COMING APART After 9/11 transfixed America, the country’s problems were left to rot. by George Packer Download NYer PDF

I grew-up in New Orleans and my wife grew-up in Mount Airy, North Carolina. We sometimes amuse ourselves during cocktail hour by reciting the differences in our social and cultural circumstances, always marveling that we found enough in common to want to marry. We could never imagine that a New Yorker article would connect our hometowns.

We both moved away from our hometowns for a reason and we remain attached to each of these spots on the map: one on a river and the other at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The troubles of our hometowns were a long time in coming and will take a while to fix. Certainly, such is the nature of civilization: people try, succeed and fail in one location then move to start-over in the next. Right now, we’re all caught-up in something that seems much larger than us – is the population too large? do we use too much gasoline? is the government to blame? – where we’re not sure what to do or even if we’ve hit the bottom yet.

I wonder if our nation’s decline is represented by these two uniquely charming locations or are their declines better represented by America’s?! Certainly New Orleans is not the city that it used to be – and probably never was any way. Its mythical gentility and creativity was perpetrated while those in authority neglected nearly every fundamental civic responsibility. Katrina washed away this veneer.

The folks in Mount Airy have made do since they settled the area prior to the American Revolution. They display a strong sense of self-reliance coupled with a short horizon to the world at large. As I think about it, this is pretty much the opposite of how New Orleanians have seen themselves and their world.

Now both communities share the understanding that as any semblance of reliable, centralized leadership is in dangerous short supply, self-reliance in the day to day is how they will have to survive and to re-construct a future for their friends and families.

As a 14 year old water boy, my wife’s great-grandfather walked from Virginia to Gettysburg in 1863 for the battle. Wounded on the third day in the North Carolina attack adjacent to Pickett’s charge, he was paroled and returned home. He wore his uniform in the annual town parade into the early 1930s. New Orleans surrendered early in the war with barely a fight, never considering itself actually a part of the American South. My money’s on Mt. Airy. Meanwhile, here’s a cut from a recent David Letterman show where the Preservation Hall Jazz Band joins with the country-gospel Del McCoury Band performing I’ll Fly Away. Hope springs eternal!

Home screen design with multiple icons becoming the lay-out of preference for clients so that user can go immediately to desired info source. App complements recently renovated Grad.Studies web site.

In the mid-1980s while working at Bath Iron Works, one of the documentation specialists for the Electrical Engineering Department raved about this PC that so improved the quality and speed of his work. “Called an Apple,” he exclaimed, “it’s incredible, man. It’s like I do my work the way that I want to without wasting time on how the machine works. It’s unbelievable! Everybody in the Department should have one.”

Then I moved to North Carolina and hooked-on to a start-up where everyone was issued one of these Macs with the 9″ screens. We could open two documents at once – yeah, baby! – network with other Macs and even share a $10,000.00 laser printer around the cubicle farm.

Paid $2,200.00 in 1990 for a Mac with 2 megabytes of RAM and a dot matrix printer.

But somehow these Apple products had a feminine overtone; real men used DOS (before Windows 95 introduced phrases such as Blue Screen and Security Patch into the office vernacular). No doubt that Apple had plenty of chances to rule the roost if only they woulda licensed the operating system to other PC manufacturers. Finally, Windows did catch-up by virtue of its broad distribution relegating the Mac to beatniks and hippies and designers and those who favored taste eg ease of use over price. Apple hovered at loyal 6% market share for a long time.

Jobs was replaced by the man from Pepsi, John Sculley, who was replaced by the German Diesel, Michael Spindler, who tried to sell Apple to IBM or Sun or Philips, and then was replaced by the NCR execs Gil Amelio and Ellen Hancock. Folks, those were dark days of fractured market positioning and the dullest of product ideas. Mac batteries were reported to burst into flames on occasion. My related personal misfortune was to be an Apple developer during the Spindler-Amelio period; visits to Cupertino felt like a tour of a movie set were a once renown film was made. “Watch out for tumbleweed in the lobby” sort of ambience.

No one dreamed that Jobs would return; that Pixar would rescue Disney; that Apple would invigorate both our telecommunications and retail shopping industries. I spoke with a senior banking executive last week who purchased recently his first Mac product. He said, “when you get it, it’s like.. sort of feels like…” he hesitated. Two of us finished his remark by saying, ‘it’s like receiving a present so well packaged is the product and so welcoming to open. We all feel that way.” He agreed. My colleague rejoined, “I keep my Apple packaging.” With a conspiratorial smile, the exec agreed that he kept his also.

I paid $750 for a Newton in 1993! Hand-writing recognition estt not soet grtate, tho.

I could dance all night on the wonder of this company and the genius of the man who steered it to its brilliance. Of course, I’m saddened by his ill health and scared that we’ll retreat under the onslaught of the cost-accountants and marketeers who treat us as though, well, we have no taste.

For now, and amidst this uncomfortable economic time, we must admit that we have an example of design genius, marketplace understanding, technology-driven productivity and a vivid example that beauty and function are indeed compelling roommates.

Complete listing and related article here.

What impels some people to defend others?

