Where have you gone, back-room bosses?

At latest count there are at least fifteen announced, potential, or exploratory candidates for the Republican Presidential primaries, as opposed to the Democrat’s two, plus Sen. Bernie Sanders (who’s actually an independent and not a party member). Putting aside the partisan political advantage of watching a fifteen-ring traveling circus of primary debates and campaigning, and the obvious giddy anticipation one experiences awaiting to see if Donald Trump will also throw his hat (hairpiece?) in the ring, this is not in the best interests of the Republican party or the presidential elections themselves.

The objective in a normative primary is to convince voters that A) you will properly represent their ideology and B) you have what it takes to defeat the other party’s candidate. The second item is easier for Republicans: They’ve been running against Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic candidate, in one form or another, for twenty-five years. The first one is more difficult. Not only does a candidate have to differentiate themselves vs. their competitors, they have to evidence certain ideological “purity” not really germane to traditional US centrist governing. Given the fact that active rank-and-file party members who actually volunteer their time “on the ground” so to speak during election season tend to be engaged, opinionated and radical (in either party) the Republican candidates have to swing to the right during the primaries, and the more candidates vying for the nomination, the more shrill and extreme is the campaigning. Once a final candidate emerges from the maelstrom, he or she will need to move back to the center in order to have a shot at electability. Next year’s Republican presidential nominee will have to campaign with very heavy right-wing baggage left over from the primary season, while the Democratic nominee and her co-runners will be able to hug each other and marvel at how much they actually agreed with each other all along.

When any presidential candidate in the general elections has to campaign on the defensive, the American electorate loses an opportunity for an issue-based contest, one in which the prospective proposed policies of either side may be examined and discussed publicly. The more the Republican primary candidates embroil themselves over non-issues such as Sharia Law, shutting down the EPA, or adding figures to Mt. Rushmore, the less of a chance we will have at a true national debate on the things that truly matter to us: Economy, Immigration Reform, Safety and Security, Equality, Infrastructure, Education et al.

If the Republican party had any sense, they’d resurrect the old-time “party boss” deliberations in some cigar-smoke infested (or pleasant potpourri-scented) back room and crack down on about twelve of those candidates, advising them that only the top five polling hopefuls should consider running, and that the party “machine” will not support the rest. The fragmentation and extremism engendered by this double-digit candidacy primaries may cause irreparable harm to the Grand Old Party, which is certainly not in the best interests of our country.

And now that Jon Stewart has sadly announced his imminent departure from “The Daily Show”, what would be the point of a crazy primary season anyhow? Unless… Run Donald, Run!

Radio (Shack) Days

I first encountered the venerable retailer when I was eleven years old, and a friend showed me his “Radio Shack Battery-of-the-Month” club card, which he used to get free batteries with. The concept shocked me; those were the pre-rechargeable, pre-alkaline days, and our electronic devices literally ate batteries. “D” cells are only present now in large flashlights and “C” cells are almost extinct. Double and Triple “A” cells exist primarily in TV remotes, and the nine volt cell still has a lock on smoke detectors, and that’s pretty much it, but back then a fresh battery was what stood between you and your music, your hobbies, and civilization at large.

Then I started immersing myself in electronics, quite a popular endeavor in the Seventies. This was the heyday of the “Heathkits” and other ready-to-build electronic projects. The purists (and when was I ever anything but?) would construct things from scratch. That’s when I became a serious Radio Shack customer, as they were literally the only store in town that stocked the resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes and assorted hardware I needed for my myriad ventures. It was also the place to get vacuum tubes (yes, I dabbled in those as well) tested for free. Their new catalogs (I think they came out semi-annually) where greatly anticipated and studied in depth. In fact, even after our family returned to Israel I would pester occasional family members and friends who were planning on traveling to the US to take along my detailed shopping list. It didn’t really matter where they went, there was a Radio Shack everywhere. The stocked “Archer” brand hobbyist equipment and tools and, later on, under the brand “Tandy” (which was the parent corporation’s name, originally a leather-goods manufacturer, of all things) they sold the TRS-80, one of the most popular and influential home computers ever made.

Over the past twenty years or so Radio Shack has really struggled. Between the advent of big-box discount stores, online sales, the death of electronic do-it-yourselfers and the ever-increasing disposable nature of our lifestyle, it was never quite clear what they were focusing on: Was it cell phones, radio-controlled cars, or laptops, all of which could be found at a lower cost elsewhere. It became harder and harder to find a reason to step into a store, unless it was for some last-minute, impossible-to-find-elsewhere exotic cable or plug. Now news comes of a bankruptcy filing, a fire sale, a once-favored stock delisted, and thousands of stores shuttered. Undoubtedly all merchandising is cyclical, and at some point in time I’m sure that Harry Golden, patron saint of the “Carolina Israelite’ lamented the demise of important commercial icons such as F.W. Woolworth’s or S. Klein’s, yet I can’t help but remember an eleven-year old kid, over forty years ago, marching into a Long Island Radio Shack and proudly purchasing his first soldering iron.

