Don's Review: Law, Politics, Science, Philosophy

Oct. 2, 2009

There are three themes in todays media (otherwise called the Fawning Corporate Media), which have, so far, overwhelmed independent websites like Dons Review (see the About section of Dons Review) in revenue and audience.

As a consequence, most American news readers only see material written by and controlled by:

• Big corporations who hire lapdog PR firms to help get them get out of their scrapes
• The fancy PR firms who outsource the work to people laid off because of Wall Streets mistakes. Those firms can prey on the impoverished father of one and pay his family benefits and cut him off or anyone of the out-sourcees, if they cant pick up on the style via one phone call and one email example of the puff piece wanted. They also can name what they will pay the desperate freelancer.

The PR firms understand, unlike the Democrats, that despite the pearls of facts and diamond-like arguments, in the end, companies must realize that the facts alone, no matter how persuasive, will never carry the day. Words and the pictures the public associates with them matter. And unless they are carefully chosen and defined from the outset, companies, industries, and even Presidents must eventually fight an uphill battle to bring the message back under control. --David Bartlet of Levick.

This is why the elite of the U.S., the untouchables and the too-big-to-fails ignore the fact that they screwed up, retain most of the management team (Theyre the only ones with the knowledge to fix things.), and hire gleaming spin-meisters such as those we saw mostly during the Bush-Cheney years.

Ive applied for so many jobs that I cant recall who and when. One day a few weeks ago, out of the blue, Levick, a PR team from New Jersey called me and said I had applied to do some writing for Forbes.com. I vaguely remembered having done so. From the harried information fed to me by Levick, Forbes.com hired www.levick.com to find workerbees to write about Lehman Brothers one-year anniversary in September of its break-up and the year-long rehab of the reputation and career of Richard Fuld Jr., its disgraced CEO.

Larry Smith called me, gave me two sources within Levick to talk to about Fuld, one sample from forbes.coms www.bulletproofblog.com for which the piece was targeted and said the maximum forbes.com would pay would be $1.25 per word and the piece should be between 500-1,000 words. Irresistible for a 25-year veteran journalist out of work for eight months, although I had asked for $2 per word, which is the standard free-lance rate on the Editorial Freelancer Associations website, especially from a giant like Forbes. Larry Smith is senior vice president of Levick Strategic Communications in North Bergen, N.J.

Between hunting for jobs and picking up my son from grade school, I put the piece together. I had misunderstood the snippets of information relayed to me for a quick deadline article for a major website news source, forbes.com. I had to revise it into more of an editorial. This I did in one day:

THE REVISED VERSION I SENT:

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:19:05 AM
Subject: Fuld article, revised by Homan, 9/16// LSC- PR - Article Placement - FORBES.COM

Larry,

Here is my revised article. Again, let me know if you want additional changes or for me to cut it.

Thanks!

ARTICLE:

Possible Reputation Rehab Routes for Richard Fuld Jr., Ex-Chief of Lehman Brothers

By Steve Homan

Patience and sincere charity.

If Richard Fuld Jr., the disgraced former chief of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., can demonstrate those two virtues over whatever time it takesand he must remember that HE cannot control the time, he could rehabilitate his reputation. But it would truly be a miracle for him to regain the kind of authority he once had.

In 1730, Benjamin Franklin listed 13 virtues that he felt were an important guide for living. The virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Franklin tried to follow these guides in his life, although he often went astray.

But Mr. Fuld, whom CNBC called one of the most incompetent CEOs of all time, needs to choose carefully (focusing on patience and then charity, which was missing from Franklins list) and set his goals low. Fuld also must be modest. It may be best for him to become an investment adviser or counselor or a commentator on television or the Internet. It is doubtful that hell be able to reach previous heights and do what he did before [be a CEO], with that level of authority.

But he can get back much of his lost respect. It depends on whether he has the will, time and money, and whether he is patient. Those three things WERE mentioned by Franklin. He should invest whatever capital he has into philanthropic organizations and funds and try to do some good. He needs to demonstrate that he can be depended upon. But first, he should "go to Siberia for a while." None of this is possible overnight.

Reports say that Mr. Fuld, is having a hard time putting the past behind him. Lehman's collapse one year ago turned a Wall Street crisis into a full-blown global panic, capping its chief's transformation from Wall Street prince to pariah. Mr. Fuld, who remained defiantly optimistic about his 158-year-old investment bank's prospects even in its final days, has been haunted since by its demise, say friends and associates. Facing hate mail, regulatory probes and dozens of civil suits over his role in the firm's fall, Mr. Fuld has publicly said he did all he could to save Lehman and has faulted the government for letting his firm fail while rescuing others.

Privately, however, he apologized for his role in Lehman's collapse in an emotional and previously unreported address to employees of a new firm staffed by former Lehman workers in April: "I spent too much time out of the office with clients and trusted other people to manage the risk. I'm sorry. I take responsibility for what happened and have been doing a lot of soul searching." Now, Mr. Fuld needs to do the same in public forums.

Mr. Fuld's world collapsed on Sept. 15, 2008, when Lehman initiated the largest bankruptcy proceedings in U.S. history. The next day, showing up for work as he had for most of the past 40 years, he sold more than two million Lehman shares, according to regulatory filings. Valued at more than $145 million at the beginning of 2008, the shares netted him about $525,000, filings show. At the end of 2008, Mr. Fuld formally resigned his position at Lehman. The executive whose net worth topped $1 billion a few years earlier and commanded $40 million worth of pay and benefits in 2007, now relinquished his $750,000 annual salary, benefits, car and driver.

Mr. Fuld, who once oversaw 25,000 employees, has opened a financial-advisory firm on Manhattan's Third Avenue, with two assistants and an aide. His new Matrix Advisors LLC has received a handful of assignments, he has told people. He has given hours of free advice to a firm run by a former Lehman employee, say people familiar with the matter.

But some potential clients privately say they wouldn't hire Mr. Fuld at this time, worried about the unresolved probes he faces.

However, Mr. Fuld has fertile ground to work with if he avoids blaming the government and making excuses, as hard as that may be. There have been no legal allegations of personal responsibility, but he still remains a sort of posterchild for the 2008 financial meltdown.

For Mr. Fuld to achieve redemption:

In public and in private, he must be transparent and apologetic, and offer no excuses. Simply say "this happened on my watch and Im sorry."

He must find an opportunity or two to do something good, such as start a foundation for Lehman employees who were laid off. Also many charities need help managing their assets.

He could even re-enter the banking world. The only way he would be able to get back somewhat to "even," at least for his own comfort, is to show that he is still able to work, productively, in the capital markets. But it must be about the future, not the past. Lehman is dead, theres no going back. To reclaim his reputation, he could show that he still has the ability and expertiseand the connectionsto be a player on a global level. In fact, he has been seen with high-profile friends, including IBM Corp. CEO Samuel Palmisano and real-estate magnate Jerry Speyer.

Above all, he must be humble.

The trouble is that people with his skill sets are "Type A" for good. Those kinds of individuals must not expend their pent-up energy poorly. They have to show themselves as in control and "winding-down," taking their energy and putting it into the community, preferably into something they honestly believe in.

