More Ritalin, please.

I’m not much for dwelling on the "good ol’ days". For one, they weren’t all good, no one’s were. But it is fascinating to consider how the memory does play havoc with your psyche. Take this test. Think about your last performance review. I defy you to remember anything good your boss may have said. The only thing you remember is the how your boss unfairly focused on the mistakes in that report that went up to corporate. Anything good has long since been forgotten and, you know, the boss is such a jerk anyway.

But think about your good ol’ days, however you choose to define them, and if you are like most, everything seemed easier, less complicated and certainly less hectic. It’s one thing when there were only 3 or 4 channels to choose from and nothing was on. Now you have to wind your way through upwards of 100 just to come to the same conclusion. Man, that’s complicated.

I thought of all this recently following our recent celebration of the ubiquitous "Presidents Day." It may be just me but I think life was better when we just celebrated Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday. (I know, save your cards and letters. At the federal level, we still celebrate Washington’s birthday as the third Monday in February.) The reason is that when I was growing up, before our good friends on the right gave us the completely misnamed "No Child Left Behind" act, teachers gave us history lessons about Washington and Lincoln. Year in and year out. You couldn’t help but learn some history. Now, with public education focused almost solely on forcing kids to learn just enough to pass embarrasingly easy proficiency exams, precious little time seems to be spent on basic U.S. history. Either that or we, as a society, have the collective attention span of a puppy. How else to explain the incredibly high rankings of George W. Bush in a recent poll commissed by Washington College in honor of, there it is again, "Presidents Day."

That poll rated Ronald Reagan as the greatest president. But I'll forgive the populace for this one given that it's been more than 16 years since he left office. In this day when most people can't remember the last time they flossed, it's rather unfair to ask them to remember something that is so last millenium. That tends to make it easy to erase from our collective conscience the arms-for-hostages, Iran-Contra mess that made Reagen look like a dottering old fool on the witness stand. But I can't give a pass to those who put George W. in the top 5.

Putting politics aside, which is always hard, W. is still in office. Don't you think we ought to at least wait until we can judge his whole body of work before placing him in historic context? This is the equivalent to watching hearing Clay Aiken on "American Idol" and concluding, after one song, that he's the greatest singer ever.

But putting politics in the mix for a moment, I wonder, exactly, how these folks define "great", recognizing, of course that many of these also use the word "genius" to describe the latest Lindsey Lohan CD. Is is the soaring deficit under his watch when he inherited a surplus that makes W. great? Is it the senseless American casualties (1500 and counting) piling up in Iraq because of a war being fought under outrageously false pretenses that makes W. great?

If W's Medicare prescription drug program works every bit as well as, say, his education program, then his legacy is safe. We won't be able to afford the ritalin we apparently need in order to pay attention for more than 30 seconds.

Fart Jokes and Hypocrisy--Let's Hear it for the Right

One of the more troubling developments over the last year is the Salem witch trial like atmosphere our good friends in Congress, the FCC (read, Michael Powell), the Parents Resource Council and other fringe "groups" have created for proponents of free speech. Every time the Right takes down its perceived enemies, it lights up a $25 cigar, cracks open the courvoisier, and damn near tears a rotator cuff patting itself on the back because of the great good it did in the name of free speech. Then, without any sense of irony, they snuff out the cigar, take the last swig of their drink, and then jump feet first in the fight against free speech by grousing about Howard Stern and Janet Jackson's left breast and all other similar evil. The bill likely to be passed by Congress to raise the fines for "indecency" is nothing more than a direct attack on free speech itself. And don't you just hate when they hide behind the "responsibility" banner that has become both sword and shield for the Right in its justification for ridding the public airwaves of fart jokes and pierced nipples. When broadcasters are fearful that televising "Saving Private Ryan" will expose them to crippling fines, there is no question that free speech is being chilled and that the populace and the greater good are much worse off for it. Two of the patron saints of the Right--Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved--would, if they had their way, destroy every print of "Million Dollar Baby" because they believe it makes the case of compassionate assisted suicide. Never mind the ridiculousness of the proposition to anyone who has actually viewed the movie, the insidious nature of their diatribe is what galls me. We are quickly becoming a society intolerant of opposing view points. Rather than listen and reject (it's too hopeful to believe someone could learn from an opposing viewpoint), the right believes it is better that any speech that fails its ever shifting litmus test of "offensive" be outright banned. Personally, I find anything involving Paris Hilton offensive. But I don't think she should be banned. Ultimately she'll suffer a much greater indignity--rejection. That kind of stuff always does die its natural death. Why can't the right be comfortable with that notion?

Ok, enough for now on the rather bizarre indecency bill floating its way through Congress. There is enough through the looking glass activity going on there to scratch one's head bald. You have religious right fanatics in bed with politically correct left wing loonies both proudly and boldly proclaiming that it is their full intent to chill speech and engage in censorship. We certainly aren't in Kansas any more. I suspect that this bill will die in conference, but who knows?

