Captain Obvious

No I did not misspell that title … and yes, it is a play on words. I was scanning the Wall Street Journal this morning and found an article about scoring fine wine.  Now I have to admit, I have been very suspicious of the wine scores I see in the store, but to be perfectly honest, I only look at them when I am tempted to buy a cheap bottle at Publix and just want to be sure it will not taste awful. I find most wine is pretty good these days even when I am only paying a few dollars for a bottle of red.

Now, yes, there are times when I truly enjoy some of the “better” wines but I am perfectly fine with garden-variety wines for a glass with my meal … seems like one of those lovely pleasures in life.

So, what is my point about whine vs. wine? We have now become connoisseurs about too many things and have let the quest for the perfect get out of balance with the reality that there is always a law of diminishing returns. People who know a lot about a subject can strut their stuff and many times convince us that simple solutions are simply not as elegant and therefore as desirable as the best.

In a previous blog, I pointed out that NASA spent millions of dollars designing a ball point pen that would work in outer space. The Russians simply chose to use pencils.

We are all now listening to politicians and their ideas about immigration issues. Truly, this situation deserves careful and thoughtful actions. It is terribly complex, especially after decades of kicking the politically charged can down the road. But, in our small company we just lost two valuable employees who had perfectly valid work visas because they failed to file a certain form on time and were GONE two days later … no ifs, ands, or buts. Two perfectly productive, tax-paying individuals were ejected from our country for simply not having a form filled out after years of productively working here.

To me, what we are listening to from all too many politicians is a fine whine and little leadership to resolve the problem.

This will be a short blog, but it will not be sweet.

Our politicians love to create glib legislative objectives: 20% by 2020… almost as if the numbers aligned with some form of cosmic numerology.

Then, they glibly decide base years for their metrics… with absolutely no regard for rewarding those who acted early to do the right thing according to these same metrics.

For example, let’s say the government decides to give people health plan discounts for maintaining their weight. Base year thinking would be to give credit to those who lose compared to a point in time, so someone who weighed 250 pounds and lost 20 pounds might get a credit of x. The person who was at their ideal weight all along and lost nothing would get no credit. The penalty for leadership in action.

So, when companies with vision and leadership do the right things ahead of these superficial decisions, they are not going to get to “take credit” according to these arbitrary and capricious rules created as a part of these political grand plans.

So… why do the right thing when it literally pays to drag your feet and wait to the very last minute so you can the cheaply and easily do what you should have done all along … because there is a penalty for leadership.

Think about it. This is truly sad. When are we going to confront it?

Go ahead and Google it … I know you are wondering … did Joel make this up? Nope. There is a cemetery in the town of Little Hope in Kentucky. You pass it on the way to Mammoth Cave National Park. I just had to stop and take a picture of the prominent sign at the entrance and sent it to our pastor, who happened to be from Kentucky. Just too funny … at least with my weird sense of humor.

More recently, I posted a cartoon on my Facebook page that I liked. It is of a Pastor preparing a sermon about giving, and he is asking his minister of music to NOT play “Jesus Paid it All.” Since I play that song often in the church orchestras I participate in, I start laughing each and every time we are asked to play it.

But, this got me thinking. What happens when you lose hope? One of my friends describes happiness as having just three simple things: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. What happens when you give up on your hopes and dreams?

Speaking for myself, there have been times in my life when I have been tempted to do precisely that. But, something keeps driving me to complete the tasks I have started. Maybe that is hope. That I can take some of the things I have started and bring them to beneficial conclusion in service to our country, our industry and our children’s children.

I guess we Americans just like our conspiracy theories more than facts and figures and critical thinking. We all believe, at least deep down in our hearts, that government can’t be trusted, that big business is intrinsically corrupt and dishonest, and that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

 
It seems that we should also include disdain for academics since they all seem to be beating whatever drum increases funding for their pet theories and suppositions. Read this article and especially note the comments it elicited.

 
I admit that I have no qualifications to predict climate changes over time. I can only look at the body of evidence in our past and assume that things that have happened before can and may well happen again.

 
Here in Atlanta, we have been told that the old seacoast of the United States was in Macon about 400 feet above our current sea level and several 100 miles inland from the current coastline. We have also been told that the Continental Shelf was at one time the coastline. Given that is about 400 feet lower than our current sea level, one might simply argue that the sea level on the planet varies plus or minus 400 feet over time … not a very comforting thought, but it certainly puts the current plus or minus “few inches” it may have changed in the past 100 years in perspective.

 
I guess it is just good business to scare people and get them to fund whatever hair-brained ideas smart people come up with that will change the course of nature.

 
Oh, maybe you are wondering why I titled this SUVs on Mars? It is because the small amount of average temperature increase here everyone is chirping about has also been seen on Mars. Maybe a secretive culture is alive and well there and destroying that planet as well … and of course, they are probably driving SUVs. I do think we take ourselves a bit too seriously at times.

With students headed back to school this month, our educational system is on my mind. A feature of Facebook I enjoy is that people you know send you links to things they think are funny and/or relevant to you and your world.

Here is a link that was sent to me of the Maroochydore High School in Queensland, Australia, where staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school.

This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children’s absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children’s failing grades changed to passing grades – even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes.

Are we surprised that we are losing our influence? Do we have to dumb down our business to make it interesting to the masses? Or, is it time to change the message in our educational systems?

Not sure this issue will get into election politics … after all … who are politicians appealing to for votes?

No, I am not running for office … but I did approve this message.