As an example of the kind of pressure Type A persons may feel, California financier Danny Pang died early last Saturday at a Newport Beach hospital. Mr. Pang, 42, had been taken from his Newport Beach home Friday afternoon by paramedics and placed in the cardiac-care unit of the hospital. The police said an autopsy is needed to help determine whether Mr. Pang's death was self-inflicted. Mr. Pang had been under severe pressure in recent months, accused by federal regulators of masterminding a massive international securities fraud and misappropriating millions of dollars for himself. He denied wrongdoing.

Mr. Smiths instructions are directly below:

From: Larry Smith <LSmith@levick.com>
To: homan_steve@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:45:30 AM
Subject: RE: LSC- PR - Article Placement - FORBES.COM

Steve,

Please note the article I sent you think of it as an op-ed.

Can you please do a quick fix today?

From: Larry Smith
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 12:02 PM
To: homan_steve@yahoo.com
Subject: FW: LSC- PR - Article Placement - FORBES.COM

Steve,

Here is our last byline on Forbes.com for style and approach.

CEO Network
How Gov. Stanford Should Have Handled His Crisis
Richard S. Levick, 06.25.09, 5:00 PM ET

"Bad news all at once; good news over time." That sage advice was first given by the sixteenth-century founder of modern political science, Niccolo Machiavelli, and has since become a creed by which politicians and businessmen alike must live their lives. That is, if they want to have lives after a scandal.

That business, personal and financial scandals will continue to erupt is a given. The question is how to deal with and deactivate them. And that is where Machiavelli meets Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

As Gov. Sanford's collectively uncomfortable, nationally televised news conference--or meltdown, depending on your point of view--unfolded, his need to follow Machiavelli's counsel was palpable. Instead, the governor got it completely backward. Rather than bringing the story to a quick conclusion, he dragged it out. Instead of demystifying the saga, be made it more salacious and titillating. Instead of moving forward to how he would fix his mistakes of the past, he wallowed in them.

Consequently, his elected career is likely limited, as is his voice on pressing issues of our time. Sadly, it did not have to end this way. Time and again, the American people have proved their ability to forgive past trespasses if the transgressor demonstrates true contrition and a willingness to change. From Newt Gingrich to Bill Clinton, we've watched villains change into heroes and move on to the second, third and even fourth acts of their political lives. Sen. John Ensign had to sacrifice his place in the Senate leadership structure last week, but does anyone doubt that he will live to fight another day?

Gov. Sanford, instead of following the example set just days before by the senator from Nevada, ran away from the story--putting others in harm's way in the court of public opinion in the process and fueling even greater interest in his whereabouts.

When questions first arose as to his location, his staff circulated ultimately false reports about a hiking trip in the Appalachian mountains. Then he was said to have gone to South America for a driving vacation. By the time he finally surfaced, only to admit that he'd abdicated his gubernatorial duties for almost a week to visit his mistress in Argentina, his position as the villain of the piece was already firmly established.

At the train wreck of a news conference where he finally came clean, Gov. Sanford continued to salt his own wounds. He apologized to his mistress before apologizing to his family, noticeably absent at his moment of truth. He asked for privacy before asking for forgiveness. And he spoke of "God's law" and "moral absolutes" with seemingly no regard for the hypocrisy that permeated the entire episode.

Ripping the Band-Aid off is never an easy decision, and boy does it hurt. The fact is, however, that once it's over, it's over. In today's media-saturated culture, where attention spans are disappearing and competition for our interest multiplies, the key to success is to minimize and shorten the time that any negative story spends squarely in the public eye. It takes courage and speed. Those are two valuable skills for any executive.

In this case, Gov. Sanford's actions are more aptly summed up not by Machiavelli, but by the old cartoon character Pogo, who wisely concluded, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Richard S. Levick is the president and chief executive officer of Levick Strategic Communications, a crisis communications firm. He is the co-author of Stop the Presses: The Crisis & Litigation PR Desk Reference and writes for www.bulletproofblog.com.

My revised version was not used. After I sent two emails, Mr. Smith responded to my complaint on his lack of communication and my request for more assignments. I told him, Im 55, I can take it.

So he responded as follows:

Steve,

See our version. I dont really see much connection between the kind of writing you do, and what we are looking for. Im putting your invoice up for payment, but I will not be making more assignments. Thanks for your efforts.

VERSION ON FULD USED BY FORBES.COM AS REWRITTEN BY SMITH OR HIS STAFF:

Act Two Lies Ahead

Lehmans Former Chief and the Lessons of Reputation Management

By Richard S. Levick, Esq.

Even as the public spotlight begins to dim on the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, new headlines resurrecting old events are inevitable as Congressional panels, including the recently designated Financial Crisis Commission, continue their inquiries into the causes of the economic crisis. Inevitably, there will be more finger-pointing with old villains revisited and new ones targeted.

For a man like Richard Fuld, Lehmans former chief, the days and months ahead will likely be a protracted ordeal as politicians, regulators, pundits, journalists, and colleagues take their shots early and often. Less obvious, but equally germane, Fuld and others like him also have a powerful opportunity with an aggressive and immediate reputation management campaign to reclaim significant roles in their industry and contribute effectively to the public dialogue.

It may well be that Fuld, like others perceived as direct contributors to the financial crisis, faces tougher challenges in the Court of Public Opinion because of the widespread suffering that resulted and todays stubbornly high unemployment rate. By contrast, even the criminal offenses of the Milken generation were more limited in impact and were not directly connected to a global economic meltdown. With Milken that classic example of rehabilitation and effective reputation management there was, at least in this sense, less to forgive.

That said, the Milken example remains most instructive for Fuld and others reeling from last years events. Released from prison after 22 months, Milken set about a variety of philanthropic initiatives, cancer research at first and later education. Contrition was implied in these acts and, proverbially, actions speak louder than words.

Especially relevant to Fuld, Milken became a thought leader. Today, for example, The Milken Institute is devoted to the study of economic growth and social problems from a finance perspective. Such thought leadership takes reputation management beyond contrition. He is no longer being forgiven; he is now being valued and rightly so, as he is offering practicable recommendations to a marketplace hungry for them.

Simply compare Milken to compeer Ivan Boesky to understand the impact of aggressive reputation management. Boesky never repented, never offered anything to the world and, as a result, the world remembers him only as the model for Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street.

Milken began his self-rehabilitation at the earliest possible moment rather than wait for his name to detoxify. For Fuld too, now is the time to lay groundwork for a reputational campaign based on strategic imperatives all the more important with a public less prone to forgive than ever in recent memory.

Among those imperatives, Fuld needs to understand that, fairly or not, hes been cast as a villain, and that he cannot escape that role by being argumentative. His post-collapse mistake was to publicly blame the government for not bailing out Lehman, although it bailed out others while privately, in a 90-minute speech to former Lehman employees, he reportedly apologized for his risk-management failures. The more he tries to shift blame even if his points are valid, as many would agree they are the more his own imputed blameworthiness will dog him. Only by being publicly candid do people in Fulds situation clear enough ground to forge new and better roles for themselves.

Second, he should begin to define what that new role will be. Even his detractors must acknowledge the depth of his experience and knowledge. As an advisor or even a media commentator, he may demonstrate that he can be depended on for insights, counsel, and guidance, which can then lead step-by-step to a not unimportant future role in the banking industry.

