Category Archives: Musings

The Pleasure of Watching a Professional … Speak

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From my perspective as a speechwriter, Dave Ramsey is a confident and effective public speaker. It was a pleasure to watch him work this week.

I went to two of his events, and both were extremely well done. If you haven’t heard of him, Dave Ramsey is a bestselling personal finance author, with a syndicated radio show during which he counsels people on getting out of debt. He employs over 500 people at Ramsey Solutions, which provides products and services to help people manage money and build wealth.

(Dave Ramsey.)

 

My science fiction friends (and SF fans in general) might particularly appreciate the Ramsey philosophy, as part of it accords with one of Robert A. Heinlein’s aphorisms from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” (found in Time Enough for Love):

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.

But as much as I appreciated the content of the two events — how to succeed in business and build personal wealth by hard work and the old-fashioned notion of spending less than you earn (which I understand intellectually but struggle with in terms of paying down our debts and overcoming my own bad habits) — I also appreciated the events from a public speaking perspective. Mr. Ramsey was not the only speaker, but he was clearly the most accomplished; it was easy to see, for instance, that the youngest of the speakers still has room to grow, but he has a great example to follow.

Specifically, public speakers can learn several lessons from him:

  • Authenticity. He doesn’t try to sound like someone else, and therefore he comes across as authentic and sincere. At one point he alluded to not being able to do a particular accent, and he didn’t try just to prove the point. And when he told a story about Winston Churchill and quoted one of the Prime Minister’s speeches, he didn’t try to sound like Churchill. He was himself, which is exactly what the audience wanted.
  • Simplicity. Not in terms of the stage, because the big screen and the lights and such were not exactly simple, but in terms of having a consistent message that he reiterated often. He employs some pithy lines at times — “debt is dumb, cash is king” is one of his taglines — but the illustrations he used were on point and he brought everything back to the central theme again and again.
  • Variety. He used a variety of visual aids, from movie clips (for which I’m sure he paid a royalty) to slides to physical objects, all of which helped to keep the audience’s attention. In terms of his slides, I wish some of my old clients could have seen how few slides he used! He used the slides and other aids sparingly, to make specific points — he didn’t rely on them. More often than not, the only thing on the screen was the title of the event.

When the Tuesday event was over, I happened to be standing at the door of his hotel when he got there. I waved and said, “Nicely done today,” not wanting to intrude too much on his time — then he stopped long enough to shake my hand and thank me for coming, which I thought was very gracious. (His assistant gave me the side-eye, though, and acted as if he wanted to hustle Mr. Ramsey into the building; I think he was afraid I was going to pull out my phone and try to snag a picture.)

One final note on the public speaking aspect: I very much appreciated something Mr. Ramsey said during the Tuesday event. He was lauding his AV team and explaining that he never worries about how things are going to run or how they will sound when he shows up to do his sound check, and then he made a point that I wish some of my old clients could have heard: he said he always runs through his slides even if he’s given that presentation many times before, because he’s a pro.

Yes, indeed. If you’re a public speaker, take some cues from a professional like Dave Ramsey: be authentic, keep the overall message simple and clear, employ a variety of visual aids, and practice.

___
P.S. If you or someone you know needs help developing a speech for a big event, get in touch and let’s see if I can help. My aim as a speechwriter is to help my clients sound like their most authentic selves, and to tailor their messages so they resonate with the audience.

___
For more information on Dave Ramsey and Ramsey Solutions, visit https://www.daveramsey.com.

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Tax Awareness Day, Spring Edition

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It’s the Ides of April! Have you paid your taxes?

I don’t mean filed your taxes for 2015, although you might have done that, too. Maybe you’re expecting a refund; maybe you already got one; maybe you have to pay.

But even though April 15th falls on a Friday this year, which gives you a three-day reprieve on filing your annual taxes, today still represents Tax Day — and the day first-quarter estimated tax payments are due for this tax year.

If you don’t make your own tax payments — for instance, if you have taxes withheld from your paycheck or someone else takes care of your taxes for you — you might not have a good grasp on just how much you’ve paid in 2016. Those of us who pay quarterly estimated tax ourselves know all too well, whether we paid the first of four set payments based on our expected earnings or we paid according to what we actually made so far (projected out through the end of the year).

