MERE HEALING

100 Days of Change.

"I'm quitting Korn and I'm gonna raise my kid."

Words of Wisdom.

Professional problem solver and idea guy Paul Williams turns the ripe old age of 40 today, and in keeping with the Dutch custom of bringing your own cake or treats on your birthday, the Amsterdam resident brings us (appropriately enough) 40 Slices of Wisdom the doddering old man has experienced, learned, or heard along his long, difficult, arduous, grueling, onerous, back-breaking path.

Courtesy

1. Be nice to everyone. It's a small world, after all.

2. Avoid jargon.

3. Don't demean people.

4. Treat people on an individual basis. Some people are jerks. They don't represent all the people from that family, company, town, country, or religion.

Around Work

5. Perception is reality.

6. Save Often. Back-Up Regularly.

7. Don't expect it, earn it.

8. Turn off the microphone before heading to the restroom.

9. Where you work, be in business for yourself.

10. Perform at the level of the role you want.

It's Your Attitude

11. Add value. Do more than is expected.

12. Sometimes you have to fake it, until you make it - whether it is a to be in a good mood, or how to pull together that big presentation.

13. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

14. Know your boundaries, and make them clear.

15. You've got to do what you're passionate about.

16. Everything matters.

17. Be yourself.

18. No matter how bad you think you were, there will those who thought it was great. No matter how great you were, there will be those who thought it was terrible.

Random, But Important

19. Use the word quash, not squash.

20. Your tongue will stick to frozen metal, and it does hurt.

Bigger Ideas

21. Reading, travel, and new experiences make your brain better.

22. Arrive with the solutions, not just the problem.

23. Always have something with you to write with and on.

24. Maintain a bulls-eye, a long-term goal for yourself on the horizon.

Staying Young and Creative

25. You never have to grow up as long as you're childlike and not childish.

26. Visit the Disney Theme Parks.

27. Mix things up. Take a different route to work... to life.

28. Maintain your sense of humor.

Appreciate

29. Take time to stop and smell the roses, literally.

30. Prepare your house as if you were getting it ready to sell it, but stay.

31. Different doesn't mean wrong. Just because they sound, look, talk, or act different from what you're used to doesn't mean they're wrong. (You're difference probably seems wrong to them).

32. Act like you're moving away from your town. Do the things you've never done, but said you would.

Travel

33. When you visit another country, remember YOU are the foreigner - local tradition rules.

34. Learn how to say hello, goodbye, pardon me, please and thank you in the language of the country you're visiting.

Universal

35. Measure twice, cut once.

36. Work smarter, not harder.

37. Surround yourself with greatness.

38. Be remarkable.

39. Mistakes eliminate the wrong paths to doing something successfully.

40. Be an asset-based thinker - focus on what you've got versus what is not.

What's wrong with this picture?

Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. has presented local teens with an ultimatum: enroll in an education course designed to spell out the dangers of sexting or accept felony charges of child pornography. The images in this particular case extend from nude and topless photos to one girl in an opaque training bra and another in a bikini.

The prosecutor’s actions are certainly contentious and some critics say he is over-reaching. And of course, the ACLU has filed its obligatory suit claiming the attorney has violated the privacy of some of the girls who have a First Amendment "right" to express freely themselves. I could be wrong about this, but I don’t remember anyone having a constitutional right to privacy, but I guess that’s a conversation for another day. But I digress.

Anyway, check it out.

A little perspective...

Many so-called financial “experts” are comparing our present financial conditions to the Great Depression. And why shouldn’t they? With recent headlines like No Signs of Recovery in Jobs Report, Weak Retail and Price Data Dim Hopes of Quick Recovery, and countless others hourly bombarding the American people, it’s hard to keep any perspective beyond that of the media’s doom and gloom. One of the first things I learned in my Journalism 101 class many years ago is simply this: Bad news sells, and good news is no news at all. But I think if we could all take a deep breath or two and compare reality to truth, we might gain a little perspective on things.

One of the things I learned in my Freshman Econ class those same long years ago is that an economic depression is simply any economic downturn where real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declines by more than 10 percent. Applying this method, then the Great Depression of the 1930s can be easily be seen as two separate events: an incredibly severe depression lasting from August 1929 to March 1933 where real GDP declined by almost 33 percent, a period of recovery, then another less severe depression of 1937-38 where real GDP declined by 18.2 percent. The U.S. hasn’t had anything even close to a depression since the post-WWII period. The worst recession in the last 60 years was from November 1973 to March 1975, where real GDP fell by 4.9 percent.