Third, he must find a larger issue or cause with which to identify. For example, a fund for out-of-work or under-employed Lehman alumni, or a job retraining program, would send a powerful penitential message. Alternatively, providing resources for distressed businesses effectively shows that something good has come out of all the painful lessons learned at Lehman.

To be sure, many on Wall Street and Corporate America have learned from the horrors of the past year. Theyre conducting business in corner offices and boardrooms more responsibly and their renewed commitment is already paying off. But there is still a void. Few have yet emerged from the private sector who can speak for this whole generation, its winners as well as its losers, by articulating and helping to chart a responsible course for the financial services in the years ahead.

With tenacity and commitment, Richard Fuld could be just the person to fill that role. A great writer once said, There are no second acts in American lives. That great writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was wrong.

Richard S. Levick is the president and chief executive officer of Levick Strategic Communications www.levick.com, the nations largest crisis and litigation communications firm. He is the co-author of Stop the Presses: The Crisis & Litigation PR Desk Reference and writes for www.bulletproofblog.com. Reach him at rlevick@levick.com.

Levicks mission, according to their website:

About Levick

Clients hire us to win. To get them into the news or get them out of it.

We get our clients in the news when they are approaching a monetizing event, entering a new market, establishing a brand, or preparing for a merger.

We get our clients out of the news when they are facing a hostile audience confronting zealous regulators or Congress, grappling with a product recall, or countering bet-the-company litigation.

We win in the Court of Public Opinion on behalf of companies, countries and high-profile individuals caught in some of the worlds most challenging communications traps.

This is how we win

Practice Areas

Crisis Communications ...As the worlds leading crisis communications firm, Levick understands that to be in business in the 21st Century is to be in crisis, whether issues emanate from regulators, hackers, aggressive NGOs, or shifting world events. We possess the experience and expertise to change minds when it matters most.

Financial Communications ... In todays era of transparency and accountability, Levicks industry-leading team has the know-how to help clients win on Wall Street, Main Street, or wherever influential perceptions affect the bottom line.

Investor Relations ... Todays investors have power. They demand information, details, a real seat at the table. Levicks investor relations experts know how to tell a powerful story and ensure that its heard loud and clear.

Litigation Communications When bet-the-company litigation arises, Levicks award-winning litigation communications team knows which strategies and tactics win the battle in both courts of law and the Court of Public Opinion.

Public Affairs and Issues Management When political agendas put your business or industry in the spotlight, success requires understanding how public officials and their constituencies think and what theyre going to do next. Levick wins when losing is not an option.

Reputation Management ... There are no quick fixes. Effective reputation management is all about hard and diligent work to defuse rampant skepticism and hostility. The Levicks team is equally effective in crisis or in periods of relative calm.

Social and Digital Media In todays communications environment, strategies that rely exclusively on traditional media will fail. Levick is the recognized leader for online programs that advance thought leadership, build reputations, change minds, and bulletproof brands.

Contact an Expert

Website bio on Mr. Smith:

Larry Smith is a Senior Vice President for Levick Strategic Communications and one of the profession's leading consultants on media strategy as it directly affects the marketing of legal services. Mr. Smith is also a leading crisis and litigation communications consultant, working with C-Suite executives throughout the world on reputation management and brand protection. His many high-profile engagements include the Catholic Church scandal, the Napster litigation, and the Rosie O'Donnell Rosie magazine lawsuit.

As a former journalist and legal economics editor, Mr. Smith's specific knowledge of and experience with law firms and their clients, both corporate and individual, is global. He brings that market wisdom to bear in helping diverse clients define their markets and refine their message points.

Mr. Smith's countless articles have appeared in publications on three continents. Among his books, Inside/Outside: How Businesses Buy Legal Services, published by American Lawyer Media, was highly praised by such corporate counsel as Jeff Kindler, now Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, and John Liftin, currently Vice Chairman and General Counsel of The Bank of New York. In its wealth of example and analysis, the book shows how the purchasers of legal services actually think.

With Richard Levick he co-authored Stop the Presses: The Litigation PR Desk Reference, which has emerged as a standard guide for both lawyers and non-lawyer managers in the post-Enron environment. The book draws powerful lessons from Mr. Smith's rich experience commandeering and refining communications strategies in the court of public opinion.

Before joining Levick Strategic Communications, Mr. Smith was, for ten years, the editor of Of Counsel, the management report for law firms and in-house counsel. He was also the editor of Inside Litigation, The Profitable Lawyer, and Lawyer Hiring & Training Report.

In other incarnations, Mr. Smith has co-authored books on various subjects, including political biographies, a war memoir, and how-to books. He's published a score of articles on diverse non-law subjects. He has also taught writing and consulted with professional organizations on media relations and in-house communications programs.

Levicks The Bulletproof blog:

Insights and analysis of the most pressing issues facing companies, countries and brands today. This is the blog for bulletproofing a reputation when it matters most.

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the controversial non-profit organization that was recently caught on film advocating violations of federal tax law, now finds itself in crisis and at a crossroads.

By opting for one path, ACORN would remain true to its brand as a $25 million scorpion that fights poverty with a take-no-prisoners, door-to-door approach by aggressively defending itself and attacking its critics. By opting for the other, the left-leaning NGO would take on a new, more contrite public face in the hopes of regaining the public trust lost due to a torrent of negative coverage.

No doubt, ACORNs daily canvassing efforts which serve as both core fundraising and constituent polling are providing intelligence as to which path to choose. Both are fraught with risk and rewards. Each requires a largely different communications approach moving forward. No matter which path ACORN ultimately follows, lessons for CEOs and other NGOs abound.

Should ACORN wish to remain the hard-nosed fighter that it is, it should go on the offensive in the Court of Public Opinion. It should stand behind its leadership, make its adversaries live up to the same standards they would seek to impose, and use its allies to blow the whistle each time a critic could be perceived as falling short.

Most important, the fact that the undercover video producer James OKeefes credibility was previously questioned after a similar incident involving Planned Parenthood cannot be overlooked. This must be leveraged by allies not ACORN itself to paint OKeefe as, at best, a disingenuous critic, or at worst, part of a right-wing conspiracy.

Simply put, ACORN could fight its detractors with the same zeal with which it fights poverty. The communities ACORN serves admire its unwillingness to back down from confrontation and will likely embrace a similar approach in dealing with its critics. Of course, such an approach doesnt give influential grasstops supporters much cover but one need look no further than Congressman Joe Wilsons fundraising successes since the You Lie outburst to see just how much grassroots support can be garnered from such an aggressive response.

Conversely, an almost entirely different strategy is called for should ACORN decide that it wants to leverage this crisis to evolve into a more nationally-respected NGO with a broader constituency. It should act on the results of internal investigations headed up by former Massachusetts AG Scott Harshbarger. It should clean house of anyone that has been found guilty of wrongdoing and perhaps the organizational leaders who allowed such malfeasance to occur on their watch. And furthermore, it must go beyond compliance with the law and enhance its training mechanisms so that everyone in the organization knows the rules and the consequences of breaking them.

This approach could boost the organizations credibility among influential supporters and reopen doors on Capitol Hill that are currently slamming shut. The risk here is that such a strategy directly contradicts the brand that ACORN has been building for 40 years. Would muting its adversaries in such a way be worth the inevitable losses in brand equity that would occur? Would ACORNs supporters still see the organization the same way?