Tax Day

(Image: “Tax Day,” by Simon Cunningham, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

If you haven’t had the pleasure this year of writing a check — either electronic or paper — to the government for your 2016 taxes, then today is a good day to take a look at the last pay statement you received in March. Check out the “year to date” figures of how much you made and how much was taken out. Depending on whether you think it was too much or too little or just enough, you can either think about all the good things the government is doing with your money … or the things you could’ve done, if you could’ve kept a little more of it.

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Ladies, Stand Your Ground

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Warning: Controversy Ahead.

I wrote this a couple of months ago, after considering the notion for many more, but there never seemed to be a good time to post it. I thought about posting it when I heard that someone was planning a rally in support of legalizing rape; I’m still not sure if that was a real thing, but it seemed a monumentally stupid idea — what next, rallies to legalize robbery and burglary and other crimes? Then a GOP Presidential hopeful mentioned abortion in the context of self-defense against incest or rape, and was criticized for it, and now another made thoughtless, asinine comments about punishing women who have abortions.

Maybe there is no good time to post something like this.

This post is about self-defense, and abortion. I advise you to leave now if you don’t want to be offended, because something I say here will almost certainly offend you — no matter where you stand on these issues.

Use of Deadly Force Authorized

(Image: “Use of Deadly Force Authorized,” by Brian Reynolds, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

First, an observation: I believe the decision to abort a baby must be one of the most difficult decisions a human being may ever make. I do not intend to second-guess anyone who has made that decision, nor do I intend to criticize or vilify them.

Second, another observation: I recognize that some people believe that I should not express my opinion on abortion (or perhaps even that I should not form an opinion) because I am a man and not a woman. Obviously, I disagree.

Now, to the root of the matter: It seems to me that, regardless of one’s personal views on either issue, logical consistency requires that our view of abortion should align with our view of self-defense, especially where the latter is covered by various “stand your ground” laws. To that end,

  • It appears logically inconsistent to support using deadly force in self-defense — often related to “stand your ground” laws — and at the same time oppose abortion.
  • It appears logically inconsistent also to support abortion and at the same time oppose using deadly force in self-defense.
  • Logical consistency would seem to require either supporting both, or opposing both, abortion and using deadly force in self-defense.

I do not think it is necessary to like self-defense killing or abortion, or to be in favor of or advocate either one, in order to recognize that they rest on the same premise: that we have the right to defend our lives and property using force, up to and including deadly force.

If a homeowner has the right to use deadly force to protect their life and property, or the lives of others in the home, then a woman has the right to use deadly force to protect her life and person — say, in the case of defending herself against rape. By extension, a pregnant woman has the right to use deadly force against an attacker if her baby is threatened. But in a similar fashion a pregnant woman also has the right to use deadly force against her unborn baby — to remove it from life-support, if you will — if she believes that the baby poses a threat to her life and/or person.

Coming at the issue from the other direction, if a pregnant woman has the right to use deadly force — or, in the case of a seeking an abortion, to contract for the use of deadly force — to protect her life, her lifestyle, or her property, then homeowners or citizens have the right to use deadly force to protect their lives or property or the lives or property of those they love. However, if a pregnant woman has no such right, then neither does anyone else have the right to defend themselves against threats of violence or loss.

Self-defense, after all, is based on the individual’s perception of the threat. The threat may be direct or indirect, and perceptions may be clouded by a variety of factors, but the decision to act or not rests with the person who is threatened at the time the threat presents itself. We may, from a different perspective or at a different time, disagree with the homeowner or the pregnant woman on the degree of the threat; or we may disagree with the decision they made when faced with the threat; but the decision was theirs at that time, not ours at some other time. And to support one and refuse to support the other appears to me to be logically inconsistent.

We can make a similar case about abortion and the death penalty. That is, we can make the case that if the death penalty is a just punishment for certain crimes, enacted after weighing the evidence and coming to a verdict, then abortion may be considered as a death penalty in itself, with the potential mother as judge and jury, possibly as both prosecution and defense, and in some tragic cases even as executioner. For me, that is a much more difficult concept (and following it too closely may lead to considering abortion as a form of justifiable homicide), but I still can consider it somewhat equivalent.