Gratifying is that my opinions are solicited about once per year. Quite a compliment from a journal with a readership of 80,000. Wish that I had time to prepare thoroughly for possible questions and producer wants to have the interview vibe be ‘as spontaneous as possible.’ I surprise myself sometimes with the string of connected ideas that come to mind in these circumstances; I am nearly always surprised by how I sound in recording and agree with Robert Burns!

Podcast here.

Rather than level a broadside at the easy targets of debt-ceiling debates (sic) and big-time college football scandals – are the two related? and can it be a scandal if no one is surprised? – I’d like to introduce two outfits that seem to know what they’re doing. Spotify has wowed Europeans for a couple of years with its music service and the Washington Duke Inn’s elegant note confirming cancellation of a reservation well describes the complete experience at this hotel on the campus of Duke University.

One lived a full life, a life of wondrous opportunity and hard-earned achievement (his father as a Polish noble fought both with the Poles against the Nazis and with the Nazis against the Russians – in the same war); the other lived a brief live punctuated by incredible courage and generous sacrifice. The general arrived in America at age 16 in 1952, a refugee of WWII. Fortunate circumstance and hard work propelled him to the highest rank our Army. The Medic rushed to save a wounded Marine amidst a gunfight in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. We miss Aaron Ullom because we well understand the depths of his capabilities.

A Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines as a medic, most respectfully referred to as Doc within their USMC units, who risked and lost his life in a far, far away place so that another may have a chance to live. Seaman Ullom was awarded a Purple Heart and another medal for carrying on the fight against Global Terrorism. He is not heralded for exceptional valor in his moment of death because what he did is what corpsmen are supposed to do. His was not exceptional behavior as his purpose was to save the lives of the Marines in his care.

Men such as Aaron Ullom are compelled to the purpose of the moment, perpetuating the beliefs of our nation, so that men like John Shalikashvili may find a land of refuge with opportunities to fulfill their own destinies. I hope that this is why we’re still over there.

On that same page of the Raleigh News and Observer, Section 12A of Sunday July 24, 2011, with the Shalikashvili headline and the Ullom sideline, there are listed the names of seven other Soldiers and Marines who died in action in Afghanistan between July 9 and July 14. Their ages ranged from 20 to 39. ‘Twenty years old?!,’ I repeated to myself.

Our multiple-threaded, near parallel universes of an economy – state budgets seem on verge of collapse, stock market spiraling into higer orbit – connects me nearly daily with those exploring careers after college, career transition after military service and finding work having ‘lost their situations’ (a quaint British euphemism for personal catastrophe). Curiously, I am aware of several who have improved their professional situations while a significant percentage of us have opted to hunker down waiting for this nightmare of an economic storm to pass.

I have plenty of platitudes and only-if experiences to broadcast to those who ask for career advice and connections. The itemized list will follow. Meanwhile, these thoughts arise amidst the “I cannot wait until it gets here; OMG, it’s here!” attitude towards the sweltering days of July – however, it is rare that North Carolina is hotter than New Orleans (101 vs 91- yacudlookitup) – and by the way, the hottest July 21st in recorded NC memory was in 1952. Take that I Hope That You Are Wrong Predictors of Arrived Global Warming!

I am interested in changes in business communication and personal engagement wrought by this l’enfant terrible, the Internet. I like to believe that despite the multiple aches and pains and some permanent injury to our global economy, ours is an incredibly interesting and opportune time to be alive (what choice do we have really?). Reading the NY Times on Monday, I observed that as old ways of communicating are rejected, habits of excellence are enduring. I observe that Syria and News Corps are reeling because these two entities have tried to rule by controlling the message; hoarding accurate information; and worshiping the only recently desanctified, now false god, Knowledge is Power, in Greece known as Klueles.

Whatever the descendants of Twitter, Facebook, texting or tablet computing and how they may modify our introduction to information, there will be plenty of opportunities for those who help others to know, aka the Roman deity, Kollaborate. Call it scholarship or leadership or experience, the likes of Darren Clarke and Nadeshiko Japan will forever succeed. Clarke’s experienced approach to the amusingly horrible playing conditions of the Open, the golf tournament once known as the British Open, was surprisingly satisfying for its lack of spectacle. He took a measured, confident approach to the course and the pressure of the Tournament by withstanding impressive challenges by Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, the longest of long ball hitters, who at points on the final day seem to convert the dunes, winds and pot bunkers into a sunny round on a local public course (Johnson drove through the green on a 400 yard+ hole!)

In the Women’s World Cup Final, either victor would have been an inspiring winner. The American team earned their way to the final with upset victories over Brazil and France. They also defeated Japan twice this year. In the end, really in the penalty-kick decided tie-breaker, the Japanese team played with courage and conviction recovering from nearly desperate circumstances in both the regular game and the overtime period. Good for our friends in Japan, of course, as it’s been a year of awful setbacks due to compounding natural disasters.

Sports are not governments and playing well at games is not the equal of sustaining businesses. Obviously, Syria and News Corps are trying to hold-on to hollowed models of management. Time is not on their sides even if they retain plenty of fight (I guess Gaddafi could be added this equation). The next orbit of our new world will continue to value calmness under pressure and confidence within circumstance regardless of who else participates.