In fact, since 1970 the GDP has only fallen more than one percent once, and that was in 1982 when it fell 1.9 percent. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the GDP decreased by only 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2008 – one-half of one percent. While the decrease in the fourth quarter of 2008 was significantly higher – 5.6 percent – the newspapers had a field day with headlines screaming, “U.S. GDP Shows Biggest Drop in 27 Years,” planting even more seeds of fear and doubt. As the media portray this decline as a harbinger of impending doom, I think it is only fair to remind everyone, as stated in the above paragraph, the GDP plummeted in the early 1930s by almost 33 percent.

In the four years from 1929 through 1933, about 10,000 out of the 25,000 banks in the United States disappeared (source: Business and Media Institute). Take. A. Breath. It’s not even close to anything like that today. Currently our nation supports approximately 8,400 banking institutions. The recently updated Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Failed Bank List shows a total of 75 bank closings between October 13, 2000 and April 10, 2009. But please keep in mind there was no FDIC during the Great Depression, so there were no federally insured deposits, which resulted in the chaotic and panic-driven run on the banks as depositors rushed to get their money out before the banks folded. Today, however, the FDIC guarantee is up to $250,000 per account. That means there will be no run on the banks as there was during the Great Depression.

The media have been relentless in their focus on home foreclosures. Mortgage foreclosure rates have risen. But the truth of this economic matter is that the buying frenzy between 2000 and 2005 caused home prices to more than double. But you don’t need me to remind you that incomes surely didn’t parallel this trend. At the same time, financial institutions made money more accessible to buyers by easing mortgage qualification regulations. And the simple truth is that careless lending practices can be blamed for many of the foreclosures we are seeing today. The mortgage foreclosure rate during the Great Depression was approximately 50 percent. In August of 2008, the national foreclosure rate was 4.4 percent. It may be a little higher now, but it’s not even close to what it was in the 1930s. The truth is that the U.S. has been long overdue for a major adjustment from the unsound lending practices of the last few decades. For example, illegal aliens and others who had no way to pay back their loans were receiving subprime home loans with government guarantees. That’s beyond bad business – it’s wrong… but when has ethics ever gotten in the way of business in America?

In fact, hang with me as we look a little closer at this development, because this is really the heart of the matter. A wide array of evidence has long pointed toward minorities accounting for a disproportionate number of the defaulted subprime mortgage losses that set off the economic crash. This would hardly be surprising since the government pushed hard to increase lending to minorities of marginal creditworthiness in the name of increasing minority homeownership. President Clinton, who said that he wanted his legacy to be that everyone in America would be able to afford a home, teamed up with leftist groups like BHO’s partners-in-crime at ACORN to push for more lending to minorities. According to the Federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database, minorities got half the subprime cash (for home purchases and refinancings) handed out in the boom years of 2004-2007.

Those were GWB years, but pay that no mind. There are many who suspect he was only looking to convert said minorities into loyal Republican voters. And of course some critics blame President Bush simply because he supported broadening homeownership. But President Bush’s goal was for people to own homes they could afford, not ones made accessible by reckless lenders who off-loaded their risk to Fannie and Freddie. The housing meltdown is largely a story of greed and irresponsibility made possible by government, i.e. congressional, privilege. The reality is if Democrats had granted the Bush administration the regulatory powers it sought, the housing crisis wouldn’t be nearly as severe and the economy as a whole would be better off.

For a little more perspective on things, consider this: It took Fannie and Freddie over three decades to acquire $2 trillion in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Together, they held $2.1 trillion in 2000. By 2005, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) held $4 trillion, up a spectacular 92 percent in just five years. By 2008, they’d grown another 24 percent, to nearly $5 trillion – and between them they held almost half of all American mortgages.

The more President Bush pushed for reform, the more paper Fannie and Freddie bought. Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute and Charles Calomiris of the Columbia Business School suggest $1 trillion of this debt was subprime and “liar loans,” almost all purchased between 2005 and 2007. This build-up in funny money made it possible for banks to lend recklessly on a substantial scale.

But I digress. From 1999 to 2006, mortgage dollars (prime and subprime) for home purchases loaned to Hispanics went up a whopping 691 percent and 397 percent for blacks (but only 218 percent for Asians and about 100 percent for whites). As fate would have it, a sizable majority of defaulted dollars lost are in just four heavily Hispanic states: California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. But I guess that’s a subject for another day.

As much fun as all this stuff is to write about, what we really need to consider is, What has all this led to?

