Rove's Humor

Thanks to a post from Sue Polinsky about a speech Karl Rove gave at the U of Iowa, we see Karl's sense of humor:

Radio Iowa also reports one audience member told Rove that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named him the "worst person ever."

"Ever?" Rove joked. "Yea, worse than Hitler, worse than Stalin, worse than Mao and worse than the person who introduced aluminum baseball bats.

You got to love that.

Car Lust

I enjoy the Car Lust blog so nuch I put it on my check-every-day list. With their call for open entries on favorite cars, I hereby propose my favorite. I'll eschew my Corvettes and go with my most fondly-remembered car.

When I was finishing college, My mother promised me a new car for a graduation present. I lusted for a Corvair Monza Spyder. My mother's uncles owned the Studebaker dealership in town so we had always had Studebakers. She was at the dealership one day and mentioned to one or the salesmen that I wanted a Monza. He told her he was taking a year-old Studebaker GT Hawk in on trade for a new Avanti and I might be interested in that car. I went by to see it when it came in, and it was love at first sight.

(Side note: The dealership also handled Mercedes-Benz. When I went to see the Hawk, they had a 1955 SL300 gullwing Mercedes on the floor as well. The Monza would have cost $2,500 or so, and the Hawk was about the same. The Mercedes was, as I recall, $5,500 but it might as well have been a million since it was way out of our budget. Some years later gullwing coupes were worth $500,000 or more. Another lost opportunity.)

I drove the Hawk for four years. Things began to go bad on it that were difficult to get fixed since Studebaker had left the car business in 1966. The last summer I owned the car, 1967, the windshield wipers didn't work, and it was only because that was the driest summer in years in Maryland that not having wipers wasn't a critical problem.

In late summer of '67 I bought a new Plymouth Belvedere and sold the Hawk to another lieutenant at Aberdeen Proving Ground, for $500. He was moving to Colorado, and a week or so after he left I got a letter from him. I was expecting the worst, but he was a happy camper. He had taken the car in for service when he got to CO and had been offered $1,200 for it on the spot. He was thrilled, and I was happy to have had my Hawk "fix".

The above photo was taken at Rehobeth Beach DE and includes my first wife Ann, our friends the Bianchi's, and Punkin the dachshund.

I've owned a number of interesting cars: two Corvettes, A BMW, a Lotus, a Jaguar, and several Mercedes, but the Hawk is my all-time favorite.

Scary News

I don't usually write about politics, so classify this as a "management" post. The News & Record had a very scary line hidden in this article this morning:

"But on Thursday, Matheny said a motion might not be necessary. City Manager Mitchell Johnson was moving faster than expected on finding Miles' replacement, he said."

Why scary?, because the intimation that the search for a city attorney was being conducted entirely by the City Manager, without input from other sources.

One of the things I learned early in my management career was the power that groups have to make better decisions than individuals make. In an executive development program, I was exposed to the "Crash in the Desert" exercise in decision making. This article outlines my experience perfectly. They write: (emphasis added)

"We played the "Desert Survival" game where the challenge was to decide how to best survive an airplane crash in the desert. Each person had to rank 10 items in order of their importance to survival and decide whether to stay with the plane or try to walk for help. After each person made his or her decisions, we were put into small groups to make the same decisions as a group." "What amazed me was the outcome ... ALL of the groups scored higher than the highest scoring individual.

My boss was an ex-military guy who was quite confident about his survival skills. Even he did not do as well as the groups.

Mitchell Johnson is undoubtedly a smart person, but that doesn't mean he will make the best decision in this case. I think the city has suffered from other decisions that were made by one or two people without input from a broader point of view. (I'm thinking of David Wray's dismissal.) I hope the City Council and Mitch Johnson will realize that a group of people will almost always make a better decision than one individual will and will convene a group to help with the selection of a new city attorney.

National Championship Team?

Youngstown State, Akron, Northwestern, Washington, Minnesota, Purdue, Kent State, Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan. These are the teams Ohio State's football team beat this season. Only one (Purdue at #20) was ranked in the top 20 polls when they played OSU. Is this really the schedule of a potential National Champion? I don't think so.

The Greatest Car Commercial

The Blogfather has recently made several references to car commercials (here and here). As to car commercials, I'd nominate this one as the greatest of all times. OK, its not your run-of-the-mill ad. It was an LP record (you remember those, the round flat things with the groove on each side.)

I remember listening to this in a fraternity brother's dorm room at Clemson 1962, and from that point on, I lusted for a Corvette. I subsequently owned two, a '73 and an '84 and loved both of them. I wish I had a new one now! So I don't know about from an artistic standpoint, but from the point of commercial success, this ad did pretty well.

There is more about Arkus-Duntov, the Father of the Corvette, here.

Bored?

Need a little excitement in your life? You might want to try this job.

(Particularly check out about the 2-minute mark.) "There's only three things I've ever been afraid of: electricity, heights, and women, . . ."

