Hope and Love Over Hate

On Father’s Day this Sunday, I thought about Ricky Byrdsong. I was not alone.

Ricky Byrdsong

Byrdsong is the late Northwestern University basketball coach who was gunned down 16 years ago by neo-Nazi, white supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith. On July 2, 1999, Brydsong was jogging near his home in Skokie, Illinois with his 10-year-old daughter Kelley and 8-year-old son Ricky Jr.  

Smith, who was on a hate-filled shooting spree, drove alongside them in his Ford Taurus and shot the elder Byrdsong multiple times. Byrdsong died the next day.

This Wednesday Ricky Brydsong would have turned 59 years old.

On Sunday, I was one of 5,000 people in Evanston, Illinois who participated in the “Race Against Hate,” an annual event that bears Byrdsong’s name. Run by the YWCA Evanston/North Shore, the Race seeks to combat hate of all kinds and raise money to promote education on issues of violence and racial equality.

Tragic Shooting in South Carolina

While each of the past 15 Races have been special, this year’s was particularly poignant following last week’s tragic, racially motivated shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Last Wednesday, 21-year-old Dylann Roof drove two hours from his home to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston and opened fire on a Bible study, killing nine people. The victims were all black. Roof had hoped that his actions would start a race war.

Like many of you, the news made me both sad and confused. Somehow, somewhere in his young life, something went terribly wrong inside Dylann Roof’s head. A hate-filled manifesto has since surfaced in which Roof describes feeling compelled to kill blacks in Charleston.

Roof’s “mission,” as he described it, was similar to Benjamin Smith’s. Smith was also 21 years old when he went on his two-state shooting rampage. In addition to murdering Byrdsong, Smith killed Korean-American college student Won Joon Yon on the campus of Indiana University. Smith wounded six Orthodox Jews on Chicago’s North Side, two African American men in Illinois’ capital of Springfield, a Taiwanese man in Urbana, Illinois and another African American man in Decatur, Illinois.

Smith was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, just minutes from where Sunday’s Race Against Hate took place. He attended New Trier High School and the University of Illinois. One day after Byrdsong’s death, on July 4, 1999, Smith committed suicide.

The Nine Lives

As I walked on Father’s Day along Lake Michigan on a warm, sunny summer morning, I chose not to think about either Roof or Smith. Instead, I thought about the lives that they took. In particular, I thought about the nine South Carolina victims. Click here to watch a series of short videos on CNN about the victims. 

• Rev. Clementa Pinckney (41) – A South Carolina state senator, pastor, father of two children. A brilliant, caring man, Pinckney was elected to the state house of representatives at the age of 23 and to the state senate 4 years later.
• Rev. Sharonda Singleton (45) – A speech therapist, track coach, mother and role model.
• Myra Thompson (59) – Bible study teacher and woman of deep religious faith who, according to friends, lived to serve God.
• Tywanza Sanders (26) – A business graduate from Allen University with an infectious smile who died trying to save his aunt, Susie Jackson.
• Ethel Lee Lance (70) – A grandmother and church member for 30 years who was enjoying her retirement.
• Cynthia Hurd (54) – A 31-year employee of the Charleston County Library, lover of books and her community who was the matriarch and “glue” of her family.
• Rev. Daniel Simmons, Sr. (74) – A retired pastor from another Charleston church who had joined the staff at Emanuel AME Church.
• Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor (49) – A school administrator, mother of 4 daughters and, according to friends and family, a warm, enthusiastic leader.
• Susie Jackson (87) – The oldest victim – a grandmother, longtime church member and singer in the church choir.

They Welcomed a Stranger

For the loved ones of these nine people, each day since last Wednesday’s shooting I am sure has been excruciating. They certainly have wondered how such a thing can happen. Father’s Day Sunday I can only imagine must have been overwhelming for them.  They are facing the harsh reality that they will never see their loved ones again.

According to news reports, Roof entered the church and asked those gathered if he could join their Bible study. They welcomed him with open arms. They were so nice to him, in fact, Roof apparently thought of not going through with his mission. But he did.

As he fired at the victims, methodically reloading the Glock .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun that he apparently received as a birthday present, he is reported to have shouted, “You all are taking over our country. Y’all want something to pray about? I’ll give you something to pray about.”

SAE frat member

The question I’m struggling with is: How does hate fill a person’s heart like this? Does it come from his parents? Does it come from his community? Does it come from friends or from institutions?

This makes me think back to this past April when a video surfaced of a bus load of Sigma Alpha

Epsilon fraternity students from OklahomaUniversity singing a hateful, racist song. The song joked about lynching blacks and about how blacks would never be part of their fraternity. Is this how hate is sewn and takes root?

Following the video surfacing, two of the students were expelled and the fraternity was shut down on

Oklahoma’s campus. An investigation has since uncovered that fraternity members learned this song at a national leadership event sponsored by the national chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Ironically, that national chapter is based right here in Evanston, Illinois and all 5,000 participants in the “Race Against Hate” walked or ran right past it Sunday.