I say “somewhat equivalent” deliberately: I do not mean to say that killing in self-defense is exactly equivalent to abortion, only that they are similar. (Others have tackled that subject in far more depth than I can here, as noted at the end.) One case is more often a quick-reaction response compared to the other. One is more often a direct confrontation than the other. One clearly involves acting against an agent capable of independent thought and action. On that score, advocates of abortion often argue that the unborn child, by virtue of being fully dependent on the mother, should not be considered fully human; rather than argue that matter here, except to note that such a dehumanizing mentality is something pro-abortion advocates have in common with armies facing enemies, it seems clear that an unborn child at the very least has the potential to grow into an independent agent (as the pregnant woman was considered above a potential mother). On that basis, we can say that both self-defense killing and abortion involve terminating with prejudice the future potential of a human person.

Again I must emphasize that it is not necessary to prefer or to approve of either of these mechanisms. It is possible to wish for every unborn child to be wanted and to be cared for, in utero and beyond, just as it is possible to wish that there might be no thugs, no rapists, no burglars, no threats against people’s lives, persons, or property. Wishing for these things, however, does not make them come to pass, and so we are faced with difficult decisions that have far-reaching consequences.

Therefore, as someone who supports the right of an individual to protect their person and property with any means at their disposal, up to and including deadly force — whether homeowners defending themselves against burglars or women defending themselves against rapists — I must support the right of any woman to protect herself against an unborn life she is supporting if she feels threatened by it, up to and including the use of deadly force. Ladies, stand your ground.

I do not have to like it. I may wish for any number of alternatives. But it seems to me that I cannot support one and not the other without being logically inconsistent.

I could be wrong.

___
Some Notes:
1. The first GOP contender alluded to above was Chris Christie. See Chris Christie Faces Criticism for Saying Aborting a Baby After Rape is “Self-Defense” for Women. The second was Donald Trump, in his more recent MSNBC interview that, as much as it presented his egregious thinking on the subject, lent credence to the idea that he thinks very little of Republicans and is merely playing at being one.
2. The idea of abortion as self-defense was discussed in 1971 by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her article “A Defense of Abortion” in Philosophy & Public Affairs. She wrote, “I should perhaps stop to say explicitly that I am not claiming that people have a right to do anything whatever to save their lives. I think, rather, that there are drastic limits to the right of self-defense…. But the case under consideration here is very different. In our case there are only two people involved, one whose life is threatened, and one who threatens it. Both are innocent: the one who is threatened is not threatened because of any fault, the one who threatens does not threaten because of any fault. For this reason we may feel that we bystanders cannot interfere. But the person threatened can. In sum, a woman surely can defend her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child, even if doing so involves its death.” The entire article is online here and elsewhere.
3. This short BBC article also covers the topic of abortion as self-defense.
4. A Harvard Law blogger asked in a 2012 entry, Is the Self Defense Exception Consistent with the Belief that a Fetus is a Person? Their conclusion was that “the belief that a fetus is a person with the full complement of rights leads to uncomfortable positions in relation the self-defense exception.” Indeed.
5. The tendency of armies to dehumanize the enemy, in order to make it easier to kill them, was covered quite well by Robert O’Connell in Of Arms and Men.

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Do You Prefer Your Socialism Voluntary, or Mandatory?

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Recently there’s been a lot of social-media talk about socialism, what it is and what it isn’t, if for no other reason than one of the candidates to be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency is a self-described Socialist.

Now, before we get to the question posed above: in the hopes of improving communication let’s take a moment to define a few terms. At the very least, we might ensure that we are not confusing socialism with other -isms. According to the online version of Webster’s:

  • socialism is “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods”
  • communism is “a theory advocating elimination of private property; a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed”
  • capitalism is “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”
  • fascism is “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”
  • altruism is “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others”

From the dictionary definition, it would seem as if there could be no such thing as “voluntary” socialism except in the context of voluntary adherence to the dictates of government and collective society. But socialism seems to have come to mean something different in common usage, which is why I included altruism among the defined terms.