As is often the case in crisis, there is no easy answer for ACORN. The only certainty is that whatever path it chooses, it must choose carefully; for this is a decision that could well define the ACORN brand for years to come.

Richard S. Levick, Esq. is President and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, the nations top crisis communications firm, and a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog.

In this regular feature, Bulletproof interviews top plaintiffs attorneys for their perspective on the crises likely to affect businesses in the near future. Today we talk to Deborah McKenna, a lawyer practicing in the Stamford, CT office of Outten & Golden LLP, one of the professions brand name employment firms.

Ms. McKenna has just won an important ruling in an ongoing landmark case on behalf of Heather Gilles, a librarian fired for missing work after she was seriously beaten by her husband. Superior Court Judge A. Susan Peck affirmed a new exception to Connecticuts employment-at-will doctrine, which allows businesses and organizations to fire employees for any reason or for no reason at all.

The court rejected the contention that Ms. Gilles had other remedies that would not require carving out an exception to employment-at-will. According to Judge Peck, the plaintiff sufficiently stated a claim of wrongful discharge in violation of a clear public policy against domestic abuse.

What is the foreseeable impact of this case?

Deborah McKenna: This case sends the message that victims of domestic violence need not fear losing their jobs because of their status as victims or survivors. If a victim is fired because of that status, there is now a remedy.

Also important, this case creates an opportunity for meaningful dialogue about real-life challenges for victims of domestic violence and how those challenges can impact the workplace.

If you were am employer, are there positive actions you might take in anticipation of such future exemptions to employment at will?

Deborah McKenna: First, an employer can and should take steps to educate its workforce about domestic violence, including that domestic violence crosses socio-economic and racial lines. Additionally, employers can proactively construct policies to assist employees who may be in abusive relationships to ensure that they receive the necessary support, whether through community programs that provide safety planning or referrals to womens organizations and shelters. Employers can also expedite leave policies if employees need to spend time in a safe house.

Most importantly, employers must reassure employees that utilizing such policies will not jeopardize their employment. Studies have shown that job security is one of the most crucial support factors to help people escape from abusive relationships.

In the press coverage of this case, an employment lawyer observed that such employment-at-will exceptions happen only rarely. Might not that suggest less impact, in the sense that its something employers only need to worry about every five or ten years?

Deborah McKenna: It is rare for the courts to conclude that a particular status or conduct should be considered protected as a matter of public policy. However, that means that when courts do accept a particular factual scenario as violating public policy, as Judge Peck did in this case, the decision has more of an impact rather than less. Thats because the ruling recognizes a new claim one for wrongful discharge due to ones status as a victim of domestic violence.

As a result, the law will continue to provide an adequate remedy for domestic violence survivors who lose their jobs because of that status.

Weve seen other exceptions to employment-at-will based on pregnancy, whistleblowing, and refusal to serve in a war zone. Are there any other such situations likely to be litigated in the near future?

Deborah McKenna: As more individuals become concerned about the environment, I can certainly see a court finding it unlawful for an employer to fire an employee for environmental advocacy or whistleblowing in that arena.

What other unrelated matters and trends are on your agenda as important issues for employers and employees?

Deborah McKenna: I see three important issues for employees and employers this year:

First, issues related to the increase in both instances and awareness of family responsibilities discrimination;

Two, the interpretation and application of the recent amendments to the ADA; and

Three, ensuring that ENDA the comprehensive non-discrimination in employment act which covers sexual orientation and gender identity is passed by Congress.

Larry Smith is Senior Vice President of Levick Strategic Communications, the nations top crisis communications firm, and a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog.

Take a Look at These Related Blog Posts:

Whats Next: The Plaintiffs Perspective - Employers Face Uncertainty on Access to Employee Emails

Whats Next: The Plaintiffs Perspective - Overtime Pay Cases Increase in Frequency and Severity

Whats Next: The Plaintiffs Perspective - Employment Liabilities in a Time of Scarcity

President Obamas Rush to Judgment

Posted by: Gene Grabowski | Jul 27, 2009

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On Friday, President Obama said he could have calibrated his words more carefully when he criticized the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Applying a classic crisis communications term to justify his statements, the President said he hoped the case would provide a teachable moment to spur improved relations between minorities and the police. Better he should have obeyed another PR shibboleth: Know the facts before you enter a fight.

By jumping into the Cambridge controversy without knowing key details, the President overshadowed his top communications priority explaining his effort to overhaul the nations health care system. While Obamas goal of spotlighting the practice of racial profiling was laudable, in the bargain he diminished his own stature as Commander in Chief.

On the same day his national job approval rating dropped to 48 percent, President Obama appeared before reporters on Friday afternoon to say that he had spoken with arresting officer Sergeant James Crowley and that he felt both the officer and Gates had overreacted during the incident, which occurred earlier in the week at Gates home.

Professor Gates was arrested on July 16, when police were called to his Cambridge home after a report of a burglary in progress. The professor said he told the police that he lived in the house and that he was jimmying open a damaged front door. The police report said he was arrested for loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space.

Obama and his advisers should have known that any presidential remarks about such a sensitive incident demand a full understanding of the situation. By speaking without knowing details, he appeared at best to be unprepared, and at worst, a meddler who misused his substantial power. Thats the kind of shoot-from-the-hip behavior we expect from political pundits and radio talk show hosts, not the President of the United States.

The charges against Professor Gates were later dropped, and the city of Cambridge, its police department, the Middlesex County district attorneys office, and Professor Gates issued a joint statement calling the incident regrettable and unfortunate.

Those same words apply to the Presidents uncharacteristically rash action.

Gene Grabowski is Senior Vice President of Crisis and Litigation at Levick Strategic Communications and a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog.

Lessons for Business from the Health Care Debate

Posted by: David Bartlett | Sep 28, 2009

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One of the first rules of strategic communications especially when the stakes are high and the debate is heated is control the message. The healthcare reform debate now reaching fever pitch on Capitol Hill offers just the latest example of what can happen when that fundamental rule is ignored.

After a nasty summer of negative media coverage, collapsing poll numbers, and angry town hall confrontations, the White House is dialing up its efforts to sell its reform plan to a bitterly divided Congress and a skeptical public.

Right from the start of the healthcare reform debate, back when President Obama was riding a wave of record-breaking approval ratings, there were hints of trouble. In the first place, the White House never bothered to define reform. Nor did it consider the possibility that the word reform itself might prove troublesome as the debate progressed.

By failing to define the key terms in the debate, the administration allowed its opponents to frame the conversation from the instant it began. The presidents political adversaries defined reform as socialized medicine and granny killing. Indeed, by carelessly defining his proposal as reform the president raised doubt in the minds of voters who are perfectly happy with the health insurance coverage and dont want to be forced to change it.

In business, the stakes are just as high because failing to control the message can be disastrous even in the absence of adversaries. Last spring, when the H1N1 virus was simply known as swine flu, the entire pork industry suffered significant hits to the bottom line because the public mistakenly associated the disease with pigs. When New Coke hit the shelves in the mid-1980s, we saw that even one of the strongest brands in history can be susceptible to damage when change isnt effectively defined.