“I Forgive You”

Runners line up in Evanston at the Race Against Hate

Despite Roof’s hateful and murderous act, family members who spoke at his courtroom bond hearing last week somehow found words of forgiveness.

Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, told Roof, “I forgive you. You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”

Can you imagine uttering those words to the man who just days earlier shot and killed your mother in cold blood?

Over 5,000 people declared hope over hate

As I walked the 3.2 miles of the Race, I found myself at times overwhelmed with sadness. I thought of the families of each of the victims and what they were doing. But as I walked, I was surrounded by so much positive energy that it raised my spirits. YWCA volunteers cheered us all on. People smiled, clapped and encouraged each other. Hope was everywhere.

The hope was infectious and it made me recall the words I’d read last week from Chris Singleton, the son of victim Sharonda Singleton. He stated, “Love is always stronger than hate. So if we just loved the way my Mom would, then hate won’t be anywhere close to what it is.”

I agree with Chris. Despite the shock and horror of hate, hope and love will always win. Still we must do more to seek out the sources of hate and address it head on if we’re gong to stop these types of tragedies from happening again.

The Air Up There

During a recent cross-country flight, I reluctantly discovered that the feet of the woman seated next to me smelled remarkably like Parmesan cheese.

I say “reluctantly” because this was not knowledge that I sought. Rather, it wafted into my awareness just prior to take-off for our four-hour flight from San Jose, California to Chicago, Illinois.

It wasn’t a pleasant smell. You know how certain cheeses – like blue and sharp varieties – can smell a little bit like vomit? It was that smell. And despite attempting to aim my tiny overhead blower full force to intercept the smell of her cheese feet, the stink was persistent. It would not be denied.

Parmesan Cheese feet...in the flesh

Shoeless Section?

This caused me to consider a question that I’ll admit I’m grappling with: Should planes enforce a “shoes on” policy? Or, perhaps, should they provide those passengers who want to remove their shoes with other accommodations. For example, what about a “shoes off” section that hearkens back to the smoking sections of the past? Or perhaps include some floral scented “Foot Refresher” wipes in the seat-back next to the barf bag.

Planes, I realize, already have lots of rules. Generally this is a good thing given that these sleek craft soar to 35,000 feet in the air and reach speeds of over 500 miles per hour all while carrying hundreds of people crammed together in a relatively small space.

Rules keep us all safe and provide for an orderly, reasonably comfortable experience while flying. But in considering this potential “shoes on” rule, I will highlight the “relatively small space” part of my description of air travel.

Planes are tight. Just recently I read that Boeing’s new big innovation is to make the bathrooms on their planes smaller so that they can cram in as many as 14 more seats. Seriously? How can an airplane bathroom get any smaller? Perhaps airlines and their respective investors will love this innovation, but I can guarantee passengers will not.

Right to Clean (non-smelly) Air

Flights can be difficult, especially long ones. People have the right to be comfortable. But do they have the right to make themselves comfortable while making others uncomfortable? When we’re in a plane, we’re all breathing the same stale, recycled air, so bad smells tend to not go unnoticed. In fact, they’re amplified.

Now, the odor from Ms. Cheese Feet lady was bad, but it was tolerable. However, the experienced conjured up a difficult travel-related memory from the past that I’ve worked hard to forget. It also involved a woman’s feet on a plane.

It was a flight from Atlanta to Chicago, a route I’d taken hundreds of times. I was working as a consultant, living on the road 5 days a week. Hotels, restaurant food and air travel were part of my routine. I was a nomad of sorts, but it’s how I made a living. This life, however, was nearly snuffed out abruptly by the absolute nastiest foot odor I’d ever encountered in my life.

The woman barely made the plane. Unfortunately for me, she slipped on board just as the door was about to close. As I recall, a ruckus arose at the front of the plane and out of a hazy Pig-Pen-like cloud emerged a disheveled, wild-eyed middle-aged woman who promptly stumbled down the aisle and dropped into the vacant aisle seat next to me.

Her odor arrived a few seconds before she did physically. To grasp this smell, close your eyes and image you’re resting your nose in the center of a large ashtray overfilled with cigarette butts. On the bottom of the ashtray is a small puddle of cheap whiskey.

Defensively, I initiated immediate mouth breathing, but it was only partially successful. As much as I tried not to, I could actually taste this woman’s barroom odor. But it got worse quickly. She took her shoes off.  

As she slipped off a pair of sandal-like shoes that had a thick black band across the top, she exhaled a raspy “Oh, yeah, that’s much better,” to us surrounding passengers. She rubbed her puffy, chapped feet together. Her toenails were cracked and discolored, looking remarkably like Fritos corn chips.

I caught the vomit in my mouth before it made it past my lips. Thank God. To say that an evil green cloud swirled menacingly over her feet would be an exaggeration and somewhat inaccurate, but it would convey to you the absolute toxic, landfill-like stench that arose from her feet, seeped into our row, enveloped my head and nearly rendered me unconscious.

