REMEMBER THE OLD military concept of “shock and awe“? It got a lot of attention during the Iraq War, and is defined as rapidly dominating an opponent “by the initial imposition of overwhelming force and firepower.” But “shock and awe” isn’t just for the military; it’s useful whenever you want to overwhelm someone quickly and
Category: 21st Century Sideshow
JUST WHEN I’M ABOUT ready to finally give up on human nature, something happens that helps to give me a little hope again. And believe it or not, this new hope comes courtesy of controversial radio personality and “King of All Media” Howard Stern. I’ve watched or listened to Howard for many years, and although I don’t
HERE’S THE BOTTON LINE on the recent anti-racial bias training at Starbucks, and it was captured perfectly in the headline on The New York Times story about the big event. It said: Starbucks’s Tall Order: Tackle Systemic Racism in 4 Hours Yup, the NYT is right; it’s unlikely that Starbucks, or any other company, is going to make much
LIKE SO MANY PEOPLE, one of my very favorite shows on TV today is the Netflix original The Crown. I love it for the same reason’s I loved Mad Men — it brought me up to speed on an era I was too young to fully appreciate but just old enough to vaguely remember. But,
THE HEADLINE ON A STORY in The Wall Street Journal pretty much said it all: Welcome to the Post-Weinstein Holiday Party. What followed was 1,400 depressing words that basically said, without actually saying it, something that you probably already know — the company Christmas/holiday party as we know it is officially dead and gone. As The Boston Globe dryly noted,
WHY ARE SO MANY people today so into generation bashing? For years, I’ve heard people gripe about the shortcomings of the Millennial generation, as if Gen X and the Baby Boomers (of which I am one) are somehow perfect and didn’t have their own challenges. I’ve written this before, but I’m sick and tired of
NO MATTER HOW you felt about him, the death of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who died last week at his famous mansion in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, was one of those passings that got a lot of people worked up. Since Hefner passed away at the ripe old age of 91, a
I WAS IN OUR NATION’S CAPITAL this past weekend to attend the wedding of a good friend and former colleague who got married for the first time at the ripe old age of 48. Just that one little fact is fodder for a good blog post, but no, I won’t be going there. It was a
FIRST IT WAS Harvey battering Houston and southeast Texas, and now you can add Hurricane Irma to the list of natural disasters as it bears down on Miami and the Florida peninsula. Hurricanes are terribly destructive things, but for most Californians, they’re something we never experience because the ocean off our coast is simply too cold.
BELIEVE ME when I tell you this: I soured on the customer service practices of United Airlines long before they decided that dragging people off planes would enhance the flying experience. You’ve probably seen the video by now. You know the one — where the customer on the last flight of the night from Chicago to Louisville