In the end, companies must understand that the facts alone, no matter how persuasive, will never carry the day. Words and the pictures the public associates with them matter. And unless they are carefully chosen and defined from the outset, companies, industries, and even Presidents must eventually fight an uphill battle to bring the message back under control.

David Bartlett is a Senior Vice President at Levick Strategic Communications, an expert communications strategist and crisis manager, and a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog.

Strange thing: I read through many of the bulletproof blog postings and there were no comments that I could see!!!! Arent blogs meant for a back-and-forth between Levick/Forbes and readers/clients? Another strange thing, although the spin doctors appear to be bipartisan, it is unclear. What is clear is that I could never have hired them to put a puff piece on forbes.com to rehab my reputation after being laid off in January. This is only for the affluent.

Some organizations whose pockets arent lined so well, are starting to use spin to fight back. If only the Democratsother than the Clintonswould follow their lead.

It has been written that if Bill OReilly has ever said anything true, it is this sentence from a mid-September broadcast: Fox News and talk radio are now setting the [national] conversation.

As written by Megan Tady, a campaign coordinator and writer for Free Press, the national, nonprofit media reform organization, and a former National Political Reporter for InTheseTimes.com:

The organization ColorofChange.org has started a campaign to get advertisers to abandon Becks show. Nearly 300,000 people have signed a letter to advertisers, and 62 companies have now pulled their business. Dozens of mostly Latino organizations have joined a campaign at BastaDobbs.com, which calls on CNN to get rid of Dobbs.

And more than fifty groups have signed a letter to the FCC asking the agency to stand in support of Lloyd and media diversity and localism. (Full disclosure: The letter was produced by Free Press, the nonprofit organization where I work.)

But these efforts arent enough. We need an all-out grassroots movement to create systemic change in our media system. Heres how you can fight back:

1. Increase your support of independent media and public media to extend the reach of news outlets offering true investigative reporting and thoughtful discourse.
2. Help secure Net Neutrality to safeguard Internet freedom. We cant let corporations control the only platform on which everyones voices can be heard equally.
3. Become the media: join local news ventures in your community.
4. Call on Congress and Obama to adopt a national journalism strategy and offer policies that create new ownership structures, a journalism jobs program and increased funding for new public media.

The answer isnt censoring people like Beckits more speech, more voices and more opportunity. If we cant take away Becks megaphone, well have to drown it out. Copyright 2009 In These Times

June 21, 2009

Summertime—and the living is uneasy.

Lay on your back and look at the fluffy clouds in a blue sky this summer. It seems we are all within a safe dome, especially if we live in America. The peacefulness is highly unlikely to be shattered by bomb fragments, such as for our fellow humans who live in Baghdad. Americans easily forget that their economy depends on continuing, ongoing wars, and, thus, interrupted cloud-gazing for Baghdad citizens.

But look further. Remember your last flight on a commercial airliner. It was 2 p.m., but you could see both the green fields of Iowa below and the very dark, purple-blue-black of outer space above. So, roughly, that means your flight altitude of about 35,000 feet—approximately six to seven miles—is the thickness of the safety dome you believe you live under. Not much, is it? And easily fillable with carbon-based pollution, yes?

If you change your image of the sun from that of a smiling icon on a Raisin Bran box to its real function—just being another star—it is easier to get an image of humans’ lack of stature, of their NOT being a god’s beloved children sheltered in a dome, but of human beings trapped in a small boat dead center in the Pacific Ocean with only the supplies on board to keep them alive.

The safety dome disappears as does a loving supreme being concerned about each of us individually—or even as a whole—and you realize there is NOTHING between you and forever—a trillion, trillion, trillion, etc. miles of the lifeless, foodless emptiness of space.

Then, when you look at human beings butting heads on the ground, with millionaires and billionaires claiming superiority to the lower classes and the all-but-gone middle class, you can see how closely human beings—god’s so-called beloved children, his "Latter-Day Saints" if you are Mormon, his apes with arrogance—resemble Mufasa and Scar butting heads for control of Pride Rock. And the arrogance—another product of delusion and false paradigms—of humans vanishes.

We are just animals who raped and savaged each other only 15 years ago in the Serbia-Croatia war and who tortured, and torture, each other from 2003-ongoing.

We are winners over other animals for control of this planet. But now we choose to destroy our provisions and—apparently, see Jared Diamond’s "Collapse"—ourselves via our lusts, ones similar to those of Serbian soldiers who would kidnap Croatian women, ravage them in a plane and dump them bloody and scarred for life in the middle of nowhere. Lusts for blood, sex, and power, still left over from our past as "lower" animals, not "children" of god.

If a one in a trillion meteor shot that hit our planet hundreds of thousands of years ago hadn’t destroyed the dinosaurs, mammals such as ourselves may not have won control of Earth. A kinder, gentler dinosaur could now be living in peace as part of one, sole tribe whose aim would be to prevent suffering of their compadres and to preserve the planet.

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Aug. 22, 2009

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

–Thomas Jefferson, Panel Four within the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

One issue:

How can the so-called "progressive" Obama administration, given a mandate last November to obliterate Bush-Cheney’s shredding of the Constitution as we’ve known it for 220 years, continue some of what we believe to have been outrageous policies violating privacy rights via wiretapping and Internet and cell-phone signal interception installed by Bush-Cheney since 2000?

For example, the Obama administration last February asked a federal judge in San Francisco to uphold a law aimed at dismissing suits against telecommunications companies that cooperated with President George W. Bush's wiretapping program. In a filing, the Justice Department sought to dispel Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's concern that the law might violate the Constitution by giving the attorney general too much power to change the legal rules that govern the companies' conduct.

The law requires that judges dismiss suits by people claiming that the companies violated their privacy rights, as long as the attorney general certifies that the firms were helping an anti-terrorism program that the president authorized. "Under well-settled law, Congress may leave the decision of whether and when to make a certification to the attorney general's discretion," government lawyers wrote.

They said Congress did not surrender its lawmaking power when it passed the so-called immunity measure for telecommunications firms in 2008. Instead, they said, Congress was directing the attorney general to shield companies from suits that endangered national security.

Walker is presiding over nearly 40 lawsuits by customers who accuse companies of illegally sharing their phone and e-mail messages and records with the National Security Agency. Bush acknowledged in 2005 that he ordered the agency to intercept messages between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists without seeking approval from the courts or Congress.

The law that Congress passed last summer, with the support of then-Sen. Barack Obama, authorized the wiretap program and sought to dismiss lawsuits against companies that had participated. Bush argued that telecommunications firms needed retroactive immunity from the lawsuits to encourage them to cooperate in future intelligence-gathering. Obama opposed immunity but said he voted for the law because it contained some limits on presidential power over surveillance.

A statement Wednesday by Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller seemed to reflect Obama's lack of enthusiasm for the law. "The department is compelled to defend statutes as long as it can reasonably do so, and in this case the department was asked by the court to make a defense of the statute passed by Congress," Miller said.

Cindy Cohn, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who represents AT&T customers in the lead case before Walker, said she was disappointed. "It's unfortunate that the Obama administration has taken the position that it's OK for the president to decide whether millions of ordinary Americans get their day in court," Cohn said. "That's exactly the kind of presidential power that candidate Obama was critical of the Bush administration for."