Let’s start by considering this: The 1981-82 recession last lasted 16 months and was followed by an explosive recovery thanks largely to the Reagan tax cuts (even though they were slowly implemented). The current downturn, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, started in December 2007. Is the current recession ending? I don’t know. Haven’t got a clue. But now that we no longer have GWB to kick around, let’s take a quick look at where BHO is on things.

It will be his decision to forego deep and permanent new tax cuts, his decision to not extend the Bush tax cuts, his decision on how to spend the remaining $350 billion in TARP money, his decision to quasi-nationalize healthcare, his decision to push a cap-and-trade carbon emission program, and his decision to spend hundreds of billions on a “green” industrial policy. From all appearances, it even looks to be his decision to reunionize the American labor force, since he’s pretty much in the unions’ collective back pocket now.

If the White House was under the impression that what the capital markets need to recover was a full-out public relations exercise from Obama, Bernanke and Summers, as witnessed the other day, said White House was sadly mistaken. Case in point: After these leaders addressed the nation, the U.S.< equity market dropped over -1 percent. On a day that started badly, and then got worse, not even extensive pro-BHO TV coverage of the A-Team was able to turn things around.

Here’s the problem: The public is clamoring for an end to TARP and the bailout mania. That’s a key message coming from this week’s tea parties that have cropped up spontaneously around the country. This is evolving into a real grassroots uprising against rising taxes, TARP, and all the federal bailouts—and the trillions of dollars of deficits and debt being used for financing.

If BHO and his merry band of cohorts ignore this unrest, it will be a guaranteed one-term administration, which means it will do as much damage as it can in the next 3¹/₂ years. So the net widens. While commercial banks of all sizes are increasingly profitable and are willing and able to pay back their TARP money, the Treasury Department is now proposing to extend TARP funds to life-insurance companies, most of which are in absolutely no danger of failing. No one has proven that life-insurance companies constitute true systemic risk to the financial system. This is nothing but a financial mugging “bailout” and I use the term with a certain amount of creative license since none of these insurers has failed. And for those several that are in danger, I wonder if a simple bankruptcy proceeding might be more appropriate than additional taxpayer money.

It comes down to this: We are already on the hook for the banks, GM and Chrysler, and don’t forget we’re getting hosed for guaranteed government-backed GM warranties. And the banks themselves seem to be preparing to go to war against an administration that wants to maintain control over the big-bank sector to prevent the banks from paying off TARP. It’s as if BHO and Friends are saying, “Screw the taxpayers. We’re Democrats. This is about government control.”

Coming up next: What does all this mean for the faith-based nonprofit sector?

Cartoon by Steve Kelley, New Orleans Times-Picayune. 

Used with permission. 

Thanks, Steve!

How to Follow-Up

From Nick Fellers at the always noteworthy For Impact comes comes a bullet list on Making Things Happen After a Visit:

1. 24-Hour Follow-Up Rule
   

We need to get out our follow-up emails/letters within 24 hours... no matter what. If we wait to write the perfect proposal or pitch, with time, it (1) takes more effort and (2) we lose momentum. I'll take 80% perfect at 24 hours over 90% perfect in three weeks.

Speed doesn't kill... time does.

2. It's a RELATIONSHIP
   

The goal is to maximize the RELATIONSHIP at any given time. Funding is a function of the relationship - not the world's best proposal. Think more about communication and follow-up in terms of a relationship and not a transaction - this will help with #1.

3. Re: Referrals - think about ONE ACTION item and a manageable time line.
   

It's great that prospects are saying they're going to open doors. Focus on ONE action and make it happen. "We're all about momentum and everyone is busy. To keep the ball rolling, can we talk about making one phone call in the next two weeks?"

One action will lead to more. Undefined action leads to no action.

4. "Can you get me a proposal?"
   

If someone asks this we need to simplify on the spot.

"Sure thing... are you an email person?" (everyone is)

"Would it be okay if I summarized points from our conversation in bullet point form and shot that back by email?"

Save yourself HOURS by converting 'proposals' to 'bullet points.'

5. Ball is always in your court.
   

We're getting a lot of great 'pending requests'... if someone says, "give me a few days and I'll get back to you." We need to say, "That's great. If I don't hear from you by Friday, I'll follow-up next week."

6. Email is for follow-up notes. Use the phone to make things happen.     
      
7. Be a closer. Always.   

It's an attitude. Your ability to close translates to lives saved, impacted and transformed. This isn't about some 'business jargon'... it's about real stuff... important stuff. We either believe it or we don't. And, if we do, then we need to close. If we don't - let's quit now.

Happy birthday, Tweety!

Tweety Bird is 60 years old this week!

New trend in advertising?

With the economy in the tank, look for the auto makers to take a much more aggressive posture in marketing their product. This isn’t necessarily for the better.