Thanks, City

My driveway goes into Henderson Road, which is not curb-and-guttered along my yard. About every ten years or so, the junction of the driveway and the street gets washed out and a ledge of several inches develops at the street pavement. I thought I'd see if the city could do anything to help the situation, so I called to inquire. I got out the trusty Blue Pages in the phone book and under the city listing was a number for Shoulder Maintenance, which sounded like it might be the right place to start.

I called, and after listening thru several minutes of recorded messages, I got to talk to a live person. After explaining my problem, the lady said she'd have a supervisor come by and look at the situation to see what could be done. She said the supervisor would call me with a report.

Within an hour, a gentleman called to say he'd looked at the driveway, and he could authorize a truck to come by and put some gravel in the low spots, filling-in a couple of feet from the street, if that would be satisfactory. He said if I wanted concrete apron or curb/gutter work, that was above his authority. The gravel was just fine I said, and I thanked him for his quick response.

Before long, there was a dump truck in my driveway dumping gravel and a crew smoothing it out. They did a very nice job and quietly left.

It took less than two hours from first phone call to completion. Thanks for a job done promptly and well.

Here is what the repair looks like.

Remembering Friends Lost

Ed Cone remembers the 25th Anniversary of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. Some time ago I came across the web-site for the Virtual Wall which has a lot of info about men who were killed in Vietnam.

I often recall two friends who were killed there. Tommy Rose was from Greensboro and we were friends from church and scouting. That's Tommy on the left.

Robert Walden was a friend and fellow menber of the Pershing Rifles drill team at Clemson.

I think of them both often, and we should honor their sacrifice for our country.

Second Chances

I believe in second chances. I am personally glad that people get them. Yesterday, while following some links on the Beauchamp/TNR story I came across a phrase, "flat ass rules", that was new to me: I googled it and found this document which contains the lines:

3. Leadership
Understand the difference between a mistake and a breakdown in discipline. Identify, correct, and lead through mistakes. Utilize every ounce of your leadership to stamp out discipline lapses. I neither expect nor demand unending perfection. Perfection is attainable, but only for select periods. I do demand consistent
excellence and a dedicated commitment to improving the readiness of our Squadron.

I like that line "Identify, correct, and lead through mistakes." I don't fully understand the phrase "breakdown of discipline", but if I translate it to mean failure to follow proper procedures, this makes a lot of sense.

Today Michael Yon has posted a great essay on second chances.

All this reminded me of our current city management/police department situation. I've come to believe that Mitch Johnson needs to go as city manager, but maybe council candidate Bill Knight has a better idea. Bill has suggested finding some other spot in city government for Johnson, and I first thought this was just a way to avoid firing him.

On second thought, maybe it is the best way. Mitch has many supporters who believe he is a talented and valuable manager. He made a serious mistake in the way he handled the Wray situation, but perhaps he deserves a second chance. I could support giving him a choice of moving to some other open job with the city and letting him earn a second chance.

We need to find a solution to this mess, and I think Bill's suggestion has some merit.

Come on Guys, You Can Do Better

Ann Althouse linked to this article. It is a fascinating story, but I was struck by the following, "Ms. Gibson will receive the promised $15,000 reward from the seller, as well as a smaller finder’s fee from Sotheby’s, which the auction house declined to disclose." Let's see, doesn't the auction house get a 20% commission. That's $200,000 if the painting in fact sells for a million dollars. Surely Sotheby's can pony up more than a piddling couple of thou. In this case, I think they should split the commission more nearly 50:50.

ConvergeSouth

I attended the ConvergeSouth conference this past week-end and really enjoyed it. Though I don't blog much, as you can see, I wanted to learn more about blogging, and the registration fee was right. I did learn a lot, saw some old friends, and met several bloggers whose work I read and admire. You all know who you are.

I've been critical of the political slant of the conference (here, here, and here among others) but otherwise I thought the organizers did a great job of putting on the event. As volunteers, they have my appreciation, and I'll do what I can to help in the future.

This morning, I stumbled on the ConvergeSouth Flickr site and was reminded of one of the best pieces of photographic advice I've ever gotten: If you want to improve your photography, don't show all your pictures. I just couldn't look thru 500 photos to find any that interested me.

A Modest Proposal

I didn't get to the Wyndham Championship (nee: GGO) this year, but the News & Record says it was a success ("Sunday's gripping final round transformed it into an artistic success"). If this is so, I have a modest proposal to improve the tournament next year: cut the purse from $5,000,000 to $1,000.000. Will fewer golfers enter? No, the field will still be full. Will the field be weaker? I don't think so. Where else are they going to play that week, a half-million dollar Nationwide Tour event? They will still enter for the chance to win a tour exemption and money on the overall prize list. And we can put $4 million back into the community!

OK, just so we won't appear selfish and short-sighted, I propose we add to the total purse if we attract a better field: say increase the total purse by$1 million if Tiger enters, add $100,000 for each entrant from 2-10 on the World Golf rankings, and maybe $20,000 more for golfers 11-50 on the world list. This year we had one top-50 golfer in the field.

