm…” (Source: Business Week)

When Tovar announced that he was leaving, inquiring minds in the press wanted to know just why.

What happened was that, in the course of vetting Tovar for promotion to SVP, Walmart found out that he had never quite finished up his degree at the University of Delaware.

By résumé tall tales, his was admittedly a short one.

Tovar was just a couple of credits short and had actually walked at his graduation ceremony. On to this real life, he never bothered to go back and fill in the credit blank.

Still, you really can’t have someone in a high level PR position who’s a proven liar, given that for the most part they’re presumptive liars to begin with.

Especially for a company like Walmart which is involved in such contentious issues, has a checkered reputation in plenty of quarters, and is not especially regarded as a bastion of corporate probity.

Walmart, by the way, didn’t fire Tovar over this issue. They just told him that he wouldn’t be getting that promotion. So he resigned. Nonetheless:

It’s also potentially embarrassing for Walmart that Tovar got caught in a lie. More than anyone else at the company, he has defended Walmart’s wages and working conditions with internal data and forceful assertions. He’s the one who responded to an op-ed in the New York Times about Walmart’s low wages with his own sarcastic fact check, which in turn was submitted to several fact checks by other news organizations and found wanting.

Hey, anyone who could successfully flack for Walmart is not going to be out of work for very long.

Still, if you’re in a position where people are going to assume that, at least some of the time, you’re speaking with forked tongue and fingers crossed, best not to hand anyone the proof that you’re a liar. Even if it’s just a little white lie sort of liar.