The algorithm

Mark Twain famously commented on New England “If you can’t stand the weather, just wait a few minutes.” Thankfully Spring has finally arrived at the Carolinas and it’s a good time as ever to look back at our cold season, albeit with some frustration.

North Carolina is blessed with four full seasons, three of which are handled very well by the general population. However, when it comes to Winter, things seem to get out of whack. First off, there is the Confederate Contrarian prognosticator Sir Walter Wally, who on Groundhog Day invariably contradicts his learned sagacious cousin from the north, Seer of Seers Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby. We ain’t gonna allow no northern rodent to declare our weather for us, thank you very much. Next, there’s the mad rush to the stores each and every time a minor barometric depression is detected. Heard “wintery mix” on TV? Forget about finding milk at your local supermarket. Add “possible flurries” and there goes the bread as well. The folks in our town are perpetually preparing for either Valley Forge or the Alamo. I have actually been in stores on the eve of a major war and seen less hoarders.

Lastly, there is the school system’s annual overreaction in announcing “Snow Days”. To this end I have developed a tried-and-true algorithm which has been perfected over the past ten years. To arrive at the number of no-school days allow one day per cumulative inch of snow, times a 0.5 factor applied for below-freezing mornings. This is followed by the annual Limbo dance on eggshells done by the school districts in attempting to restore said lost snow days. The juggling is epic, as administrators try to identify days which will have the least impact on their (and presumably families’) vacation plans. This reached a recent absurd level in which four full snow days were “paid back for” by extending two early-release days into full length ones. Talk about time off for good behavior!

Perhaps we need to learn from the groundhogs: Simply factor-in, say, ten extra snow days each year into the annual school calendar. If Phil and Sir Wally do not see their shadows, unconsumed school days will simply get subtracted from the end of the school year, giving students the euphoric thrill of school ending early, all the while assuring our kids of a complete school year. Are 180 days too much to ask for?

Haiti, land of copper and steel

Many a moon ago I was the Materials Manager for a Haitian transformer company. Based out of Miami, my main responsibility was to get raw materials, primarily copper wire, shipped down to the island where our production lines were located, in the outskirts of the capital city Port-au-Prince. Locating the plant in Haiti was no coincidence: back in the day transformers, essentially tightly-wound coils of very fine copper wire, were manufactured using thread winding machines quite common in the Caribbean, which for many years relied on its textile industry as a key economic cornerstone.

So a few times a week we would arrange shipments of copper to the plant. There were two cargo companies available: the more established Air Haiti, and their upstart competitors Haiti Air. Both flew DC-3 Dakotas which looked as if they came directly off the set of “Casablanca”. The planes would bring back our completed products or, during the season, they would be filled with Haiti’s cash crop, mangoes. And although our cargo cost more to ship, due to the presence of US Department of Agriculture inspectors on the ground the fruit had to be flown the day it arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport, as there were no local refrigeration facilities. No matter that our cargo was already loaded and manifested, it was unceremoniously dumped from the plane and replaced with the ripening fruit. Imagine our company’s recurring embarrassment when we had to call customers in Texas, Spain, North Carolina or California and apologize that their parts would not be delivered on time, as they were bumped from the flight in favor of mangoes… Making matters worse, pilferage and theft were very common in impoverished Haiti. One day management uncovered a scam at the plant: typically, once a quarter, we would invite a local scrap dealer to purchase and remove the considerable amount of copper scrap generated by the factory. However, local workers would move brand-new spools of costly fine-wound copper wire directly to the scrap heap, and get a kickback payment from the dealer, who would thus pay us scrap rates but actually get in return extremely expensive new wire. Management shut that operation down by declaring that henceforth all copper scrap would not be sold locally, but shipped to Miami for my disposal in the US. I often wondered how the gang of miscreants would get-back at us for shutting down their lucrative scheme…

One day our overzealous sales department booked a big order. A company in Texas needed a sizable quantity of fluorescent light fixture transformers for a large construction project. You may remember those: tucked inside the long, white light fixture there used to be a steel transformer, nicknamed “ballast”, which was the chief culprit for the migraine-inducing hum of those old-school lights. We won the order due to our extremely competitive manufacturing costs, but our profit hinged on my ability to economically transport the raw materials (tons of steel and wire) to Haiti, and then return it at a very low cost to Galveston, Texas. Obviously, air transportation was out of the question. And although (like most of our clients) the customer needed the parts “yesterday” (it was delaying construction completion) there simply was no chance of a partial shipment; it all had to wait until the job was done. I was able to secure at a reasonable cost sea transportation for the materials from Miami to the island. As the factory had to be somewhat reconfigured for the job (we typically built much smaller parts for the electronics industry) the project dragged-on for months. Towards completion I started looking around for transportation to Texas, and remember being surprised to find out that the only available ship was a broken-down freighter that plied the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Having no other choice we loaded the goods on this proverbial “slow boat to China” and awaited as it went through eight or nine ports-of-call on its way to Texas.