Obama's Justice Department endorsed Bush administration arguments against an Islamic group's challenge to the wiretap program and asked a federal appeals court to stop Walker from allowing the group's lawyers to see a confidential surveillance document. In the filing, the department again adopted the stance of Bush's attorney general, Michael Mukasey, who had asked Walker to dismiss the telecommunications suits without revealing the extent of any company's cooperation.

Cohn, on behalf of AT&T customers, argued that the new law improperly gives the attorney general absolute power to decide which companies to immunize for actions that were previously illegal. But Justice Department lawyers said courts have upheld laws giving the executive branch broad authority--for example, to determine whether a company is making excessive profits and should be subject to price controls, or to renew the U.S. embargo against Cuba if the president decides it is in the national interest.

Proposed answer: "…with the change of circumstances, institutions [such as the Constitution] must advance also to keep pace with the times."—Thomas Jefferson

Another issue:

Health care. How can the United States spend trillions on Wall Street bailouts and a defense budget that dwarfs the rest of the world’s budgets combined and not cover every citizen’s health with single-payor (government-payor) insurance? It is my guess that Big Pharma and, now, in the last 10 years, Big Bio, have become married to the Defense Department. They are seen as indispensable in defending the U.S.—and the world—from a catastrophe bigger than the nuclear winter threatened during the Cold War (and still threatened).

In the 21^st century, global power will be reflected more and more in the power of biological technologies, whoever possesses them. "These technologies arise and move like online music and video file sharing. The advent of the home molecular biology laboratory is not far off," wrote research scientist Rob Carlson, a keen observer of the types of projects funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense research arm and the place where some of the best minds in the country are brainstorming ways to harness the biorenaissance and put them to work for the nations’s long-term security. In particular, stem cell research is being eyed for its potential use in bioprotection through the construction of an artificial human immune system.)

Thus the need, likely, in the mind of Barack Obama and others for telecom immunity, wiretapping, and Internet, global surveillance of all communications.

The foundation of the Manhattan Project more than 60 years ago rested on little more than a theoretical possibility. But in the eyes of the U.S. government, it was a possibility that HAD to be pursued. No U.S. administration could brook failure to act.

Creating an artificial human immune system is just that, a theoretical possibility. Whoever possesses the power to recreate such a system also possesses the presumptive power to circumvent the system. Stem cells represent a transitway through the bottleneck separating science and technology—the world of engineered human immune system bioreactors.

To understand the immune system enough to re-create it is to possess the potential power of annihilation. Such power never existed even during the age of thermonuclear weapons.

Survival in the age of bioterrorism depends on dealing a lethal blow to engineered superpathogens before they can vanquish us. Money was POURED into biodefense after 9/11 to develop implant chips for treating injured soldiers and to design biosensors for detection even at the single-molecule level.

Proposed answer: "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind."—Thomas Jefferson

The current debate is about new medical treatments and cures from stem cell research versus the concern that nascent human life is being treated as a commodity in the process. That issue and others are discussed in "The Stem Cell Dilemma: Beacons of Hope or Harbingers of Doom?" by Leo Furcht, M.D., and William Hoffman (Arcade Publishing 2009).

Before Cardinal Ratzinger became pope, he called the power of cloning "more dangerous than weapons of mass destruction." He wanted to make a point about humans tampering with the sacred. Yet nature consigns most fertilized eggs to oblivion by ejecting them from women rather than implanting them in a uterine wall. "Does that fact not give human beings license to intervene in the natural scheme of reproduction or biological discharge? ask Furcht and Hoffman

Furcht and Hoffman also write that biotechnology and biodefense companies will benefit from national investment. But, over time, a bioweapons arms race would become "autoimmunity at work on the global body politic," civilization turning on itself in a deadly corporeal competition.

The late Stephen Jay Gould would call this a "great asymmetry." Applied scientific knowledge has produced a moment in which a small act or mistake can undo what only centuries can build—cities, Gothic cathedrals, and rain forests. Gould cited familiar agents of wartime from gunpowder to nuclear weapons and the impacts on global biosystems. "Yet human choice, not the ‘intrinsic content of science,’ determines whether science becomes an agent of benevolent change or great destruction."

Scientists, therefore, have the responsibility, but do they have the audience?

The U.S. has among the most-restrictive environments for stem cell research, especially embryonic stem sell research. However, the authors write that "suppressing research into stem cells is causing that research to move abroad and there are dozens of willing sites, scientists and nations willing to cash in both financially and in terms of security. And ‘monkeying’ with defense is another matter, say the authors, America’s current prowess has been achieved because it listened to and lauded its physicists and engineers."

With the religious and other taboos against embryonic stem cell research in the U.S., will American listen to its biological scientists and bioengineers? A sense of urgency, similar to that experienced with the Manhattan project, will come--and soon. And the American public is woefully unprepared for the dreadful issues at hand. Obama’s backing of Bush’s policies likely is an indicator that he too feels that annihilation could be just around the corner and bending the Constitution to give the Executive Branch and investigative abilities a boost is justified—but the public still mustn’t know how close we are to an apocalypse.

The fate of all societies will hinge on the health of the human immune system. Advances in stem cell technologies and nanotechnologies have revealed the strengths and the vulnerabilities of the complex human immune system.

The West has the technological lead for the moment, but China, Russia, India, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and many other states and non-state entities, with the Internet and high-powered telecommunications have a legacy of bioweapons research.

Detection is harder than with nuclear weaponry. A 2003 report for the CIA by a life sciences panel warned of the dangers of dual-use technologies. "It will be extremely difficult to distinguish between legitimate biological research and the experimental production of advanced bioweapons agents."

"What do we make of a world in which ‘science has not only scaled the Tree of Life but chopped it down and begun trading its fruit as a commodity?’" asks Todd Aglialoro, editor of the Catholic Sophia Institute Press. Are we deforesting our future as a species? Or are we pursuing an essential path both to extending life and health and to ensuring our own survival?

Among scientists, the search for knowledge is paradoxically an article of faith. The faith that the universe is knowable is at the heart of the scientific quest.

Perhaps the threat of mutual destruction will finally rid the planet of the plague of tribalism and banner-waving in the name of "We’re better than you!" like rival teens at a college football game. Perhaps all peoples will be forced to become ONE tribe in order to save our little lifeboat in the trillions of light-years of nothingness called outer space that surrounds the boat.

Where will the leadership for that change come from? Likely, from a team of people collaborating around the world, not from one individual laboratory.

What is certain, Furcht and Hoffman write, is that the biorenaissance will unfold in ONE world. "People must understand the power of the life sciences and act collectively to shed light on its darker side."

July 20, 2009

The question of AIDS becoming a worldwide pandemic within the heterosexual community still seems very much up in the air, with the greatest danger spots being South Africa, other regions of Africa, Russia and China.

KwaZulu-Natal University and the HHMI have joined to establish the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV, a research center of international standard that will focus on contributing meaningfully to the global fight against tuberculosis (TB) and HIV. The facility now is complete, it was announced in March 2009.

Prevalence of AIDS in South Africa has led to an epidemic of TB (tuberculosis) and malaria in that country, as the citizens’ weakened immune systems have succumbed to those diseases at an alarming rate, according to reports from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The spread of TB (by air), malaria (by mosquitos) and the HIV virus that leads to AIDS (via bodily fluids) could remain at a tipping point for more than a decade.

