I’m on Forbes.com Now

Yup, starting today, you’ll find my blog at:

http://blogs.forbes.com/geoffloftus

Same high quality bloviating you’ve grown to know and love, but now on a high quality, well respected platform.  (Hard to imagine that will last long . . . .)

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No blog today – look for me on Forbes.com soon

Actually, look for me on Wednesday, September 29th. I’m debuting with a piece called “Lead Like Winston.”

More details (like a link to my Forbes blog) will follow on Wednesday. I’ll also tweet them and post on LinkedIn and Facebook. How socially media conscious can you get?

To be completely honest, I still loathe and detest Twitter, and I think that an awful lot of people suffer from acute TMI syndrome on Facebook. (TMI? Too much information. Usually of a personal nature. Ugh.) Anyway, more on all my loathing and detesting some other time.

See you Wednesday on Forbes.com.

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Publicity Stunt: Crazy Pastor Wants to Burn the Koran

UPDATE: September 10.

A few hours after the blog below was published, President Obama asked Pastor Jones to listen to his “better angels” and not burn the Koran. He went on to label the burning a “stunt.” Then Defence Secretary Robert Gates called Jones and asked him not to go through with his plan since it would endanger American forces around the world.

The international press covered both communications, and then went into a frenzy when he had talks with a Florida Muslim, who Jones claimed to represent the Muslims who are planning to build the Cordoba Islamic Center near Ground Zero. According to Jones, the Florida man told him that the New Yorkers were on board with moving the Center. Jones canceled the book burning, only to change his tune and say he had only suspended it when the Cordoba team said it was not moving.

(Never one to shun publicity, apparently Donald Trump made an offer to buy the Cordoba site to help the Muslims move elsewhere. Cordoba characterized it as a cheap “stunt.”)

In the meanwhile, Pastor Jones with his ridiculous facial hair and faulty theology continues to grab worldwide attention for his little bit of the lunatic fringe. No matter how this turns out, he’s clearly the winner.

ORIGINAL POST:

By now you’ve probably heard that Terry Jones, the pastor of a tiny Christian church in Florida, plans to honor the 9/11 dead by burning copies of the Koran in a bonfire.

Muslims around the world have made it known they are furious over the planned pyrotechnics. Hard to blame them — and does America really need 1 billion people worldwide to be angry with us because this wingnut is, well, a wingnut?

The largest association of evangelical churches in America has called for Jones not to go through with it.

The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, has called the burning “idiotic.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated that this will harm U.S. interests around the world.

And, most importantly, Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan has said this will threaten the safety of his forces there.

Is this clown listening? Will he call it off? Yeah, sure. Why would he do that? Here’s a guy with a tiny following, various news accounts say his parish is anywhere from 30 to 50 people, and he’s getting global attention. All because he says he’s going to do one stupid, ugly thing. He’s got nothing to lose and stands to gain an increased following of people as deranged as he is.

What’s really worrisome is this: What happens if this turns out well for Jones? What if he doubles or triples the size of his congregation? What if he gets interviewed by CNN and Fox News? What does he do for an encore next year?

There are a couple of lessons here for the rest of us:

1) Just because a guy shouts, “Here I am! Look at me!” doesn’t mean we have to look.

2) If you’re pushing a cause or a product or a service or whatever, you need more than an empty publicity stunt to be a success. You have to have something valuable to push.

On Vacation

If you haven’t taken a break yet for this summer, be sure you do. Even in the midst of fighting with the Nazis, Ike always made sure that his men, from generals to privates, got as much time off as possible. Whatever you’re trying to do, it’s easier when you’re properly rested.

I’m taking my own advice — leaving on vacation for the rest of the month. Among other things, this means no blogs for the rest of August. (I doubt anyone will find that tragic.) If Ike’s concern over time off isn’t enough to convince you, maybe a few pictures of my vacation spot (Block Island) will:

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Take My Advice: Shut Up

I’m in my seventh month of blogging twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. I’ve never missed a column, but I have found myself with nothing to say once before. And today, embarrassing as this is to admit, I’ve got nothing again.

