Social Media, a Moving Target - Manufacturing Executive Community

Social Media, a Moving Target - Manufacturing Executive Community: "--Compared to just two months ago when the Council last discussed social media, some manufacturers are moving beyond thinking of external marketing applications for social media and are now contemplating how the technology can be used to stimulate and accelerate collaboration among internal groups and individuals."

Strange Days

Today was beautiful. For the first time since I came back to the Northwest, the weather was PERFECT! The sky was clear. It was 70 degrees. I could see Mount Rainier at nearly every turn. It was in my rearview mirror as I snaked down the massive backside of Fauntleroy in West Seattle. It was in front of me going south on 99. At one point, it looked like that ragged stretch of road might just end at the bottom of this massive snow-capped wonder. It was the beginning of a beautiful day. But then I came across this... from a website ironically called christwire.org 

“You know we’re living in a delusional world when libtards all over the place are not giving President Bush credit for killing Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden was killed because President Bush declared war on Al-Qaeda, Hamas and every other terrorist on Earth.
When Bush was wiping Saddam off the map, liberals were crying over semantics.  They were crying because they said Iraq had no WMDs, when Saddam made it clear he had no respect for UN sanctions and America’s dictations for Iraq.  We had every right to invade and Iraq had their hand in 9/11...

Then he goes on to say...

“You dumb, retarded Reddit loving, crack toking and drug thought induced liberals, listen up.  President Bush received hell for trying to capture Osama bin Laden.  Like HELL you are going to give credit for this to a man who tried to make friends with Iran on his first dark day in our nation’s White House.”

And that, my friends, is how you fuck up a perfectly beautiful day.

I don’t much care about nationalizing vengeance. I feel it on a personal level, and I am not proud of that instinct. So, it becomes this contradiction. I understand it. I can’t judge it. But I can’t embrace it either. A man kills the man who raped his daughter, “Find peace, brother.” A woman cuts off the penis of her abusive husband, “Go with God, Sister.”

But, in all cases, it’s there but the grace of God go I.

But what I can’t ignore is that even this, even this act of putting down a man who killed more than 3,000 Americans, and who in supposedly purusing him, we launched a war that has taken from us nearly $2 trillion and nearly 5,000 in U.S. military lives, that this country cannot quit from its incessent bullshit for more than a day.... What enrages me is the gaul of honestly proposing that George W. bush bares no blame for the depression he left us with or the war he put us in based on lies but credit in absentia for killing Osama Bin Laden?

On the day of Bin Laden’s death, America reveled in vengeance. Partying at Ground Zero. Partying in front of the White House. The day after, the really self-destructive right-wing politicizing began anew, again exacting revenge. Not against terrorists. But against the political party that defeated them. Against the fact that a “black man” runs the country. In writing that, I’m not saying it’s base racism but desplacement. Think about the American man, women joining the workforce and perhaps on occasion competing with them for jobs spurred the Promisekeepers. The influx of Cuban and Dominican players in baseball had them decring the end of America’s pasttime. It’s not about racism but identification. We are all empowered in some ways through identifying with those in power, with talent, etc. The fact that white men no longer have exclusivity in the White House, coupled with the realization that white people will soon no longer be the “majority” in America must feel threatening.

On the left as well... Among liberals (assumedly emancipated from such base tendencie)  there is that sliver consumed by the get-back, against a President who did not live up to every last expectation. More importantly, however, it’s really about their own identity. After all, buffoon leadership is a necessary justification for rage. Then, Obama had the nerve to try to replace it with temperance and moderation.

Oh, the horror!!!!

Osama Bin Laden is dead because he is unnecessary. We are truly a country that needs no enemies. We are entirely capable of and are on a fast road to destroying ourselves. We don’t need Russia. We don’t need terrorist, China, “illegal immigrants,” outsourcing, bankers, unions, gays, Bentley-driving hip hop artists or the fucking Federal Reserve.

Rome is definitely burning.

Sometimes when I’m at the Wal-Mart forced to see the crack of some 250 lb woman in skinny jeans and a halter top, or reading about growth of the debt purchasing industry, or making the connection that it was indeed born from the Savings & Loan scandal in the 1980s and is as much to blame for the sub-prime loan crisis as was the Community Reinvestment Act, I think burn bitch, burn!

But, then, my son and I sit down for dinner.

The patio door is open. It is cool, not at all cold, outside. Shyla, the dog, sits underneath the table as usual, waiting for Ilan to slip little corners of food to her when I look away.

“Geronimo, EKIA,” I say instead of grace, then explain to my boy it’s the code word for mission accomplished and the acronym for Enemy Killed In Action. Ilan looks at me as if I have loss my mind and Shyla barks. Guess I startled her.

The loaf...

I hated meatloaf as a kid. Don’t remember why. Maybe it was the word “meatloaf” I didn’t like. Maybe it was because it was usually bland. It could have been the fact that my Mother always put diced onions in the loaf. As a kid, I hated onions. Anytime we went to McDonalds, we were always asked to pull aside so the pimply teenager inside could scrape the onions off my hamburger.