So far as I can tell, a lot of the people who advocate for socialist policies do so out of personal altruism — i.e., out of concern for others’ welfare — and not because they believe that the government or other collective entities should own and operate factories and businesses. That is, in some respects “little-s” socialism has come to be understood in terms of social action (or even social “justice”) and thereby in terms of caring for members of society, as opposed to its dogmatic, collectivist big brother: systematic, capital-S Socialism. In other words, from what I’ve observed some people look at socialism not as an economic theory, but as a form of human tribalism (defined by Webster’s as “tribal consciousness and loyalty; especially, exaltation of the tribe above other groups”) where the “tribe” consists mainly of the downtrodden as opposed to the related.

altruism makes you more attractive

(Image: ” altruism makes you more attractive,” by Will Lion, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

In this manner of thinking of socialism, the question posed in the title distinguishes between two possible modes of implementation: voluntary or mandatory.

The first is voluntary socialism, practiced primarily through personal social action: giving of one’s excess treasure, time or talent to help the less fortunate. This is the socialism of charity, of personal altruism, of expressing one’s individual concern for one’s fellow man by actually doing something — writing a check, building a house, cooking a meal. This is the socialism of the soup kitchen, the homeless shelter, the sanctuary.

The second is mandatory socialism, practiced primarily through government-led social action: empowering the government to take everyone’s (and particularly other people’s) excess — most readily in the form of treasure — to help the less fortunate. This is the socialism of confiscation, of redistribution, of assigning responsibility to the government to take care of one’s fellow man and thus absolving oneself of the need to act. This is the socialism of the tax office, the entitlement check, the welfare line.

So, do you prefer your socialism to be voluntary, or mandatory? Do you prefer to volunteer your contributions to social action, or to be made to contribute to it?

Generalizations always exclude those who do not fit them, but I have observed that, in general, many people who regularly practice voluntary social action oppose mandatory social action, and many people who promote mandatory social action don’t seem to engage in much voluntary social action (other than perhaps organizing people into promoting more mandatory social action). That is, many people who frequently donate their time or money to charities they deem worthy oppose efforts to empower the government to exact donations from them, and many people who support the idea of the government providing and expanding all of the social safety nets do not often seem quick to engage in personal acts of charity. I find that curious, but I admit my observations are limited and perhaps flawed.

But which do we emphasize: the voluntary, or the mandatory? As with most dichotomies of this sort, most continua, I think that everyone favors a little bit of volunteer action and a little bit of mandatory contribution. I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone so dyed-in-the-wool that they did not accept some of the alternative approach. (Perhaps the one Trotskyite I’ve met, though we have not discussed this in any depth. Perhaps a Libertarian or two.)

When we emphasize the voluntary, we allow ourselves to practice socialism — to contribute to social action — to the degree we feel comfortable, and we allow others also to practice it (or not) to whatever degree they want.

But when we emphasize the mandatory, we may ourselves end up practicing socialism to our preferred degree but we almost certainly require that others practice it to a greater degree than they feel comfortable. And when we enforce contribution through coercion via the rule of law, we should not be surprised when those others bristle, and balk, and even prepare for battle.

Where do you fall on the continuum between voluntary and mandatory contribution? If you tend to take the burden of helping others onto your own shoulders, with no thought of reward and no expectation of other people pitching in, then you probably fall closer to the voluntary side. If you sometimes think “someone ought to do something about that” and sometimes think “can I do anything about that,” then you probably fall somewhere in the middle. But if you tend to think “those other people ought to do more to help” more than you think “what can I do to help,” then you probably fall closer to the mandatory end.

I’m not here to pass judgment; in the end, I think in some way we will all pass judgment on ourselves. But I know who I’d rather have as my neighbors, if I ever find myself in a pinch. And I know what kind of neighbor I’d like to be.

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So, I Saw a Car on Fire …

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Yesterday, on my way home from the MystiCon science fiction and fantasy convention — which went very well — I came around a bend on I-40 and saw a car on fire, and a young man pulling items out of the vehicle.

I was the first person to pull over, and by the time I got out of my truck the little car was completely engulfed in flames. The young fellow had stopped trying to retrieve his belongings because the fire was too intense. I dialed 911 on my cell phone, but I couldn’t pinpoint the location for the operator because the only nearby sign was obscured by trees. The driver was also on the phone with the dispatchers by that time, so I rang off.

In the next few minutes, two more cars had stopped to see if they could help. Thankfully, the young man was unhurt, but here’s what his car looked like when it was all over:

(Thankfully, the young man driving this car was not hurt when it caught fire.)

Turns out the driver was headed toward Raleigh in search of construction work. I offered to drive him into Raleigh — it wouldn’t be that much out of my way, and seemed better than having the Highway Patrol drop him off at a gas station — but he couldn’t raise any of his friends on the phone and they didn’t respond immediately to his text messages. So he decided to head back to Pilot Mountain, where he had come from … and I agreed to take him. (I thought about buying him a bus ticket, but a quick search showed it would cost more for that in my money and his time than it would to drive him.)

When we got him and his few remaining things in the truck, I warned him that he’d have to listen to the “old man music” I had on CDs. He didn’t seem to be bothered by that.

We made a quick pit stop, where he wouldn’t let me buy him anything to eat or drink, then we headed west. I tried to make small talk, but between the turmoil of the event and still trying to reach his friends he wasn’t very talkative. (I can relate to that, since I’m not usually very talkative either.) Then, as we were coming up on the outskirts of Greensboro, one of his friends finally called him on the phone.

They said they could come get him, but because they would be coming from the east side of Raleigh we turned around and headed back east. We talked about a number of different places he might tell them to meet him and finally agreed on a suitable spot. By the time we got there, we had listened to the first Hootie and the Blowfish CD, the first Kutless CD, and about a fourth of the Cruxshadows’ Dreamcypher CD. He never commented on my eclectic taste.

When we stopped and unloaded, he offered to reimburse me for gas. Of course I refused and told him to pay it forward when he could. If I’d had more presence of mind, though, I would’ve found some sneaky way to slip a few dollars into his backpack for him to find later. I’ve kicked myself for missing that opportunity.

In the end, I made it home from the convention a few hours later than expected, but I made it home. I didn’t mind the delay; as I told one of the state troopers, if one of my children were in that situation, I hope someone would offer them a ride, too. I just hope that young fellow finds his way to a good place, finds the construction job he wanted, and bounces back quickly from this temporary setback.

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Tax Awareness Day, Winter Edition

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Beware the Ides of January! It’s tax-time again.

Those of us who pay quarterly estimated taxes had to make our final 2015 payment today. Maybe you paid a set amount each quarter, based on your expected earnings, or maybe (like me) your income varies month-to-month and you paid your estimated taxes according to what you actually made. Maybe you paid electronically, as I did, or maybe you actually wrote out a check. Regardless, you probably know exactly how much you’ve paid to the government for 2015.

Tax Bill
(Image: “Tax Bill,” by 401(K) 2012, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

If you haven’t had the pleasure of making your own tax payments — for instance, if you have taxes withheld from your paycheck or otherwise have someone who takes care of all that for you — you might not have a good grasp on just how much you’ve paid. So today is a good day to take a look at the last pay statement you received in 2015, and really pay attention to the “year to date” figures of how much you made and how much was taken out.

I’m not using this post to advocate for lower or higher taxes. It’s up to you to decide whether what you paid was too much, not enough, or possibly right about what you think it should have been. But you won’t be able to evaluate that until you look at how much it was — not how much you’re likely to get back in a refund this year, if any, but how much you actually paid into the system last year.

I only want folks to be aware of how large their tax burdens are. So take a look: Maybe you’ll be surprised.

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Quantifying My Contribution, or, Picking Up After the House of Cards Fell

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A few months ago, during my campaign for Town Council, I wanted to refer potential voters to a blog entry I wrote when I worked at NC State University. Unfortunately, when I searched for it, I found instead that nearly every post I had made to the Industrial Extension Service blog had been deleted when the outfit rebranded itself, changed its name, and revamped its website.

Specifically, of the 145 posts that I personally wrote for the blog, only 1 — an entry about a company joining the “Manufacturing Makes It Real” Network — was left online. Why that one was left is a mystery to me,* since the manufacturing network languished since my departure and now for all practical purposes appears defunct.

Although I missed the campaign opportunity to refer to my blog entry about North Carolina’s restrictive small business licensure requirements, I contacted IES — they still use the same acronym as when I worked there — to obtain a copy of the blog archive. It took some time, but eventually I got what appears to be a complete collection of the entries. One of my former colleagues had to piece the records together, since apparently IES’s effort to purge the blog did not include a concurrent effort to preserve its contents. That’s odd and disappointing, since as public records of the state — having, in at least a few cases, some historical value — their retention would seem to be important even if public access to them is no longer desirable.

Why we blog
Yeah, that about sums it up. (Image: “Why We Blog,” by Duane Storey, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

At any rate, I obtained the collection, and it was easy to see just how thoroughly the old blog was destroyed in producing the new one. Of the 546 entries that had been made prior to my April 2014 departure — I was made an offer I had to refuse — only 9 are still available as of this morning (1 of those being the mysterious MMIR Network reference I mentioned above).

It was also easy to see just how much I contributed to the old IES blog. My 145 solo entries accounted for over 25% of the blog’s content; not surprising, really, since I was employed as a writer and at the time we saw the blog as a viable platform for telling people about what IES did. (For the last couple of years I was actually in charge of the whole blog, and coordinated a team of folks who contributed other entries.) I also ghost-wrote some entries for people, and I’m not sure exactly how many of the remainder I either edited or posted on behalf of the authors, but it’s safe to say that I had a hand in producing at least 40% of the blog.

It was also disappointing, and a bit sad, to see what that platform has become. The numbers above show how active it used to be in terms of content, even if its readership was limited. But as of today there have been a grand total of 15 new entries made to the blog in the over 18 months since I left IES. (Add that to the pre-departure entries still extant and you’ll see there are only 24 entries on that blog currently … dating back to 2009.**) If IES maintains that rate — not even 1 new entry a month — it will take them until around 2057 for their blog to have as much content as it had when I left.

I could speculate as to how it came about that the IES blog was so completely scrubbed of content. At first I thought all the entries by people who had left IES had been purged; if so, they obviously missed a few. But entries by some people who are still IES employees were also dropped from the blog, so it seems the content removal was general as well as radical. I cannot discern any rhyme or reason in what was deleted versus what was retained; perhaps there was no rationale or philosophy behind it at all. That, unfortunately, would not surprise me.

But don’t be surprised if from time to time you see a “blast from the past” post here on my blog, in which I reprise some entry of mine from the old IES blog that still has some value or interest. Even if I’m the only one who thinks so.

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*It may get deleted if they see this post.
**Specifically: 14 entries so far in 2015, including 3 each in October and November; 1 from 2014, after my departure; and, prior to my departure, 1 from 2013, 1 from 2012 (my MMIR Network post), 1 from 2011, 4 from 2010, and 2 from 2009.

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Where Did ’60 Minutes’ Get a Classified State Department Cable?

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Last night on 60 Minutes, correspondent Lara Logan read part of what she described as a “diplomatic cable” to Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of “the largest Shiite force” in Iraq fighting against the false caliphate that we are now encouraged to refer to as “Daesh.”*

Admitting that it pains me to do this,** here’s a screenshot of the video on the CBS News page:


(Screenshot of “60 Minutes” segment entitled “A Common Enemy,” produced by Max McClellan.)

The banner line — the overall classification marking at the top of the document — isn’t visible, but do you notice anything about the paragraph markings on that page on top? It’s hard to see at this resolution, but there’s a parenthetical (C) after the number of paragraph 2. If you served in the military or some other national security posts, you will recognize that portion marking: it means that paragraph contains CONFIDENTIAL information, the lowest level of classified information.

Here’s a close-up:


(Screenshot close-up of “60 Minutes” segment entitled “A Common Enemy,” produced by Max McClellan. It’s evident that the image is not of a properly declassified document, because in that case the classification markings would have been crossed out.)

Paragraph 3 is even more interesting, as it is portion-marked (S/NF). (It is of minor interest that the classification marking appears to be formatted incorrectly; did the producers create their own facsimile of another document?) The S indicates that the paragraph contains SECRET information, and the NF is the release marking shorthand for NOFORN, which means information that is “not releasable to foreign nationals.”