Rob Van Winkle comes clean.

Vanilla Ice apologizes for Ice Ice Baby. I don’t know, man. I think it’s too little, too late. Who cares if it sold over 40 million copies?

Now they call it 'sexting' (no pun intended).

It was just a matter of time before this technological development lent itself to the soft white underbelly of the social scene. I guess we can consider that progress will always have its downside.

CHICAGO -- Though youth is fleeting, images sent on a cell phone or posted online may not be, especially if they're naughty.

Teenagers' habit of distributing nude self-portraits electronically -- often called "sexting" if it's done by cell phone -- has parents and school administrators worried. Some prosecutors have begun charging teens who send and receive such images with child pornography and other serious felonies. But is that the best way to handle it?

"Hopefully we'll get the message out to these kids," says Michael McAlexander, a prosecutor in Allen County, Ind., which includes Fort Wayne. A teenage boy there is facing felony obscenity charges for allegedly sending a photo of his private parts to several female classmates. Another boy was recently charged with child pornography in a similar case.

In some cases, the photos are sent to harass other teens or to get attention. Other times, they're viewed as a high-tech way to flirt. Either way, law enforcement officials want it to stop, even if it means threatening to add "sex offender" to a juvenile's confidential record.

"We don't want to throw these kids in jail," McAlexander says. "But we want them to think."

That would be nice. In a different sort of way.

Cartoon by Steve Kelley, New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Used with permission.

Thanks, Steve!

We're back. Tanned, rested and ready.

A week island hopping in the Virgin Islands aboard the msy Wind Spirit was just what the doctor ordered. And I highly recommend the following “painkiller” as a remedy for these cold winter days:

4 oz. rum

4 oz. pineapple juice

1 oz. cream of coconut

1 oz. orange juice

Shake and serve on the rocks. Add freshly grated nutmeg on top before serving.

They don't call it a "painkiller" for no reason at all, as I found out.

 

This was the best trip we've been on, followed closely by our Wind Star cruise of the Costa Rican Pacific coast last March. Very therapeutic.

The choice is yours.

As a nonprofit leader, can you communicate this to your development staff – and yes, to your donors – in a way that will help them understand the dynamics of giving from the heart and not from the head? 

H/T: Seth, of course.  

Sign of the times.

By Steve Kelley, New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Used with permission.

Thanks, Steve!

Why I'm in marketing.

Heh.

By Steve Breen, San Diego Union.

Used with permission.

Thanks, Steve!

What if Ted had told the truth?

Using fallen angel Ted Haggard as his linchpin, Jeff Buchanan, Director of the Exodus Church Network, addresses how the church can better reach those who struggle with same-sex attractions and behavior:

What if he had been honest from the very beginning? I'm not talking about the beginning of the scandal, I mean from the very beginning of his ministry. What if he had disclosed his struggle with same-sex attractions to his church and to the National Association of Evangelicals at the very start? Would he still have become president of one of the world's largest evangelical organizations? Would he still have become one of America's most respected spiritual leaders? I would like to believe so. However, I am not naïve to the fact that there are, unfortunately, many other organizations that desire leaders who are "spiritual lions" but upon the admission of any significant weakness, they are sacrificed liked lambs. Was this what Ted was afraid of and if so, was it justified? Do we have a culture in the church today where vulnerability in leadership is considered a disqualifying weakness? If so, what are we going to do about it?

Good question, one that’s been asked for quite some time and for which the church at large has yet to find a suitable answer. I'm going to be in the Caribbean when Ted's HBO special (proof that money will, in fact, buy anything) airs on Jan.29th, so I'll get my two cents in now. I can't think of a story less worth telling to the general public. Just another reason television is not a part of my life.

Bush Was Right When It Mattered Most.

Iraq. The War Against Terrorism. AIDS in Africa. The economy. No Child Left Behind. Medi-Care. Life. The Supreme Court. Karl Rove sums up in today’s WSJ the Bush legacy with succinct eloquence:

Few presidents had as many challenges arise during their eight years, had as many tough calls to make in such a partisan-charged environment, or had to act in the face of such hostile media and elite opinion.

On board Special Air Mission 28000, I remembered the picture I carried in my pocket on my first Air Force One flight eight years ago. It was an old black-and-white snapshot with scalloped edges. It showed Lyndon Johnson in the Cabinet Room, head in hand, weeping over a casualty report. George Christian, LBJ's press secretary, gave it to me as a reminder that the job could break anyone, no matter how big and tough.