At this stage the tone of the calls from our representative in Houston escalated from anxious to frantic, but to no avail. In those pre-Internet days we had no effective way of tracking the freighter’s progress but for “ship-to-shore” calls, a couple of which I’d actually placed, which only succeeded in making us even more depressed about the schedule. Finally, the good news came in: the ship made the port of New Orleans, and will be in Galveston the following week. We immediately notified our rep, who advised the customer and arranged for trucking to transfer the parts to the construction site. As this event had been more than six months in the making, both the rep and our client’s management drove down to the port to insure a smooth release from US Customs and timely transfer. Six large sealed pallets were unloaded from the ship and transported to the truck, when one of the managers presumably said “let’s take a look at what we’ve been waiting for”. The containers were opened, and I am sure that you can imagine the reaction when they saw what was to become my worst work nightmare: that instead of fluorescent light transformers, the good people from Haiti had shipped our anxious customers six months worth of copper wire scrap…

 

Know the score

North Carolina has published a “letter grade” for all public schools in the state. Ostensibly, a reasonable act: if your kid can come home with a “D” in math, why can’t we use the same approach to rank schools? Unfortunately, that dog just won’t hunt. How can one reduce the intricacies of operating a school to a single grade? Moreover, a close examination of the grading system shows that the kind folks over at the State Board of Ed gave the schools a break by using a fifteen-point scale. That’s right, fifteen. Anything between 85-100 is an “A”, 70-84 a “B”, and so on. Where was this when I went to school? Even restaurant health inspections use the ten-point scale (although, in all fairness, unlike in our household, the only acceptable grade there is an “A”). Currently North Carolina students suffer under the oppressive seven-point scale, mercifully scheduled to revert next year to the national-standard ten-point grading system. To those who’ve applied to out-of-state colleges in the past it will seem a bittersweet, ironic victory, as the current scale has greatly harmed our students’ admission and scholarship opportunities. Presumably, the in-state schools are familiar with this mishegoss (craziness). To me it will feel as though we’ve finally rejoined the rest of the world, or at least the Union, with the decimal system good old Thomas Jefferson preached.

Birthright

My two oldest children, both college students, have just completed the Israel heritage trip known as “Birthright” (or as it’s called in Israel, Taglit, which is Hebrew for “discovery”). Birthright is over twenty years old, and it is designed to facilitate travel to Israel by non-Israeli Jewish youths, typically students, for an all-expenses paid adventure. The trip is usually ten days in duration, in which the students get to experience a variety of aspects of Israeli life, or rather those aspects of Israeli life the organizers want you to experience. One visits a kibbutz, various cities, the ancient desert fortress Masada, Yad Va’shem (the Israeli Holocaust Museum and Memorial site), the Old Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, the Western Wall, and the Dead Sea. There is a camel back ride and an overnight desert sleepover in Bedouin tents, as well as meetings with young Israelis, usually English-speaking soldiers. All in all, an excellent Zionist tour intended to instill in young Jewish people a better understanding and fond memories of Israel. It is such a successful endeavor that the government of Ireland is contemplating the creation of a similar Irish heritage program to attract young Americans to visit Ye Old Sod.

Birthright was started over twenty years ago and is donation-funded, initially by the Bronfman family (originally of Seagram’s fame), and in more recent years by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has donated upwards of $250 million to-date. This Summer marks the 500,000^th Birthright visitor, and the program continues on as strong as ever. It is estimated that the program pumps hundreds of millions of Dollars into the Israeli economy. Last week there was one day in which forty-six flights with Birthright groups landed in Israel. All indications are that my kids had a wonderful time, and hold Israel in the highest regard.

While it’s always nice when someone is generous enough to take your children on an all-expenses-paid trip overseas, two questions arise in my mind: First, what is the overt expectation of the funders? And second, why present a skewed view of Israel’s reality?