Now, being as full of blarney as the next person of Hibernian descent, I could spin a fantastical web of words and pretend I have something significant to say. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lived by the axiom that “if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.”

But I’m going to live by a different bit of advice I heard long ago (source forgotten): If you don’t know what you’re talking about, shut up. If you can’t stop yourself from talking, talk positively and with absolute authority — maybe everyone listening will assume you know what you’re saying.

Today, I’m going to take the first part of that advice and shut up. I would recommend that to anyone and everyone, whether you don’t know what you’re talking about in business or life.

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In the Shadow of the World Trade Center

I was in Manhattan on 9/11. I can’t begin to understand the pain and grief of the families and friends who lost loved ones or saw them traumatized by injury. But like all of us in New York City that day, I experienced the shock and horror of what was happening right before my eyes. And I cried for thousands of people I would never know.

Over the days immediately following 9/11, I got to see the largest collection of heroes ever assembled: Millions of New Yorkers refusing to cower to terrorists and returning to their normal lives.

Now it’s time for all of those heroes to demonstrate their patriotism, too.

In New York right now, a struggle is going on over what it means to live in America. A Muslim congregation wants to build a mosque and Islamic center two blocks from Ground Zero. Not surprisingly, families of the victims have expressed their discomfort about the project. And some politicians like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are adamantly against it. Man-on-the-street interviews on radio and TV show that quite a few regular New Yorkers find it hard to accept a Muslim presence so close to the World Trade Center.

But . . .

The first amendment of the U. S. Constitution — the beginning of the “Bill of Rights” — says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

There it is in constitutional black and white — the very first right of all our cherished rights — Congress cannot pass laws establishing religion or hindering its practice. That right is expressed in absolute terms because it is an absolute right. You can’t cut back on the right to worship of a group of Muslims because a bunch of terrorist thugs (who happened to be Muslim) attacked us. This would be like shutting down a Christian church because some local wackos (who happened to be Christian) bombed a health clinic that performed abortions. In either instance, punishing the guilty terrorists is fine. Impinging on the rights of others who share the same religion is not. The Constitution says so.

I have to admit, when I first heard the Muslim congregation was planning the mosque and center, I groaned to myself and thought, “Why there?” But then I realized that I should support this Islamic center. Because I believe in the Bill of Rights. Even when it’s tough to see the results of those rights. People all support the Bill of Rights when it comes to their rights to worship or speak or whatever. That’s easy. Patriots prove themselves by supporting those rights when it’s tough — when an Islamic group wants to build a mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Center.

And just in case the Bill of Rights isn’t enough to make you support the Muslim congregation, consider the message of tolerance and respect that New York will send to the world by allowing the building of a mosque so near Ground Zero. Compare that message with the one the government of the United Arab Emirates, an Islamic country, just issued: No more e-mails or texting on BlackBerries.

It’s enough to make you proud to be an American, isn’t it?

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Cockeyed Optimism

Things are tough, no two ways about it. The economy stinks. Depending on which way you measure these things, we are in the worst economic times since 1946 (the bust following the World War II boom) or the Great Depression. Most Americans aren’t old enough to remember those times, and the ones who are old enough would rather not dwell on them.

Our country is still mired in two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And, since this is an election year, the only thing we can expect from Washington is a dazzling assortment of political posturing, hissing, and spitting. Oh . . . joy.

Well, it might be fun to wallow in depression, but I can’t do it. Instead I keep hearing the lyrics of “A Cockeyed Optimist” in my head:

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead,
But I’m only a cockeyed optimist
And I can’t get it into my head.

I hear the human race
Is fallin’ on its face
And hasn’t very far to go,
But ev’ry whippoorwill
Is sellin’ me a bill,
And tellin’ me it just ain’t so.