But despite facing challenges and crises few others have, the job did not break George W. Bush. Though older and grayer, his brows more furrowed, he is the same man he was, a person of integrity who did what he believed was right. And he exits knowing he summoned all of his energy and talents to defend America and advance its ideals at home and abroad. He didn't get everything right -- no president does -- but he got the most important things right. And that is enough.

I’m humbled to be an American with such a man as President. And Rove shot the following video on Bush's last day in office. Don't look for these on Cbs Evening News:

There's more here and here.

Glenn Sacks has a short but terrifically insightful post on what BHO’s presidency could mean for fatherhood in the US. It’s a mixed batch, but read the whole thing. Two that stuck out with me:

Positive: For the next four or possibly eight years, a good, loving, hands-on father will often be in the media interacting to varying degrees with his children.

Negative: Many of Obama’s allies in the Democratic Party, including the National Organization for Women, are hostile to fathers.

Reality check.

TV writer, and journalist Charles Winecoff on The Awakening of a Dumb (Gay) American:

Bottom line: I have had to work very, very hard my whole life to accept myself as a gay man, and to be able to introduce myself freely as such and be proud of my relationship. No one did that for me. But a big plus was living in this crazy, over-the-top country that has changed so much just in my lifetime – and done such an incredible about-face after eight years of an unpopular President. What other country on earth is that flexible? What other country is that trusting?

Now, however, I often feel as if I’ve been shoved right back into the closet by the very people who go around espousing diversity and equal rights and compassion – fellow gay people and “sophisticated” urban friends who in fact can’t tolerate an idea that’s not out of the playbook. When a Muslim leader in Nigeria – or even scarier, in Canada – declares that gay people should be killed and their heads cut off, I’m sorry, but that offends me. And it also worries me because we have all seen these believers act on their hate.

Meanwhile, the affluent gay community in LA never makes a peep about hate speech if it comes from non-caucasians with funny Arabic names. The buff, mostly-white queers just continue doing what they do best: identify as victims and pretend it’s 1977 – protesting the harmless Mormon church, which never fights back, and boycotting campy Mexican restaurants to put other tax-paying minorities (including some gays) out of work. Meanwhile, a threat much bigger than Prop. 8 is growing fast.

My point is: I don’t think American gays fully comprehend that in many countries, such as Iran, gay people really don’t have any rights – not even to live. Just last September, a brave, 27-year-old student and gay rights activist, who helped organize safe houses for gay men in Baghdad and coordinated the Iraqi LGBT group, was gunned down at point blank range by Islamic militants – not by Christians or US soldiers. But by literal neo-Nazis.

Read the whole thing.

SF Department of Health: Gay HIV Remains Endemic

"When I see statistics still pointing toward an endemic, I am honestly relieved we are not in an epidemic anymore." – HIV Prevention Planning Council (HPPC) member Tom Kennedy

At last week’s monthly HPPC meeting, SF DPH officials presented estimated HIV stats and survey results related to serosorting practices – where men have sex only with men of the same status.

I’m tucked away in my small town in Indiana, so I’m unaware of the tone and timbre in which the following data was laid out by the DPH. Bay Area Reporter Matt Bajko was there, however, and has a pretty candid follow-up piece in today’s paper about the new info and the HPPC's reaction to the stats:

San Francisco health officials set for themselves a fairly high mark five years ago in their fight against HIV: reduce new infections among gay and bi men by 50 percent by 2008.

Based on the latest estimates for new HIV infection rates in San Francisco, the city failed to reach its goal. It did achieve a roughly 10 percent reduction in HIV rates and has downgraded classifying its HIV epidemic to now being endemic, meaning rates are remaining flat from year to year.

. . .

AIDS activist Michael Petrelis said the city would not achieve its 50 percent target until health officials directly address gay men and promote such safe sex strategies as serosorting – only having sex with a person of the same HIV status – and sero-adaptation, determining what sort of sexual behavior to engage in based on the HIV status of one's sexual partner.

"If they want that 50 percent reduction, they have to do more than hold weekday meetings downtown instead of the Castro," he said. "I would like the sexually active gay male community to receive positive (no pun intended) reinforcement for our smart, safe sex practices."

Here are three slides from the DPH’s presentation that I find to be the most significant:

The first shows that the number of new infections for all populations remain stable.

The second slide shows how many HIV-positive men have a sero-adaption strategy for not spreading HIV.

 

The final slide presents data on how many gays plan to use the strategy in their sex lives.

Extrapolate from this what you will and interpret them however you wish. I wish the numbers were better if the HPPC and DPH are thinking sero-adaptation will continue to lower the number of HIV cases in SF.

H/T: InstaPundit