More disturbing to me, though, is the rather odd confluence of events on the journalism front. I'm a recovered journalist myself and therefore I still have an unhealthy obsession on this subject. But even someone who cares little about it should be very, very concerned. The bloggers on the Right, Power Line is a good example, and others, proudly touted the resignations /retirements of a couple of real journalists because, dammit, they were sloppy and irresponsible. But I checked Power Line and barely a word about the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert situation, except a gratuitous isn't it amusing take. How does the White House allow a paid stud like Gannon/Guckert to get credentialed when a legitimate journalist with whom the administration disagrees--Maureen Dowd--can't get her press pass renewed? Is it because Gannon/Guckert, a cubic zirconium of a journalist if ever there was one, is shilling for the administration while the often-shrill Dowd works for that last bastion of liberalism, the New York Times? Nah. My guess is that it's probably because Dowd's extensive background check revealed that she probably burned a flag in protest or some other similar crime against America and Gannon/Guckert's background check only revealed his insatiable interest in gay porn and male escort services. If that's the standard, then Larry Flynt has a much greater claim to seeking press credentials. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that one.

By Frank Rich's count, there are now at least six "journalists" on the Bush payroll, and probably more. Yet the Right and its bloggers remain oddly silent even complacent in light of this and the extensive, multi-million dollar budgets allocated to the military to produce its own "spin" about the war. Give the Bush administration credit for one thing, though. It can learn a lesson or two even from its sworn enemies. They didn't just watch, amusingly, as Baghdad Bob railed against the infidels in the early days of the war. They've stolen his act. If the bloggers on the Right truly are about accountability and responsibility then I would expect and accept nothing less than a series of posts demanding the resignation of Scott McClellan, who clearly participated and fostered this fraud, and anyone else in the administration associated with any program to pay and create fake news. If this is what we are fighting the war in Iraq over, we could have saved billions. Iraq already had state-sponsored journalists and were doing quite well at it.

What's that saying, "Too many chiefs, not enough..."

They coronated another chief today. Maybe it's the inferiority complex we here in the second city feel, but whatever the explanation there is no doubt in my mind anymore that we lead all nations in chiefs.

Once upon a time, the corporate America hierarchy was easy to discern, quaint even. Like our government, the top spot was reserved for the President. Everyone understood in an organization that if you were President, you were the top dog. But if one Vice President is good (an arguable tenent given the rather irrelevance of that position in the context of our government), several has to be better. Thus begat the naming of Vice Presidents for each of the major operating units. For those within each business unit, you still more or less understood the pecking order. That is, until the banks got involved.

Looking to further improve on that model, banks took this to an extreme. Pretty soon, damn near everyone but the tellers had the title "Vice President" somehow attached to their name. There were "Associate Vice Presidents", "Assistant Vice Presidents", "First Vice Presidents", etc. ad nauseum. Not only did they cheapen the title, but you could no longer figure out the pecking order--which is really the only point of titles anyway.

Luckily, most other companies decided not to follow the ridiculous path being forged by our brethern in the banking trade. Unluckily, we just couldn't leave well enough alone, which is what happens when you become an $85 billion multi-national behomoth. Pretty soon we, too, started inflating the titles of the heads of our business units. What were once Vice Presidents thus became Presidents. On the plus side, it relegated the title "Vice President" back to the irrelevant scrap heap from which it arose in the first place. (We still have Vice Presidents, of course. Who doesn't? But unless that title is followed by an "and" then take it to the bank. You have absolutely no chance of ascending to a President title. In other words, you've basically been told that you're not much to look at but you have a great personality.)

Having cheapened the title of President by passing it around like high school boys pass around a bottle of Boone's Farm on a Friday night, the deep thinkers in human resources were in a real pickle. One must be able to distinguish, for example, between a mere President and a real President. Let me think. Let me think. That's where the chief comes in.

So we named a Chief Executive Officer, of course. He still has President in his title, but he's been appended, as in "...AND Chief Executive Officer." What this means, of course, is that when all the executive officers meet, he's the one that gets to sit at the head chair and control the meeting. Believe me, that is the single best perk, ever. Forget the paycheck, the personal driver, the corporate jet. Forget the country club memberships, the stock options and the summer house in the Hamptons. If you get to control the meeting--when it starts, what the agenda is and, most importantly, when it ends, that is the real power of life. It's like holding the remote control, permanently.

We then named a Chief Operating Officer. He's also an appended one, too, as Vice President AND Chief Operating Officer. One thing to know about this job, though, is that it comes with a wink, as in, we know, wink wink, who really gets stuff done. In every day terms, this guy is the wingman. His main job is to make sure he's got the CEO's back. If he's loyal, if he doesn't step in it too bad, someday he too may get to hold the remote control.

Acting like Michael Jackson in a plastic surgeon's office, we just couldn't control ourselves. If one is good and two is better, eight chiefs must be the bestest. That is, until there are nine. So we added an entire menu of chiefs--Chief Governance Officer, Chief Ethics Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Procurement Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. And that's just on the executive level. Among the serfs, we added Chief Clerk, Chief Mechanic, Chief Sales Associate and Chief Engineer. But before our friends in HR tear a rotator cuff patting each other on the back at what they wrought, they ought to recognize that the light at the end of the tunnel is an on-coming semi. If past be prologue, and it is, we'll have to title inflate again. That's what we do. You see it in government with the incessant need to name Czars, which, admittedly, has a certain ring to it despite its spotty history. I think the only remaining question is the order of the titles on the business card, which, pretty soon, will have to be printed on 8 1/2 by 11 stock.

Me? I supect there's not a chief in my future. I suspect there's not an "AND" in my future, either. I'll die a happy man if I could just get more than one word in my title.