That’s how long it will take because the South African institute will focus initially on four core research areas – development of rapid and more effective tests for TB, research into the characteristics of drug resistant strains of TB, analysis of the complex immune response to TB, specifically among those already infected with HIV, and a study of recurrent TB in HIV-positive patients to assess the nature of the recurrence. This is a battle that, at best, can be won within 10-15 years.

The two diseases often go hand in hand, as TB is increasingly seen as an opportunistic disease that takes advantage of HIV sufferers’ weakened immune system to entrench itself. While an opportunistic disease usually only appears when the immune system is compromised, TB is now seen as such a disease in those infected with the AIDS virus.

According to the World Health Organisation the disease is the leading infectious killer of people living with HIV and in fact, the two are so closely connected that the term "co-epidemic" or "dual epidemic" is often used to describe their relationship.

In South Africa the dual epidemic is especially virulent, as the country has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world. Many sufferers contract the extreme drug-resistant strain of TB, which was first noticed in Tugela Ferry in 2005. In the rural KwaZulu-Natal town, 44 people contracted the deadly TB strain – all were found to be HIV positive, and all but one of them died.

However, hope springs eternal. The KwaZulu-Natal research institute, which has been two years in the planning, was announced simultaneously in Washington, D.C., and Durban on March 19..

As part of its goal of becoming an international center of research excellence, the institute will also concentrate efforts on producing a new generation of research scientists that, with training in the field, will be able to competently tackle African issues.

The facility is a brand-new six-floor state-of-the-art BSL-3 laboratory on the campus of the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban. A BSL-x classification refers to the biosafety level of a facility, and level three applies to those facilities, whether they are of a diagnostic, teaching, research, or production nature, that work with indigenous pathogens capable of causing serious or potentially lethal disease after inhalation.

The nonprofit HHMI, established in the 1953 by the late aviation magnate Howard Hughes, is one of the largest private funding organisations for biological and medical research in the U.S. After the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the institute is the second-wealthiest philanthropic organisation in the U.S. with an endowment of a $18.6-billion. It is also the second-best endowed medical research foundation in the world, coming in behind the U.K.’s Wellcome Trust.

It was the joint view of the HHMI and the university that substantial investment into research in the heart of the pandemics of HIV and TB will yield major discoveries, and do much to alleviate the suffering caused by these diseases.

The facility is expected to have global benefits in attempting to realize the potential for developing new strategies to combat the dual scourge of HIV and tuberculosis.

Clearly, AIDS remains not just a concern for gays or Africans.

In fact, C. Virginia Fields, president of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, at a recent speech in Rocky Mount, N.C., made a surprising revelation about the AIDS epidemic.

"One of the things I talked about were the numbers for heterosexual black women," Fields recounted, according to reports. "When people heard that, they were very surprised. It’s something that they did not know, it’s something they had not focused on."

What many did not know or focus on was that black women account for the largest share of new HIV infections – 61 percent – among women. That’s an infection rate nearly 15 times that of white women. And most of those African-American women were infected through heterosexual activity.

Many people associate HIV/AIDS simply with gay people, Fields reportedly said. They don’t think it’s only a white gay disease because there has been more attention on black gay men. To many, it’s a gay disease.

One reason for the delays in HIV/AIDS progress has been pure politics, religion, and tribal taboos, such as women being expected to have unprotected sex. It took a long time for Mbeki to admit that HIV was the cause of AIDS." Thabo Mbeki served almost two terms as the second democratically elected president of South Africa, from June 14, 1999 to 24 Sept. 24, 2008.

Mbeki's more inclusive stance led some to connect him to AIDS denialism. While serving as deputy president, AIDS was in his portfolio, and he customarily wore a red ribbon while specifically promoting AIDS prevention measures. He did preside over a controversial and brief embrace of a South African experimental drug called Virodene which later proved to be ineffective; the episode appeared to have increased his skepticism about the scientific consensus that quickly condemned the drug.

After he assumed the presidency, he appears to have articulated more clearly his understanding that poverty is a significant cofactor in the prevalence of AIDS and other health problems. He urged political attention be directed to addressing poverty generally rather than only against AIDS specifically. Some speculate that the suspicion engendered by a life in exile and by the colonial domination and control of Africa led Mbeki to react against a portrayal of AIDS as another Western characterisation of Africans as promiscuous and Africa as a continent of disease and hopelessness.

Additionally, his views dovetailed with some broader themes in African politics. Many Africans find it suspicious that black Africans bear the largest share of the AIDS burden, and that the drugs to treat it are expensive and sold mainly by Western pharmaceutical companies. The history of malicious and manipulative health policies of the colonial and apartheid governments in Africa, including biological warfare programs set up by the apartheid state, also help to fuel views that the scientific discourse of AIDS might be a tool for European and American political, cultural or economic agendas.

ANC rules and Mbeki's commitment to the idea of party discipline meant that he could not publicly criticise the current government policy that HIV causes AIDS and that antiretrovirals should be provided. Some critics of Mbeki continued to assert that notwithstanding he continued to influence AIDS policy through his personal views behind the scenes, a charge which he has denied. However, in a 2007 published biography "Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred," author Mark Gevisser describes how the president, knowing that he was writing the biography, contacted him earlier in 2007. This was to ask whether the author had seen a 100-page paper secretly authored by Mbeki and distributed anonymously among the ANC leadership. This paper compared orthodox AIDS scientists to latter-day Nazi concentration camp doctors and portrayed black people who accepted orthodox AIDS science as "self-repressed" victims of a slave mentality. It described the "HIV/AIDS thesis" as entrenched in "centuries-old white racist beliefs and concepts about Africans." In the published biography, Gevisser describes the president's view of the disease as apparently shaped by an obsession with race, the legacy of colonialism and "sexual shame."

Since release of the biography, President Mbeki's defenders have tried hard to clarify his position as being an AIDS "dissident" as opposed to an AIDS "denier." That is, he accepts that HIV causes AIDS but is a dissident in that he is at odds with prevailing AIDS-focused public health policies, stating that it is only one of many immune deficiency diseases, many of which are associated with poverty, and that political attention and resources should be directed to poverty and immune deficiency diseases generally rather than AIDS specifically.

Aug. 14, 2009

I’ve been in this tangle before. Aren’t there any atheists out there? Everyone reacts with such vehemence when I tell them I’m an atheist--like I touched an exposed nerve. I’ve been an atheist since I saw my dad have to go without food for 10 days, only saline and sugar solutions, until he finally qualified for hospice care.

He had had a major stroke and was paralyzed on his right side including his mouth. He couldn’t talk, only curl up the left side of his mouth. He also had congestive heart problems, clogged neck arteries, and remnants of cancer. He was 82.

But instead of letting this man die with dignity, at a time of his choosing, after saying his goodbyes, medical personnel and us, his family, were forced to starve a man who loved to eat for 10 days. Then in hospice, the doctor FINALLY put him on morphine "to ease the pain." And then more morphine. And then more, always to relieve pain (not to kill him and let him die with dignity!).

He laid there like a skeleton with purplish skin draped over his bones, like a fish on a dock gasping for air, like a dog in the field, laying there hurt and dying without its master to put a bullet through its head. We care more humanely for our dogs than we do our dads, because of the delusions and hallucinations of religion and fear and laws.