Anyway, I got a hair to make meatloaf. Found a recipe that called for two cups of brown sugar and ketchup. The reviews were glowing but it sounded like something Roseanne Barr would make. So I substituted the two cups of brown sugar for half a cup -- one-fourth for the loaf and one-fourth for the sauce. For the loaf, I mixed garlic, ginger, one egg, one quarter cup of milk, green and red bell peppers, bread crumbs, rosemary, oregano and the brown sugar into a food processor. Mixed it all into the loaf. For the sauce, instead of ketchup (what fool ever uses ketchup in cooking? Mustard I get, but ketchup?) I used tomato paste, diced tomatoes, a bit more garlic, rosemary, oregano, worcester and soy.... I do everything to taste. It was a bit sweet. So I added that Vietnamese garlic chili sauce and coarsely ground black pepper. It was fantastic.  Way too rich for a marinara but perfect for meat loaf. So I lined the pan with the sauce, put the loaf in the middle and topped it with more bread crumbs. Then I cooked it for an hour at 350.

The gravy...

When the loaf came out of the oven, it had, along with a serious amount of meat grease, a gravy. I put the loaf onto a serving plate then spooned all the oil off the gravy. Then I kind of whisked the gravy with a spatula... It too was good. So fucking good. I served it on top of rosemary mashed potatoes.
Ilan is a fickle eater. Lettuce wraps, he likes. Pizza, he likes. Fried chicken, he could give or take. Pizza, strictly pepperoni and cheese. If he’s in the right mood, he will tolerate spaghetti and meatballs. All else, in his mind, is disgusting. But tonight, I discover that Ilan loves meatloaf. He eats it with the mashed potatoes and gravy, then he ask for more. He wants me to make him a meatball sandwich for his lunch tomorrow. “But put cheese on it,” he says, drinking a big glass of water, already wearing his pajamas. “And gravy. Put the gravy on top.”

It occurs to me. When you are happy, life is good regardless. When you are unhappy, dissatisfied, or otherwise lacking, nothing satisfies. I’m not talking about the fickle eating habits of my kid, but life, politics, the media and this country’s apparent collective pursuit of disdain. And my own detours. In all honestness, I got my own shit. Like the fact that Rush Limbaugh lives life a millionaire, exploiting the basest of human emotions, while Lenny Bruce, Sammy Davis Jr., Edgar Allen Poe and Thomas Jefferson all died penniless. To be blatantly honest, the fact that I am smart, fairly thoughtful, with a great work ethic, and I have little more than a 401K, a half-assed college savings account and a house full of furniture to my name while there are people -- whom I personally know -- who are verifiably crazies, narcissists and idiots with millions in the bank. It’s enough to make you bitter. Just like 3,000 plus dead is enough to make you vengeful. Just like losing your house to bankruptcy while the U.S. government, whom you pay taxes to, gives roughly 700 billion to the banking industry who took it is enough to make you hate your own government. Just like no longer being the King of the World makes you vulnerable to conspiracies about birth certificates.

I put Ilan to bed. As I walk out the door, he ask, “President Obama killed the terrorists?”
“Yes, he killed the bad man.”

Today was a strange day indeed. The point, I think, is to adapt, be generous with compassion and certain about rage. Above all, know that life is a struggle. The joy that comes with... is all gravy.

What about the post-Bin Laden America?

Media focused on the emotive and visceral yesterday in re-telling the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Is he  really dead?  The humiliating burial at sea?  Will he be a martyr? Who gets credit President Obama or, believe it or not, former President George W. Bush?  Really, that’s what the court jesters on the right are saying... Then there were the political oddsmakers: Will this make it more difficult to defeat President Obama in 2012? There’s even a poll.

And then finally, there was the unbelievably daft vindication of torture. 

In the words of my alter ego Mushmouth: “The American media could fuck up a wet dream.”

But in this insanity there were the words of NYT’s Roger Cohen that really got me. In an op-ed entitled “The Post-Bin Laden World,” Cohen posed an important question: What will the world look like in this Post-Bin Laden world? Does Bin Laden’s death along with the successful people-driven uprising in Egypt signal a significant shift in the Arab world? He makes the very important point that for many in the Arab world, Bin Laden’s death was less relevant than the plight of a budding Democracy in Egypt and Tunisia or the fate of the Libyan resistance.

Cohen writes: 
“He died a marginal figure to the transformation fast-forwarding the Arab world toward pluralism and self-expression...

His death comes as post-Islamist revolutions from Tunis to Cairo topple despotism in the name of democratic values long denied Arabs, who, in their vast majority, now seek a reasonable balance between modernity and their faith. Arab pride has disentangled itself from the complex of the West. Bin Laden’s Holy War drew sustenance from “Westoxification” — the sense of humiliation among Arabs at perceived Western dominance and aggression. Bin Laden whipped that resentment into Al Qaeda’s capacity for nihilistic mass murder.