Surviving the Scent

Could she not smell this? The bigger question: How could I survive a two-hour flight to Chicago? That would be impossible. As I considered my options, it got worse. The plane stopped and the captain informed us Chicago’s O’Hare Airport was under ground stop. We’d be sitting for a while – most likely an hour.

My only move was to find another seat. I quickly spotted one several rows back, frantically collected my things and – despite the seatbelt sign being illuminated – darted past the woman and claimed my new seat. I am quite certain I saved my own life.

A Boeing 747 

Odor Sensor?

Perhaps an odor sensor should be on planes. It would be a button up above each seat in between the air vent and the flight attendant call button. Maybe it has the picture of a nose. The button both lights up and has a shameful sounding buzz to indicate that in this specific seat “conditions have developed that make the air unpleasant and unsafe.” The uncomfortable peer pressure this would create might preemptively thwart future barefoot offenders.

Now, I realize airplane farters – and you know who you are – will object to this. They seem to think it’s their inalienable right to fart at 30,000 feet. They would no doubt scoff at installing what I like to call the “seat siren”.

I will admit that any odor sensing device may prove complicated for those with generally bad hygiene or, for example, the hoodie and basketball shorts wearing man child next to me on another recent flight who snarfed down a foot-long salami sub before we took off then promptly fell asleep and proceeded to exhale vile half digested garlic salami breath in my direction for a full hour as we soared over Arkansas, Missouri and into southern Illinois.

I certainly realize this is an uphill battle and not one I’m likely to win. I understand. All of us humans are flawed. We do many wonderful things, but our feet tend to smell at the end of a long day.

I would just implore my fellow travelers that before you slip off your loafers ask yourself a few questions:

Are my feet currently capable of rendering someone unconscious? Might they smell like cheese? Am I in my living room at home on my couch – eating Pringles and watching “Golden Girls” reruns? Or am I in a public space – like a plane – where it’s possible I might be offending someone with my intensely foul smell?

I think if you answer these questions honestly, we’ll all be better off...together...in the air up there.

All Things in Moderation...Including Moderation

Michael J. Madigan. William Blake. Mark McGwire.

You might not see an obvious linkage between a longtime Illinois politician, a seminal British poet and a former baseball slugger indelibly linked to steroids.

I hadn’t either, frankly, until I listened to a recent Sunday morning radio talk show as Madigan, Democratic Speaker of the Illinois House of Representative, was interviewed by two reputable journalists. The topic was Illinois’ dire state of financial affairs and Madigan’s current budget stand-

off with newly elected Billionaire Governor, Republican Bruce Rauner.

Michael J. Madigan

Now, to level set, a little background is needed. Illinois is the country’s 5^th most populous state with nearly 13 million people. It has the country’s third biggest city, Chicago. Currently, Illinois is the country’s worst state financially, rated lowest by the 3 major bond rating companies who each paint a negative outlook for the Land of Lincoln.

Their reasons include Illinois’ consistent record of spending more money than it takes in and, among other sins, its worst-in-the-nation public employee pension crisis with over $110 billion in unfunded liability. By sheer coincidence, two recent Illinois governors – one Democrat and one Republican – have ended up behind bars.

So, things are pretty bad. If Illinois were a single family home, the banks would have taken the title back a long time ago. In considering Illinois’ finances, the mind conjures up images of drunken sailors on shore leave or perhaps a shopaholic carting home a trunk load of goods despite being mired in a mountain of credit card debt.

Neither of these are exactly factual comparisons, but they’re informative when you consider that the current political theater playing out in Illinois state capital of Springfield is centered on how to close a $6.2 billion deficit.

Rauner ran and won office last fall vowing to reform a corrupt and broken state. Madigan has countered, calling Rauner’s budget cuts irresponsible and extreme. Both, of course, claim the protagonist role and cast the other as the evil antagonist.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner

OK, cut to Madigan and a recent WGN radio interview – one, quite honestly, that every Illinois tax paying citizen should hear. In late May as Illinois lawmakers were ready to end their spring session, veteran Chicago Tribune journalist Rick Pearson and Illinois Public Radio’s Amanda Vinicky spoke to Madigan for 20 minutes.

The 73-year-old Madigan, a man arguably locked in the battle of his political career, used the airtime to robotically recite his position of “moderation” in plotting a way out of Illinois’ financial death spiral. In fact, he used the word “moderation” a full 8 times during the interview and cast his nemesis Rauner as “extreme” a full 10 times. 

With the steely swagger of a grizzled politician on the campaign trail, Madigan calmly called for a “balanced approach” in solving the fiscal crisis. He advised that everyone be “reasonable.”  His words were so repetitive that in a moment of frustration and candor, Pearson suggested in jest that if Illinois simply taxed the word “moderation” then its financial woes might be solved.

For me this exchange conjured up the words of William Blake. Odd, I know, but this stuff happens randomly for recovering English majors. Back in college – many years ago at the University of Illinois, no less – I studied Blake. In the “Proverbs of Hell” portion of this somehow fittingly titled poem “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” Blake wrote,

William Blake

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom…You never know what is enough until you

know what is more than enough.”