I think this way we'd either have a lot stronger field at next years's event or we'd have a lot more money to do some good things around the city.

What Drought?

Some folks don't have to worry about watering restrictions, at least for now.

What If Elvis Had Never Been Born?

The Blogfather cites this interesting article about Elvis on the 30th anniversary of Elvis's death.

"Today Elvis is an industry. For 35,000 Elvis impersonators around the world he's a livelihood, to the city of Memphis he's a huge tourist attraction - his home, Graceland, being the second most visited house in America after the White House. And to others, he's a semi-mythical creature at the head of some weird devotional Elvis religion."

As they say, "Read the whole thing."

Joke of the Day

James Lileks recognized today as National Tell-a-Joke-Day and asked his readers to submit their favorites. A number of folks did, with varying degrees of humor. One, however was good enough to make my Joke of the day.

A young farm lad goes off to college, but about 1/3 of the way through the semester, he has foolishly squandered away all of the money his parents gave him.
Then he gets an idea. He calls his daddy. "Dad," he says, "you won't believe the wonders that modern education is coming up with! Why, they actually have a program here at Auburn that will teach our dog Ole Blue how to talk!"
"That's absolutely amazing," his father says. "How do I get him in that program?" "Just send him down here with $1,000" the boy says. "I'll get him into the course." So, his father sends the dog and the $1,000.
About 2/3 way through the semester, the money runs out. The boy calls his father again.
"So how's Ole Blue doing, son," his father asks."Awesome, Dad, he's talking up a storm," he says, "but you just won't believe this--they've had such good results with this program that they've implemented a new one to teach the animals how to READ!"
"READ," says his father, "No kidding! What do I have to do to get him in that program?"
Just send $2,500, I'll get him in the class." His father sends the money.
The boy now has a problem. At the end of the year, his father will find out that the dog can neither talk, nor read. So he shoots the dog.
When he gets home at the end of the semester, his father is all excited. "Where's Ole Blue? I just can't wait to see him talk and read something!"
"Dad," the boy says, "I have some grim news. Yesterday morning, just before we left to drive home, Ole Blue was in the living room kicked back in the recliner, reading the Wall Street Journal, like he usually does. Then he turned to me and asked, 'So, is your daddy still messin' around with that little redhead who lives in town?'
The father says, "I hope you SHOT that son of a bitch before he talks to your Mother!"
"I sure did, Dad!"
"That's my boy!"

Who knew?

Zombies?

Justice?

Let's see. Two young men, each prominent in his community, are involved in traffic accidents involving alcohol and resulting in the death of another young person. One gets two years in the pokey, the other gets, what, . . . I forget. This week-end's exercise is to compare and contrast the cases of Tolly Carr and Ted Kennedy.

That's Captain Poirier to you!

I wrote about the Wake Forest Law School student who won a recent case before the US Court of Appeals. The National Law Journal has more on the story.

"Meghan Poirier, 28, a West Point graduate and now a captain in the U.S. Army who is about to begin training in the Judge Advocate General corps, handled the appeal of John D. Mooney as part of an appellate clinic at Wake Forest University School of Law. She argued the appeal just two days after graduation in May, according to John Korzen, law professor in appellate writing who directed the clinic at Wake Forest, which is in Winston-Salem, N.C. [Case details snipped.]

Korzen said of Poirier, "She did it all. She did the research and drafting of the briefs. We had three or four practice rounds of oral argument."

Poirier called the 4th Circuit argument an "opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime."

Poirier spent three years serving in the military police in Germany before returning to law school at Wake Forest on an Army scholarship. She said she finished her bar exam last week and will know in a few months if she passed.

Meanwhile, she begins three years with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell this month."

You go girl!

65 Years!

I celebrated my 65th birthday last week, and I posted some pictures showing how I've aged. I really don't think there has been much change, do you? All the photos are here, with only a few years missing.

Who was the Lawyer?

A post on the Volokh Conspiracy led to the court decision on an interesting case before the Fourth Circuit US Court of Appeals, argued (and won) by a third-year Wake Forest Law School student.

Best I can figure, the facts are as follows: A felon disarms his drunk wife (who had threatened to shoot him) and takes the gun directly to his work place, intending to turn it over to the police. When he gets there, the police are waiting and arrest him for having the gun in his possession. He pleads guilty after his lawyer tells him there is no "justification defense" and is sentenced to 15 years in the pokey. (OK, this is a very brief summary of the case.)

After reading some of the decision and the comments on the original blog posts, I wonder why the original prosecutor felt it necessary to prosecute this case in the first place. It seems such a travesty of justice. The poor guy did four years for trying to do the right thing, primarily because he got rotten legal advice. The prosecutor gets off the hook but also so does the defense attorney. Shouldn't at least his name be published to protect other citizens?