I decided to do try to list the pros and cons of atheism:

Pros:

• No guilt, no depression
• Only rehabilitation; no capital punishment, fewer jails.
• No screaming to god, Why me!!!??
• No blaming god
• Only blaming bad luck or yourself in this morally neutral world
• No praying to make up for misdeeds
• Facing up to problems: no magical thinking, only solid, hard answers
• Facing death from a very young age
• Keeping your thinking hat on; thinking for yourself; not abdicating to a bunch of old, white, unmarried or married white men
• Not following blindly policies--by condoning with your silence and the silence of your church--such as torture in the year 2009. How ridiculous? Ever read any books on Auschwitz? Is there such a short memory in humanity?
• No stewards of already questionable scriptures telling you THEIR interpretations of indecipherable, contradictory, redundant, Stone Age scribblings
• The truth as science can bring it to us, bit by bit
• Reality even if it does hurt
• No wasted time dozing in church, studying those unintelligible scriptures written by mad, hallucinating, libertines such as Joseph Smith. The one, two or three hours in church could be spent visiting someone in the hospital or donating time to some activity that brings results.

Cons

• More blaming of other people, instead of satan (another magical cartoon figure)
• No ceremonies; no priests to conduct the ceremonies when you mourn a dead relative
• No delusions to cover up the pain, the waste, the absurdity, the disgusting things of life
• Less community and fewer friends
• Less support
• Therefore, less chance of survival in a catastrophe
• Boredom with the stupidity of this disgusting life
• Depression because there is no long-range goal or reward for hard work, less meaning to life. The main goals become your survival, your family’s survival, your friends’ survival, and your tribe’s (nation) survival
• Without guilt the ancient justice system becomes meaningless and would have to be replaced by rehabilitation services based on what the "best state of consciousness should be."
• No free advice on family, work, relationship problems or on Jesus’ teachings
• A lot of free-thinkers chattering at you with no experience in real life, only their arrogance and egos or college degrees.

In commondreams.org, recently there was an article bemoaning the incredible power of all the major religious institutions on earth and how it’s never used to stop wars or torture: Witness the Jews in World War II, the silly Iraq War and the Bush-Cheney-Obama torture revival. I asked a friend or two about this. These friends are devout. One protested a "deep, personal" affirmation that god lives and is watching over each of us. The other sounded like one of his nerves was exposed and I was stepping on it:

"Hey, I hope we can keep our discussions open and honest without having to tread on glass, we’ve had some good intellectual debates. We’ve known each other a while, I know you are not a negative person.

But referring to the article you sent specifically, the whole tone and intent was to accuse and attack, to rile up the already converted atheist; I don’t think the article intended to be scientific or rational, but to inflame both the supporters and accused.

When you forward Einstein etc, it opens the ground for an intellectual debate. When you forward an article like this, you can’t expect someone not to call you on it or defend their own stance.

My logical rebuttal would be as follows: I accept your view that religions have weaknesses, even if I disagree, you have an equally rational opinion. I also don’t believe that any religion will convert the whole world. But that does not mean that there is no true religion – not all accept truth. Also it doesn’t mean that there is no good in religion.

Second, I also agree that humans are doing much to bring destruction (even though we shouldn’t deal in absolutes – there are many things humans have done positive as well, and your perspective assumes that nature trumps humans, which is not shared by all – but I agree there is too much destruction).

I grant your opinion that scientific reality can save the earth – but you can’t state your opinion as fact that there is no other way, including religion, that can benefit the earth. In fact it would be easy to make the argument that many things that man and science have done to try to help the earth have been actually detrimental in retrospect when our understanding of the complexity of nature advances, and I would also argue that many, if not most, people and organizations and societies that have supported nature and mother earth have a definite spiritual basis, even if they don’t call it religion.

So your opinion that science can save the earth is a valid opinion, your follow-on that no religion will is an opinion but no more than that.

Third point of discussion, if humanity has a natural animal-like tendency, which I may or may not agree with (I believe there are both natural-destructive and divine tendencies in mankind, and free agency to decide which to follow); but for argument sake agreeing that man’s natural state is selfish, saying that religion isn’t helping this doesn’t mean that non-religious folk are doing any better. Remove religion and your assumption that humanity is destructive is still in place, with or without religion.

So your argument, and the article’s, is that religion is contributing to destruction, evil, torture, selfishness, etc. That I argue against utterly – not just because I am one of them, but because to find some examples of evil men and corrupt leaders within religion and therefore infer that religion is evil, is a stretch. I would argue that the good done by religion far outweighs. There is a valid debate on that one I know, and some of my argument relies on my spiritual beliefs (I believe in Satan as well).

Also, the argument that religion is the root of evil, not just delusion, implies that without religion things would be better. I would argue man would be the same, that there would be no organization even attempting to improve people’s moral lives, even if flawed, and with no replacement or alternative offered that man would be better off without religion.

Even if religion is a crutch and a delusion, one would have to still argue that it does no good and causes evil, and doesn’t make people feel better. We engage in many ‘useless’ entertainments only to cause enjoyment, escape from reality, or just feel better. Even if reduced to this, what bad is religion causing?"

July 3, 2009

At age 18, my life was changed forever when a professor in December 1972 said "you’ll never make it" into medical school unless "you see our school counselor."

I did that. During the ensuing 37 years, I saw many counselors while trying to break free of the little voice replaying and replaying inside my head: "This won’t work," "You aren’t in their league," "She’d never go out with you." The essence of my mother’s words to myself and my dad during my youth, 24/7.

I imitated both parents via my "mirror neurons," which all humans have. They are tiny patches of neurons on the upper right and left sides of your brain. They imitate everything—and record it. We learn primarly by imitation. Our brains create representations of actions that can be replayed forever. If we see a man pick up a baseball, certain cells in our brains, via the mirror neurons, fire up, getting us ready to also pick up a baseball. The imitations really are cemented in there by age four. I still find myself standing in the exact posture and tilt that my dad often stood in 40 years ago. Those delicate years of childhood are very nearly unchangeable.

But I have changed quite a bit, via medical and tutorial actions. However, sometimes I feel I’ve changed only a small percentage, as I fight the same battles now in my new family as my dad did in his.

Certainly, the stigma of being a mental health consumer contributes to this. Tipper Gore tried to work on that when Al was vice president of the U.S. The expense of a good psychiatrist or good psychologist also contribute. Our terrible health insurance system in the U.S., during my 37-year ongoing fight, NEVER paid 100 percent of costs that often ran as high as $100-$250 per hour. The number of paid-for sessions was limited also, because, after all, the mental health consumers aren’t REALLY sick, now, are they? They’re just choosing to be nervous in front of audiences or when it’s time to have sex.

Perhaps a single-payor universal health care system—should Obama and his so-called Democratic cohorts ever break free from the need for campaign contributions from Big Pharma and big insurance companies—will provide the research and medicines needed to help others like me WIN their battles to become sexual beings, instead of recreating their parents’ relationships all over again.

The MOST interesting thing about all of this is that my parents did what they did honestly thinking it was in the best interests of me and their family. And my friends and family also do what they do with the best of intentions. I do what I do with the best of intentions.

Doesn’t say much for the concept of free will so wholeheartedly backed by all churches of all faiths everywhere, does it?