Essentially, Blake suggests that excess eventually begets moderation. Put another way – we don’t know what’s enough until we know what’s too much.

Both Pearson and Vinicky must have been channeling their inner Blake by asking Madigan whether, as the Speaker of the House for 30 of the past 32 years, he should shoulder some of the blame for Illinois’ current quagmire.

Madigan, with the skillful sidestep of a Spanish matador, evaded the question entirely – not once, but twice. His red cape unfurled behind him as he stood statue-like, each reporter roaring past him. Past excess? Responsibility? Ole!

No, Madigan was not here to speak about how we got neck-deep into this soup. He was taking to the airwaves to offer up bland, prefabricated sound bites calling for “moderation” over “extremism.”

His tightly scripted words were meant to woo common, middle-class folks and vilify ruthless Rauner, who is expected to tap into his considerable billions to carpet bomb the TV airwaves with his own propaganda blasting Madigan and his status quo cronies. Yes, this will get ugly.

"Sunday Spin" WGN Radio Broadcast with Madigan

Madigan’s refrain in the interview was: “The number one problem affecting the government of the state of Illinois is the budget deficit and our accumulating debt. That’s why the focus should be on the elimination of the deficit.”

Madigan believes Rauner is not playing fair by offering “non-budget” issues like disability payments to injured workers and also planning to save $2 billion in pension spending without having first put forward a bill to make such a move legal.

Still, I see two notes of irony with Madigan’s statement:

1. These words come from the decades-long most powerful man in Springfield who, critics suggest, has led the state headlong into the red and to the brink of the fiscal cliff.
2. While he’s calling for a moderate path to clean up the spilled red ink of the past, Madigan solidly backs a $36.3 billion spending plan that he acknowledges is $3 billion underfunded. In other words, “Yeah, we need all of this money, but, my fellow citizen, we can’t afford $3 billion of it. So, can you float us another loan?”

I’m sorry – isn’t that how we got into this mess in the first place? Or is that what Madigan is hoping we won’t remember? Is he hoping to convince us that the past is in no way informative when trying to explain the present? Does he really want us to believe his newfound fiscal responsibility and his stance espousing “moderation” over “excess”?

Mark McGwire testifying before Congress

For me, this is where Mark McGwire comes in. You probably remember Muscular Mark of Major League Baseball, the homerun hitter who in 1998 demolished New York Yankee Roger Maris' long-standing single-season record for home runs. McGwire and comrades Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro stand as the thick-necked figureheads of baseball’s Steroid Era.

When McGwire sat before Congress in March 2005 to answer questions about his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, his response was, “I am not here to talk about the past.” It was McGwire’s own now-famous matador-like reply, evading the Congressman’s question entirely. Ole!

McGwire, essentially said by his own omission that, “Yeah, I juiced. I took steroids because, well, I wanted to hit homeruns.” How different are McGwire and Madigan really? Are they Irish twins of sorts? To both men, the past is the past, so let’s bury the inconvenient facts and avoid all questions about their possible relevance.

Under questioning, both Madigan and McGwire ducked then promptly called for a positive path forward…to make things better. This reasonable path, they might argue, will lead us to a coveted palace of wisdom. But as Mr. Blake told us over 200 years ago, destination “Moderation” often comes from staggering along the winding, reckless, over-indulgent road of Excess.

Unfortunately, sooner or later, Illinois taxpayers are going to be stuck picking up the tab for the joyride.

The Afterglow of a Bonafide Know-It-All

We live in a world with a vast amount of knowledge, so for someone to claim to be a “know-it-all” is fairly preposterous.

Ken Jennings, however, would have a legitimate shot at this admittedly absurd title. Jennings is a Jeopardy legend, winning 74 games in a row between June and November 2004, raking in more than $3 million in prize money.  

Ken Jennings annihilating the competition

Despite this unprecedented feat, Jennings would dismiss the “know-it-all” label on two grounds: 

1. It’s impossible to “know all” given the staggering growth of the amount of information in today’s world – doubling in quantity every 18 months or so. 
2. It’s a worthless title because in this age of mobile phones, search engines and ubiquitous internet, knowing is less important since we can just look it up. 

The half-life of uranium? The MVP of the 1953 baseball World Series? The meaning of the Latin term “habeas corpus”? The origin of the term chickpea? It’s all there on your trusty phone.

I listened to Jennings deliver a spirited, funny and insightful keynote address this week in Austin to kick-off mLearnCon, a conference to explore the massive growth and future potential of mobile learning. During his remarks, which were highlighted by photos of his Jeopardy glory days, Jennings essentially declared that the “I Know” world is dead. For him personally, as a man heralded as arguably the best game show contestant in history, this has been a somewhat humbling reality.

“I was no longer a special little snowflake,” he told the audience of more than 1,000 learning and technology professionals assembled for the 2-½ day gathering.