I severely doubt that a ten-day bus romp through Israel creates a strong enough impetus for students in their late teens or early twenties to “Make Aliah” (the Hebrew phrase meaning “move to Israel”, although the literal translation is to “arise”). These kids are in the thick of their post-secondary education, and one no longer drops out of UNC-Chapel Hill to work on a collective farm. I’m sure the Israelis know this. So what we are left with is simple indoctrination: let’s tell you about this miraculous and amazing land and the wonderful Jewish people who live here. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, my fear is that most young, intelligent Jewish people will come to their own conclusions over the years, and will not become knee-jerk, my-Israel-right-or-wrong apologists every time the Israelis are called-out for their occasional misdeeds. This is where I see a missed opportunity: Instead of toeing the more-or-less straight party line, why not expose the visitors to all aspects of the Israeli adventure? Arrange for meaningful visits with Palestinian and Ultra-Orthodox youth, visit the West Bank, spend a day volunteering at one of Israel’s many socio-economically depressed periphery towns. Learn more about the wave of economic non-Jewish refugees arriving daily from Africa. In fact, an Israeli nonprofit has created a piggyback program entitled “Extend”, in which a Birthright traveler gets to stay five additional days in Jerusalem and the West Bank, learning and experiencing more about the conflict (Trust a Left-Wing Israeli to create an educational program which is based upon an establishment-paid trip).

There is nothing inherently wrong with some old-fashioned Zionist propaganda. But one would think that so much more can be achieved if Birthright evolves to educate participants as to the totality of the Israeli experience. That would indeed make them true emissaries of the country. After all, to love Israel (as much I do), is to love her unconditionally, warts and all.

Internet consensus

Can we all agree that not every online instructional video is a “TED Talk”, not every post with more than fifty likes has “gone viral”, and that not every photographic depiction of oneself is necessarily a “selfie”? Thank you; so ordered.

Cookie Monsters?

Having fully consumed this year’s supply in its entirety, I can no longer hold my peace on the topic:

Remember how back in the day, once a year, your doorbell would ring, and there stood three or four Girl Scouts from the local troop, politely asking you to order cookies from them? They handed you a form and you selected your Thin Mints, your Do-si-dos, your Tagalongs, making sure to limit your order to one box each, because invariably the following day a different group would show up, from the same troop, and you’d place another order. This would happen again once or twice and, before you knew it, several orders would show up at your door, and suddenly you were facing the existential dilemma of how to fit seven boxes of Thin Mints in your freezer (The cookiescenti know what I’m talking about – there’s no treat quite like a frozen Thin Mint).

Fast forward a few years later, and when the doorbell rang it was one lone scout who was given your territory, much like the way the Corleone family carved-up the country. She owned your neighborhood, and if you didn’t order from her on that day it would be a full year before your could binge on Samoas. Even scarier, the scouts were now competing against each other, and not always in the manner Founder Juliette Gordon Low envisioned. I actually heard of scouts poaching orders from other scouts and fulfilling them as if they took them themselves. And then the moms got in the act: cookies were all over the workplace, and many ladies, not wanting to mess with small fry, actually required minimum orders, anywhere from three to five boxes. And if you ever wanted your office supplies to arrive on time you made sure you stayed on the office manager’s good side and ordered a few from her.

Then someone decided that door-to-door sales were unsafe, or unprofitable, and many troops started staffing actual sale tables of cookies in front of local supermarkets, who presumably didn’t view them as competitors (although I have no idea why one would purchase a box of Oreos inside the store, when Trefoils are right there on the sidewalk, cash and carry). Unsure where to find them? No fear, the Girl Scouts launched an online locator which tells you exactly in front of which store and at what times you could get your fix. The remaining door-to-door work has also entered the 21^st Century, and the venerable paper form (you know, the one with all those mouthwatering pictures) was replaced by a mobile phone app, which not only took your order but allowed the Girl Scout to process your payment right there on your front stoop. And if all this isn’t enough, scouts may now set up a web page for customers to order cookies online. And yes, they are also available on Amazon. Year round. Seriously. It’s like the Girl Scouts have merged with Amway.

All this is beginning to smack of crass marketing and merchandising, a far cry from those days of yore when you balanced the guilt of saying “no” to your neighborhood scouts with the guilt of consuming a jillion calories in baked goods not too long after the holiday season ended. You did your part for the Girl Scouts and all was well. Well, that’s all over now. And if you think that this isn’t a vast conspiracy to shift sizable amounts from your bank account to the Scouts’, consider this: a few years ago stores started carrying ice-cream flavors made with Girl Scout brand name cookies, and this year three new cookie flavors were introduced, all gluten-free, which I understand are guaranteed to taste at least as good as the cardboard box they come in.

Word to the wise: Next year, when the time comes to plan your Girl Scout cookie budget, Be Prepared!