Those words were written by Oscar Hammerstein II, who died fifty years ago in August 1960. They are sung by a U.S. Navy nurse on an island in the Pacific in the middle of World War II in the legendary musical South Pacific. Thousands of miles from her home and family, caring for the wounded, this young woman could easily cave into despair but celebrates hope instead.

Hammerstein wasn’t blindly optimistic. He’d lived through the Great Depression and World War II. His career was a stunning success early then slowly drifted toward has-been status. He didn’t give up, continuing to write the lyrics and books of shows that went nowhere. And then . . . he and Richard Rodgers teamed up and literally transformed the Broadway musical.

As John Steele Gordon wrote in the New York Times in 2008: their musicals were “complex, often surprisingly dark, and profound explorations of the human condition.”

Carousel had a deep spiritual side and explored life after death. The King and I dealt with feminism and human rights way before those issues were talked about in popular entertainment. The Sound of Music confronted the tyranny of the Nazis. South Pacific covered not only World War II but inter-racial love, echoing Hammerstein’s earlier collaboration with Jerome Kern on Showboat.

Hammerstein wasn’t oblivious to the darker aspects of existence. And yet . . . he still wrote songs and shows of hope.

Billy Bigelow (Carousel), a small-time criminal, is reconciled with his family in a fashion reminiscent of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. The king (The King and I) sacrifices himself to the oncoming enlightenment and modernization of his country — something that he brought about. The Von Trapp family (The Sound of Music) escapes the Nazis, sacrificing everything but their love of each other and freedom. And Nellie Forbush, the Navy nurse in South Pacific, overcomes her prejudices.

It’s been fifty years since Hammerstein gave us a new song or musical. But his words continue to be true:

. . . But I’m stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can’t get it out of my heart!
Not this heart…

Happy Birthday, Greg!

Today is my son’s 16th birthday, so it’s a holiday in our home. Thus today’s blog will be mercifully short.

As I said, it’s his 16th birthday. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as he learns how to drive . . .

Turn Off and Be Free

It may be time to free ourselves from the tyranny of technology. Or as Bob Herbert put it in his New York Times column on July 17: “Tweet Less, Kiss More.”

In his column, Herbert tells a story of a woman driving past him on Interstate 95 at high speed, swerving in and out of lanes, and talking on her cellphone the entire time she was pulling these ultra-fast maneuvers. He also tells a story about a guy who commutes with his laptop propped up on the front seat so that he can watch DVDs while he commutes. (What I wanted to know is what does he watch — episodes of The Office to psyche himself into the proper mood for his workday? Or maybe Fast and the Furious? That could be useful in his driving and his work.)

Herbert goes on to point out that an awful lot of us have become addicted (my word, not his) to technology. Our mobile phones seem to be at our ears 93% of our waking hours. Blackberries have been called Crackberries because their users can’t seem to put them down. Without naming names, I know for a fact that this happens. A certain party I live in very close contact with frequently checks her Blackberry before her morning coffee, at almost every opportunity during the day, and then again just before she goes to sleep. I’ve begun to wonder if our health insurance will cover a Crackberryectomy. I’m pretty sure there’s one coming in our future.

People check e-mail all the time. I confess: I do this even on weekends and holidays. (Note to self: Who the hell do you think is going to e-mail you on Christmas? Santa Claus is busy! Everyone else is convinced you’re on the Naughty list.)

As Herbert writes, “I just think that we should treat technology like any other tool. We should control it, bending it to our human purposes.” Implicit in his statement, at least for me, is that for most of us, technology is in control.

Hollywood has long had doomsday movies where supercomputers attempt to control humans. These movies usually revolve around the computers using weapons of mass destruction to wipe out humankind. But as the poet T.S. Eliot said, the world ends with a whimper not a bang. Technology isn’t going to wipe us out, it’s slowly going to enslave us.

What’s the solution? Herbert says to leave the mobile phone at home. Unplug your computer once in a while. Be with other people. Listen to other people. Tweet less, kiss more.

Anybody out there opposed to more kissing in his or her life?

I didn’t think so. Okay, let’s get going, people . . . !