Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pay to Play: The American Way

Posted on by 3 comments

Money has always been a big factor in American politics. You can’t outright pay politicians in return for their vote on an issue of interest to you. That’s bribery and it’s a crime. 18 U.S. Code § 201. But you can come very close. That’s because it costs a tremendous amount of money to run for public office and we leave it to the politicians to raise their own funds.

State-wide races for governor, state legislator, or U.S. House or Senate seats can cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. A major state-wide campaign requires a hefty advertising budget and paid staff to handle things like communications, strategic planning, finances, and legal compliance.

Read more

The Liar in Chief departs The Stage

Posted on by One comment

I thought January 20 was Joe Biden’s Day. And then came my need to acknowledge the Bernie Memes which have captivated social media. Besides, I figured we’ve had enough of Donald J. Trump.

But eventually I knew it would come time to note that Trump left the stage exactly where he came in four long, dismal years ago. Lying.

Read more

Who the hell are these people?

Posted on by One comment
Embed from Getty Images

What would you do if you saw these people advancing on you? What if they ordered you to stand still, or drop to your knees, or put your hands up in the air? One of these thugs, they do remind me of a motorcycle gang, is carrying a shield marked “police.” But you can buy one of those in any army-navy store. These guys have no badges, no insignia, no nametags, no proof they have the authority to order you or anyone else about. I don’t know about you but facing them I’d be scared stiff.

These ghost soldiers confronted residents of our nation’s capital city and it was a sight unseen in modern times. The residents these stormtroopers confronted were almost all peacefully protesting. That is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Actually, calling these guys stormtroopers is unfair to stormtroopers, who in Star Wars wore white. They are more like Robocop, the cyborg created by corporations to enforce their interests in a dystopian comic book future.

Read more

The Name Game

Posted on by Leave a comment

Calling another kid by an unflattering nickname is a habit most of us left on the grade school playground. Of course, Donald Trump is not “most of us.” Donald Trump seems to take a particular delight in coming up with a derogatory nickname for people he is not too fond of. “Crooked Hillary” is just one example.

Some of the people he attacks don’t take the bait and engage him in this fashion. I admire them. I don’t think I would capable of that much self restraint. If a punch in the nose wasn’t an available option, and the guy is of course surrounded by Secrete Service agents, I’d at least resort to the obvious retorts. “Donny Draft Dodger” is a good fit. And “Pussy Grabber” would work for an adult audience.

Read more

Losing Earth

Posted on by Leave a comment
I approve of paywalls because I believe content creators deserve to be paid for their efforts. I subscribe to several paywalled services, including The New York Times.
But I rarely recommend to others on social media stories behind paywalls because of the different rules and limits from site to site. For this I make an exception.
Do whatever it takes to get yourself a copy of the story which ran as the cover of the Times’ Magazine last Sunday. That cover was solid black, with the white letters, “Thirty years ago we could have saved the planet.” Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change by Nathaniel Rich is as good as it gets. And as important.

 

Going Public: Reporting on IPOs

Posted on by Leave a comment

A few months ago I moderated a training teleconference for reporters as part of the continuing education program of SABEW, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. The teleconference focused on Initial public offerings—the first sales of stock issued by a company to the public.

The teleconference is now available as a podcast you can play at any time to hear a panel of experts decipher the language of IPOs and discuss how reporters should cover companies as they prepare to go public. We talked about how reporters can use the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR database to access IPO prospectuses and which nuggets of information and red flags they should look for in SEC documents when researching companies that are about to go public.

On the panel was John Divine, an investing reporter at U.S. News & World Report, Lauren Hirsch the deals team leaders and correspondent at Thomson Reuters in New York, Tom Taulli who has been involved in the IPO market since the mid-1990s when he co-founded Web IPO, and Jack Willoughby, a senior editor at Barron’s who wrote the financial publication’s “Offerings in the Offings” column.

You can hear the podcast here.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »