July 28. 2008 by Dick.

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks.

Lee Iacocca’s 2007 book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone, finally made it to Vermont. OK, some excerpts did, thanks to my friend “Bob” who wrote, “Iacocca has for decades been one of my heroes (even if he IS a democrat!)…”

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: “Throw all the bums out!”

The Leadership Blog wants to see Michael Moore and Mr. Iacocca “collaborate to turn this book into a movie.”

<shudder >

“Bob” wrote, “Don’t really see any answers here, though…”

And that’s the trouble with a “challenge.”

It interests me that T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore have both gone to television advertising to sell their quests, but Mr. Iacocca stayed with a book.

I’m afraid television is the wave of the future for idea generators–particularly if the idea is a bad one or a heavily politicized one. Marketing ideas is not the problem. We’ve used the media to sell ideas to the public for as long as there has been a media. In the early days, people wrote pamphlets (Thomas Paine) or owned a newspaper (Ben Franklin). The difference between then and now is that the Paines and Franklins rallied the proletariat and then went out and led them. Nowadays, the Gores and Pickenses rally the proletariat and whine about the politicians rather than implementing their so-called bright ideas theirownselfs.

The Obama camp makes the “change” noises, and the McCain camp makes the “stay the course” noises. For the record, Senator Obama has the water pistol and Senator McCain the blanks.

Throw da bums out.

For 30 nanoseconds I thought I might join Deck and vote for Ralph Nader. After all that’s a sure vote for Mickey Mouse or NOTA. Too bad the messages sent with that vote is that Mr. Nader represents the change I want to see. That’s not my message.

I have retracted the Goofy vote.

Yeah, I know. I could vote the Librarian party. Unfortunately, they are all whackos who keep trying to shush me.

Wot to do, wot to do. Next up, I will have at least a half-a-suggestion but right now I have desk butt and it’s time to go play with my tractor.

Posted in Politics, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 1 Comment »

July 14. 2008 by Dick.

I write but I rarely write about writing. I think about writing. I sometimes talk with friends about writing. I have written once or twice about writing^*1*. Thank goodness I don’t do it very often.

See, the first piece of advice a young writer gets is, “Write what you know.” Unfortunately for readers, most writers know most about writing so they tend to, well, write about it. I’d rather write about nude wimmens or careening to the inside of turn 7 at Lime Rock or whether I can catch a cow on a hook in the deep blue waters of the Gulfstream.

But the sun is shining. Life is good. And Duma Key the place is, for now, very far away.

I’m reading Duma Key the book right now and have been thinking about why I like Stephen King and, as a broader question, why we all like Stories-with-a-Capital-S and the people in them. See, I don’t read fantasy. I don’t even like horror stories. I never told ghost stories around the campfire nor believed them when I listened but I like Stephen King and he tells some serious ghost stories.

I have just two simple truths to share here:

1. We want to spend our time with interesting people.
2. Characters in novels are always busy.

The USA Network peeps have it right with their “Characters Welcome” promotion. The books I like best, the movies that grab me, and the television serials I keep going back to are all peopled with interesting characters. It doesn’t matter as much what they do in the stories as it matters what makes them interesting.

I may be an interesting person. Or not. You may even like me as a person. Or not. No matter. Neither of us particularly wants to share our time with someone doing what I did today. I brushed, pooped, showered, and wandered around my office in my underwear for a while. I spoke to a couple of clients. I researched a strategic plan. I wrote this blog and my weekly column. I worked on a couple of photo images. I checked that I have a band booked for the weekend concert. I may have passed gas. I ate lunch and will eventually eat supper. Tonight I have a heavy evening planned with the t00b.

Yawn.

That was a busy day. Absolutely no part of it moved this story forward. In the novel we could have skipped directly from finding the red picnic basket in the attic to catching the cow on the hook.

Any writer who can create someone we like and keep us hooked with his or her day-to-day puttering is a treasure.

¹ My 10-1/2 Hot Tips for Small-Town Op-ed Writers was commissioned and published by Inklings in 1997.

Posted in Books, Big Thoughts, Random Access | No Comments »

July 3. 2008 by Dick.

I’m not a carpenter, but I do haul sheets of plywood. I’m not a garbage man, but I do haul trash to the dump. I’m not a yardman, but I do tow my broken down tractor around. I need a truck.

My op-ed in the Detroit Free Press was an open letter to Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman and general visionary of Global Product Development at GM.

Dear Bob Lutz, I wrote:

GM needs to lead the market. You can touch the real heart of America with GM innovation. If you can put a 30-m.p.g. truck in the showroom this year and build the new 35-m.p.g. truck for 2011, the rest of the product line would fly again. Read the entire op-ed here..

We’re dying here. GM has to do something.

So. Anybody know how to get to Mr. Lutz? If so, send him a copy, would you?

Posted in Business, Big Thoughts, Random Access | No Comments »