Jennings’ status as special certainly started early and was by no means accidental. At the age of 10, after many months of savings, he purchased a world atlas and slept with it every night. As a kid living in South Korea, he religiously watched Jeopardy – aided greatly by the fact that it was a feature program on the one English-speaking TV channel available. In the 1980s, young Ken was wildly obsessed with the game Trivial Pursuit.

He was a self-confessed knowledge junkie. Despite his success and clear prowess, Jennings knows that computers are better at remembering information than humans. They are built to remember and do so quickly, accurately and consistently (for the most part).

Two brains and an IBM computer

He recounted his 2011 return to Jeopardy to face a menacing IBM computer named Watson. The high-powered string of servers was specifically designed to beat the pants off of mere mortal Jennings. And it did.

Computers can just do some things better than humans, and Jennings used this moment to speculate that computers will continue to render obsolete other knowledge-based jobs in our economy.  Computer-filled prescriptions, he pondered, could eliminate or lessen the need for pharmacists. Computers could do the research paralegals do, he offered. What about long-range truck drivers replaced with driverless rigs controlled by technology like Google maps?

Not only is it possible technologically, but the finances look attractive considering computers don’t get tired, need vacations or require health care benefits. They also don’t need those pesky pensions that seem to be crippling just about every state and municipality these days.

But Jennings stopped short of painting a picture of a gloomy, computer-dominated world. He suggested that in this world of abundant, accessible, ever-growing knowledge, our challenge as humans is determining what to do with it. Computers may recall, but they are much less adept at creating, making connections and being creative.

He recalled that in his epic computer smack down, Watson incorrectly answered “What is Toronto?” when Jeopardy host Alex Trebek stated, “Its largest airport is named for a World War II hero; its second largest for a World War II battle.” Ken and his other human opponent, Brad Rutter, correctly answered “Chicago”. They both could make the connection. The computer, despite its memory, circuitry and speed, could not.

Data input does not compute...

We humans have an unparalleled ability to tie information together and draw conclusions. We know, for example, that the question to answer, “Drop 1 letter from the type of creature sonic is in video games and you get this, one who monopolizes the aisle seat” is “edge-hog.”  We are creative. We can continue to put together knowledge in service of creative thinking and innovation.

Jennings also noted that we have the advantage of observation and timing. While computers are marvelous, we humans can use our brains and knowledge in ways that are impossible to predict and at moments that might prove incredibly timely.

He recalled the story of 10-year-old Tilly Smith from the UK. In December 2004, she was on the beach in Thailand with her mother, father and sister. While staring at the ocean, Tilly noticed it was behaving strangely – receding and also frothing near the shore. 

This triggered a geography lesson she’d just had on tsunamis two weeks earlier. Convinced that a tsunami was coming, a vocal Tilly proceeded to throw such a fuss, she convinced her parents and the lifeguards to clear the beach, saving nearly 100 lives before the massive tsunami soon hit.  

In his post-Jeopardy glow, Jennings has moved on to become a best-selling author, including a series of children’s books called, “Junior Genius Guides” on a range of topics. He is still an admitted knowledge junkie and is unapologetic for calling for us to adopt continual learning as a way of moving through the world.

In concluding his talk, Jennings quoted little known 18^th-Century theologian and thinker Dr. Samuel Parr as saying, “It’s always better to know a thing than not to know it.”

He believes in unbridled curiosity because he knows despite what you know, there is always more to discover.  Specifically what we discover and what amazing connections we will make is entirely up to each of us.

Yours truly in an awkward face-off with Ken 

A Lousy Week for the U.S. Government

Let’s just say the U.S. Government had a bad week. We’ve all had those, right?

It starts when you rip your pants on the car door handle. Then you space out and overdraw your checking account and get hit with fees. Then, to cap it off, you accidentally hit “reply all” on an email and mock an annoying co-worker who is copied in the cc: field.

Well, the federal government had one of those weeks last week. It was a doozy, a trifecta of sorts: TSA incompetence, an epic hack attack and a multi-billion dollar disability bombshell.

Here’s a quick recap.

Monday June 1 – Transportation “Insecurity” Administration

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson 

Tests run at dozens of airports across the U.S. show that the Transportation Security Administration failed to detect weapons, bombs and others items not well suited for air travel 95% of the time. Yes, that’s correct – of the 70 tests run by investigators, the TSA whiffed on a whopping 67 of them.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chief Jeh Johnson was furious. He reassigned TSA Administrator Melvin Carraway and issued a series of six directives to “enhance our security capabilities and techniques.” Among other things, his directives included more training, revising existing procedures and re-testing equipment.

Thursday June 4 – OMG, Hacking the OPM

The federal government let us know that back in December of last year, hackers broke into the computer system of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and made off with personal data from about 4 million current and former federal employees.  The U.S. says that China did this. China, not surprisingly, denied involvement. The dialogue in the press last week – akin to what you’d expect from two six-year- olds on a school play lot – sounded something like this:

US Gov: You hacked us.

China: No we didn’t.

U.S Gov: Yes, you did.

China: No we didn’t.