He died as Arabs en masse move away from the politics of rage and revenge, directed mainly outward, toward a new politics of responsibility and representative government, directed mainly inward.”

Cohen makes an interesting point: “Inward-looking.” But he stops short of demanding that we as Americans do the same. Even now, neocons and pundits are turning their righteous indignation to Pakistan, working themselves into a fervor to fight another war we can’t afford... It seems ironic that Bin Laden’s death somehow means more to us Americans than it does to the floundering movement he once spearheaded...

Cohen goes on to say:

“An era has passed. It was a painful decade of disorientation and American whiplash. The mass murder so agonizing it had to be distilled to three digits — 9/11 — poisoned a new century at its outset. Bin Laden was that poison’s slow drip.”

“How then to complete the work and make a corpse not only of Bin Laden but his movement? Oust Gaddafi with ruthlessness and in short order. Steer the Arab revolutions into port with consistent political support and funding. Arab democracy must also mean Arab opportunity. End the war in Afghanistan as soon as America’s basic security requirements are met. Make America’s closest regional ally, Israel, understand that a changed Middle East cannot be met with unchanging Israeli policies. Palestine, like Israel, must rise to the region’s dawning post-Osama era of responsibility and representation.”

In summary, Cohen does slip in the real point here. Sure, it’s important what the people of the Arab world do. It’s important that they continue to move towards these Democratic principles and find a way to balance their faith and the modern world. But what we do, from now on, is equally important. It’s just as important to envision a post-Bin Laden America as it is to preach about and hope for a post-Bin Laden Arab world. We should re-evaluate U.S. foreign policy from that same vantage point, appreciating the wave of Democratic uprisings in the Arab world for what it is.

Sure, we picked the winning side in Egypt. But we were helping the people of Egypt depose a tyrant we picked in the first place. And I wonder, somewhat cynically, if our actions in Libya would be so altruistic if Moammar Gaddafi wasn’t such an insufferable pain in our and Israel’s ass.

The point is the people of the Arab world are moving, whether we like it or not, towards Democracy. It would be a huge mistake if we as a country did not take the opportunity to be at least somewhat introspective.

So, here's my first blog as a former journalist and currently confused single parent. It's an interesting day to begin, a day after the killing of Osama bin Ladan, a week after my 41st birthday and two months after I've relocated to Seattle, the city of my misspent youth. I left here a long time ago, maybe it was 1999, and I've been to many places since. But I've always wanted to return, not because I've been trying to recapture my youth but because I love this fucking city. I mean some days it's just a city like any other, in fact worse. It's rainy. It can be cold. And even though you are surrounded by beautiful mountains and waters, it's useless because your visibility is only 10 feet in front of you. But then there are days when the skies open up and I can see it all, and I just say "Goddamn, what a beautiful city." But this blog is in no way a love letter to the Pacific Northwest. In fact, I am way too much of a curmudgeon for love letters of any sort. I imagine I will rant about politics, parenting, bullshit and of course advertising --- the absolute bane of my existence. This constant needling, constant intrusion into your psyche, constant attempt to separate you from your money and of course separate you from any feeling of esteem or satisfaction. This little gadget will slice and dice. Are you fat? Be A Better Mom! Restless leg syndrome! The bullshit we endure, no wonder Americans have this tendency to buy crap we will never use or need.

But I regress..

Bin Ladan's dead. Well good riddance. I don't celebrate because we killed a man. But I sure as hell don't have any sympathy for the man. My facebook page is currently suffering from an identity crisis because of this. Some of my friends are getting drunk, partying in front of the White House and posting things like "Ding Dong the witch is dead." Others are saying things like "political assassination aside." It seems President Obama has this annoying talent of separating the realists from the "bat shit crazy" on both sides. Well my take is this. Bin Ladan's gone and this might just be enough "justice" for us to get the hell out of Afghanistan, entirely out of Iraq and never ever tread over in that crazy-assed part of the world again. Give me a chance to explain. Bush took us over there and it was a huge-assed mistake. But no President, including Obama, was politically allowed to entirely leave partly due to 9/11 and partly due to this American obsession with winning, with walking away from the table empty-handed. In killing Bin Ladan, we can walk away guilt or more importantly shame free.

Today, one of the military's brass said this: and this is of course a paraphrase: The mood in the Mideast has changed in the last eight years, it has become more about individualism and civil liberties. So maybe the Al Qaeda will think Bin Ladan's dead. Militarism is old news. And the new way to move forward will be through these people first political and peaceful uprsings: i.e Egypt...

Well that is the most optimistic thing I've heard coming from our government since Bush declared Mission Accomplished all those many years ago. But hey, I don't necessarily think it's unrealistic optimism. In fact, it seems way more realistic than some of the ridiculous b.s. floating on the far far left such as "political assassination." Anyway, here's my new blog. I promised it will improve.