US Gov: Liar.

China: I know you are, but what am I?

US Gov: Shut up.

China: You shut up.

Sunday June 7 – A Billion Here, a Billion There…

The results of a 10-year study show that Social Security overpaid half of the people receiving disability benefits to the tune of $17 billion over the last decade. In addition to overpaying people, the study found that the agency was paying people who were dead or in prison.

Apparently the agency was able to recover about half of this money. That’s good news. The bad news, however, is that unless Congress does something different, the trust fund that supports the disability program will run out of cash in the final 3 months of 2016, leaving only enough payroll taxes to fund 81% of the current benefits. I acknowledge that some might not see this as “bad news” per se.

A Tangled Web

Now, clearly, these are three separate and distinct issues that coincidentally happened to come to light during the span of one week. And, as we’ve established, it was a bad week. It wouldn’t necessarily serve much of a purpose to scrutinize or over-hype these events.

Nonetheless, I do have a few comments.  And I’d like to steal a page from DHS Secretary Johnson and his six-part directive and provide six observations to consider.

1. An Allen Wrench – On Tuesday June 2, I traveled from Chicago to San Jose California. The prior day in Chicago was beautiful, so I opted to set up my patio furniture on my back deck.  This involved using an Allen wrench (aka hex key) to secure the 4 legs of my outdoor table. When I finished, I put the wrench in my back pocket. 

My Allen wrench - aka hex key

The next day, yes, I wore the same pants. Despite the “take everything out of your pockets” refrain from the blue-gloved TSA agent, I did not. I forgot about the light, thin Allen wrench. The screening agent caught it, though. During a pat down procedure that he skillfully executed on my right buttock, he found the offending wrench and politely scolded me for having it. Guilty as charged.

The lesson: Given the 5% success rate from the tests revealed the day before, apparently you’re likely to have more success with guns, explosives and other bad stuff if you’re boarding a plane than if you’re carrying a small wrench capable of perhaps tightening a loose tray table. Good to know.

2. Twelve and a Half Days – Since 2001, I calculated I’ve taken about 600 flight segments. If I estimate a 30-minute wait per visit in the TSA line, we’re talking 18,000 minutes, which is 300 hours or, roughly 12 ½ entire days of my life. When you’re waiting, of course, you’re telling yourself this is for safety. It’s a sacrifice, but you’re willing to make it because, well, you don’t want to die. Now given the TSA’s razor-thin success rate, it’s harder to feel like these have been days well spent. 

Clarification: Despite these 12 ½ days in TSA captivity, just one clarifying question though: Is it OK if I bring water through the scanner? I just don’t quite get that yet.

3. Homeland Bound – DHS Secretary Jeh (pronounced “Jay”) Johnson has had an impressive career as a lawyer, Assistant U.S. Attorney General in New York, General Counsel for the Department of the Air Force under President Bill Clinton and also for the Department of Defense under President Barack Obama. 

Are we, in fact, "secure"?

Interestingly, he was born on September 11, 1957. You might say given his current position and trajectory of his career, he was born to lead the Department of Homeland Security, a 200,000 person, nearly $100 billion government agency created after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. It’s sort of poetic in a way. 

You could, however, also make the opposite argument. Granted, the TSA is just one of 7 agencies under the DHS, but given evidence that it appears to be shockingly inept Secretary Johnson and his team might actually be giving new life, as it were, to terrorists everywhere. These anti-US folks must be feeling reborn, in a way, to hear this report. Here they were cooking up elaborate schemes to do harm to the U.S. when all they really need to do is put whatever weapon they’ve created in their carry-on bag. Who knew?

4. Viable Reassignment Options – TSA Administrator Melvin Carraway has been reassigned in the wake of the scandalous report. The decision as to where to assign him is clearly out of my hands. I’d just offer two points: 

First, don’t consider the Social Security Administration. Given the multi-billion-dollar bloodletting, it appears they are full up on sub-standard administration techniques at the moment. Maybe reapply in 6-12 months.

Second, avoid the part of the DHS that is investigating the recent OPM hackings that allegedly came from China. It appears that the OPM did not even know about the hacking until April 2015, so clearly a review of their procedures is going to take someone with good investigative and observation skills.

Finding hackers is not easy. You are searching for nameless, faceless programmers on the other side of the world who are most likely hiding behind sophisticated networks, complex software and intelligent encryption techniques. I don’t think a guy whose department cannot successfully execute a simple pat down procedure to find a mock plastic explosive strapped between the shoulder blades of the man whose name they know and who is standing directly in front of them would actually qualify. 

5. Valuable Data – The hackers who broke into the OPM computers took social security numbers as well as data on job assignments data, performance ratings and training information. Tip to the hackers: The SSN info will likely net you the most cash on the market. If you stumbled onto any TSA personnel data, I’d disregard the performance rating and training information. Clearly it’s of little to value other than perhaps comic value. 

6. Pay for Performance – The TSA budget was about $7.4 billion in 2014. It employs 47,000 Transportation Security Officers and pays them roughly between $25,000 and $39,000 a year. Recently, test results appeared to expose the fact that the work these individuals do is ineffective, so you could say we’re essentially paying them for nothing. We pay them for security, but we’re still getting 95% insecurity. 

Disability payments certainly are a whole different ball of wax. These are individuals, who, for a wide range of reasons, are unable to work.  Many people argue that the definition of “disability” is both suspect and inconsistent. But aside from that claim, it appears easier at this point to defend the average annual payments of $14,000 to a person on federal disability than the much higher annual salaries to Transportation Security Officers.

Those are my observations for what was undoubtedly a troubling, forgettable week for the U.S. Government. And you’ll notice that in all of this I didn’t even mention former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican and current man of the hour.  

Here is a man – appearing in a federal court today in Chicago – who was once two heart beats from the Presidency and is now facing charges of violating banking rules and then lying to the FBI. Law enforcement sources and the sister of a former student of Hastert allege the money was to hide past sexual abuse by Hastert when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach.

Oh, wait. Sorry. That was not last week. That news hit the prior week on May 28. My mistake.

Good Cop: A True Act of Heroism

We’ve seen a lot of “bad cop” news lately, so seeing something good is refreshing.

It seems like the bad stuff has been pervasive, and if you’re like me, it’s hard to overcome. It weighs on me. Despite the passing of time, I keep picturing the New York police officers choking Eric Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. I picture the video of the South Carolina officer shooting Walter Scott in the back as Scott was running away. I picture the Baltimore police giving Freddie Gray a “rough ride” that appears to have broken his spine and killed him.

When you see these videos, it can be hard to have much faith in police. The warm fuzzies are just not easy to conjure up.  Yet enter a new video that you should see. It features Detective Ken Carter, a 12-year veteran of the Evanston Police Department, acting quickly and saving the life of a 22-year-old man who appeared likely to jump from the top of a parking garage.

Det. Ken Carter speaking to WGN TV

This happened over Memorial Day weekend in Evanston, Illinois where I live. On Sunday May 24 about 5 p.m., Detective Carter was off duty. He was out to dinner at a Chili’s Restaurant with his fiancé. As they left the restaurant at Maple Avenue and Clark Street, his fiancé spotted a man standing on a ledge of a nearby parking structure, some 70 feet above the street. 

Carter called his fellow Evanston Police officers, who arrived quickly. They made a plan in which Carter played a key role and managed to pull the young man to safety.

Several Chicago news outlets carried this story following a press release from the Evanston Police department. When I saw Carter’s picture in the newspaper and on WGN-TV, I realized that I see him often at the gym where I work out. We don’t know each other, but I recognized him. I often see him talking to people, smiling and then getting down to business with his exercise routine.

Carter is clearly a fitness guy – a weight lifter. He’s not one of those stereotypical police officers you might picture in the doughnut shop. As a former journalist covering crime in Chicago for several years, I saw plenty of the big-around-the middle officers who certainly were ill-equipped to give any offender a decent chase around the block.

Detective Carter, on the other hand, is a former Marine and member of the Illinois National Guard. He looks like he could chase a bad guy down, tackle him, handcuff him and read him his rights without breaking much of a sweat.

His fitness certainly paid off as did his quick thinking and action. Once on sixth floor of the parking garage, Detective Carter scurried in a crouched position along the base of a short concrete wall toward where the young man stood on the ledge.  Carter moved swiftly, out of view from the young man, while his uniformed colleagues spoke to the man, trying to get him to step down.

Carter said that the young man had thrown his cell phone and wallet down to the street. It appeared he was ready to jump. Without much time to react or waste, Detective Carter closed in, jumped to grab the man and held on while his fellow officers raced in to help.

Security camera footage of the May 24 rescue

Detective Carter told the Chicago Tribune, "I said a prayer, and once I got close enough, I grabbed him and held him and the assisting officers managed to get him off the ledge." He added, “When I grabbed him he kind of lurched forward. I held on for life. It took the assistance of my co-workers to get him off. It was a struggle. He was very upset. He did not want to come off the ledge.”

You can watch a grainy security camera video of the rescue on YouTube (during the first minute, nothing happens, so jump forward to the 1-minute mark of the 2-minute video).

As you will see, the plan worked.  Not only did he save the young man’s life, but through his action, Carter saved others down on the street who also may have been injured. He saved bystanders coming out of restaurants and stores from seeing the disturbing image of a man jump 70 feet to his death on a crowded street.

What an awful sight that certainly would have been.  I have been to that parking garage on Maple Avenue a thousand times. My wife and I walk with our two daughters past that garage constantly. It’s by the movie theater and several popular restaurants.

Detective Carter acted bravely. To me, what he did was heroic, and it’s something that the Evanston Police Department and the City of Evanston should recognize and thank him for. Would everyone do what Detective Carter did – especially on their day off?

As an Evanston resident, I know I feel proud of him. The next time I see him at the gym, I’ll make sure to tell him in person.

Odd Footnote: At the top of the parking garage on Maple Avenue in Evanston where this distraught young man intended to jump is a massive iron sculpture. The sculpture is long beam that spans across the top of the 6-storey, 600-space parking garage. On each end of the beam is an iron silhouette of a person…balancing sort of like a tight-rope walker.

The sculpture certainly is unique and it draws the attention of onlookers below. As I looked up at it a few days ago, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was it suggestive to the extent that it inspired this troubled young man to step up to the garage’s top floor and nearly jump?

Obviously, I don’t know. People are going to do what they’re doing to do. Maybe it’s an outlandish thing to even consider. But I think it’s worth the City of Evanston, in light of this near tragic event, to ask the question of whether in this case life imitating art might be reason enough to consider a change to the public garage that it owns.  

Cozy Table for Two...iPads

You’ve probably seen this too. You’re at dinner – perhaps even a nice place. You’re enjoying the food, some wine, the conversation and then you spot people at a nearby table staring at their respective electronic devices.

Just last weekend in fact, I saw this. My wife and I were walking together along Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a beautiful, warm evening. The sidewalk cafes were crowded with people, the air was filled with delicious smells of food. A street performer on guitar was also actually playing a fairly respectable version of the Talking Heads’ song “Psycho Killer.”

We were trying to decide where to eat. Those of you who have been up and down Main Street know the options abound. Seafood? Italian? Indian? French Bistro? As I peered into the window of a fairly high-end restaurant, I saw a couple seated at a white cloth covered table. The table was adorned with sparkling silverware, tall wine glasses with generous pours and directly in front of the man and the woman were dueling iPads.

"Let me look deep into your...screen."

I stopped, of course, to take a picture and to comment to my wife, “Check this out. A night out on the town to….play Candy Crush.”

Now, I honestly don’t know if they were playing Candy Crush or not. I didn’t get that close. I didn’t want to intrude on their moment together – one they were sharing by completely ignoring each other. Instead they were focusing with a somewhat lost, trance-like gaze on their glowing, 64-bit 9.7-inch high resolution retinal displays.

I realize this is not a crime. Plenty of people, for example, sit in complete silence across from each other. They simply chew their food, say nothing, and take in the ambiance. The same result is accomplished, I suppose.

My question, though, is this: Are these amazing devices – smart phones, tablets and now watches – revolutionizing our world in just about every way imaginable and simultaneously destroying human social interaction?

I will refrain from hazarding an educated guess to this piercing question. Instead, I’ll simply suggest you go to Google (preferably when you are not out to dinner with someone) and type in “smart phones killing social interaction.”

You will see an array of results, including scholarly articles that are predictably hard to understand. You will see other articles that make the point that, yes, in fact these devices are electronic heroin. We’re addicted to them. We can’t do anything until we get our fix and we’re losing the ability to interact with others because, frankly, phones are just more important.

So, back to the couple at the window table in the fancy Ann Arbor restaurant. I’m thinking that they were Facebook friends and when they finally sat down together and realized that the other was an actual flesh and blood person, they both panicked, lunged for their iPads and logged in. Once their anxiety of being together “in person” subsided, they began exchanging messages with each other from across the three-foot-long table.

I’m thinking that it went like this:

Woman: (typing in the “What’s on your mind?” box) Wow. Menu looks amazing!

Man: (seeing her comment post in his newsfeed, he first “likes” it then he types) Totally. Thinking about appetizers. Do you like Carpaccio?

Woman: Hmmm. Not sure. What’s that? It is soup?

Man: No! OMG. It’s raw meat. Really yummy.

Woman: Gross! I’m a vegetarian. You don’t know me at all… L

Man: Sorry! But it wasn’t on your profile. So I assumed…

Woman: Whatever. I’m jumping over to Twitter.

Potential Solution

Clearly, this is bad, but don’t despair because I think I have an answer. I thought of this the other day, so it’s not totally worked out.

Let’s assume, though, 10 more years go by and more and more people lose the ability to interact with real live people. My observation is not scientific, but what I see in the world is people walking, sitting, and standing while simultaneously they are both peering at their phones and listening with their ear buds snuggly nestled in their ears.

"So glad we have this time to catch up....on Facebook."

I say let’s develop an app that can read social situations. It will take in both auditory and visual information. This data will be routed to a cloud database where it will be subject to analysis, sophisticated parsing techniques and feedback algorithms. In essentially “real time” the app will provide us instructions through our earphones that tell us what we’re supposed to say and do.

So, if at dinner for example, two people are logged into the app at the same time, then, voila, they will be having what historically has been called “a conversation” in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

For instance, we may struggle to know how to respond to a question like, “How are you?” To help with this, the app’s synthesized voice will provide us with lines, a la Cyrano de Debergerac, without missing a beat so that we can reply with , for example, “Pretty good. Thank you” in our very own calm, human voice.

I’m excited about this. I’m thinking a good name might be something like “iHuman” or “iCanTalk.” Maybe “iHaveBrain” is too sarcastic. But it’s catchy, don’t you think?