It is at least possible that CBS News obtained a declassified document and then re-worked it to something like its original condition, but as presented it appears that they used a still-classified memo. If so, then the question is how did CBS obtain the document? Why did they feel obliged to display it so prominently? And, perhaps more to the point, did Lara Logan know when she read part of paragraph 3 that she was releasing information that the Government had deemed should not be released to any foreign national?

If that document was indeed classified, as it appeared to be, I hope the appropriate parties at the State Department and within the Intelligence Community are investigating how this information was passed to the producer and correspondent.

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*”Daesh” is equivalent to the Arabic acronym for ISIL, but according to this article it “is nearly identical to the Arabic word ‘dais,’ meaning something that crushes or tramples. That’s an ominous definition on its own, but not the one this self-aggrandizing group wants in its quest for Islamic rule.”

**It goes against my training and long-ingrained experience for me to post screenshots that may contain classified information, but the images were already broadcast as part of a national news program. As the Operative said in Serenity, “Damage done.” However, if a US Government representative asks me to remove the images, I will gladly do so.

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Social Media is a Marvel

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Social media has, in some ways, made the Internet itself ironic.

What we know as the Web began as the ARPANET, developed to let Advanced Research Projects Agency scientists share information with one another to advance their researches. It devolved into something much less edifying as it expanded. Today, online courses and encyclopedias and other resources may combine to provide great opportunities for enlightenment, advancement, and fulfillment, but the various social media platforms seem to be strongholds for the ever more banal and degenerate.

Social Media Explained (with Donuts)
(Image: “Social Media Explained (with Donuts),” by Chris Lott, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

On social media, the irreligious can register expert opinions on religion and faith. People who never served a day in uniform or studied a fraction of military history, war, or conflict can share their supposed expertise on strategy, tactics, and military matters. Provincials who have never ventured beyond a comfortable distance from their birthplaces can claim authoritative knowledge on international affairs, those who have never run businesses or managed sums of money can pose as experts on economics, people who have never calibrated an instrument or written a computer model or conducted a designed experiment can proclaim scientific veracity, etc., etc. Add in striking graphics and a healthy dose of vulgarity, and social media enables the uninformed to substitute opinion for reason and feeling for fact.

In effect, by virtue of social media it is as if we have all become … politicians, bloviating and pandering rather than really listening or engaging in meaningful discourse. And only rarely do we step down from our ever-so-precarious soapboxes.

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Campaign Chronicle, 3 Weeks to Election: My Distant Cousin Founded This Town

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As I began my run — okay, my ambling walk — for the empty Town Council seat, I was surprised to find that I am related to the man who founded Cary, North Carolina.

Back in 2011 I wrote about my family connection to the Pages of Williamsburg, Virginia, and at the time I didn’t give any thought to the possibility that those Pages might be related to the Page family here. But they are.

First, it’s important to point out what my friends have known for a long time: the Gray Man was adopted when he was young, which muddies the water a bit when it comes to tracing lineages and such. For those who don’t know the story: I was born Thomas Graham Lipscomb, and my father was Thomas Page Lipscomb. He died when I was three, and my mom later married Herbert Wade Rinehart. Shortly after moving to Georgetown, South Carolina — where I learned about the Gray Man and latched onto the legendary ghost as my alter ego — my stepfather adopted me and I became Graham Wade Rinehart. Or, as most of my friends know me, Gray Rinehart.

I first wondered about the connection when I was on Chatham Street in downtown Cary and noticed a historical marker about William Hines Page (with whose statue I’m pictured below). Oddly enough, before I thought about whether I might be related to him I thought about a friend of mine named “Hines” from grade school. But once the possible Page family connection came to mind, it was easy enough to check out.


(On the Cary Town Hall campus, I’m standing next to a statue of a distant cousin who was Ambassador to Great Britain and the son of the town’s founder. See any resemblance?)

William Hines Page, who was at one time Ambassador to Great Britain — itself something of a nod to the family history, since Colonel John Page originally came from Britain to settle at Williamsburg — was the son of Allison Francis (Frank) Page, who founded Cary and served as its first Mayor and postmaster. He built the Page-Walker Hotel, which stands behind the Town Hall building and is now an art gallery and focal point for local events. Frank Page’s father was Anderson Page, whose father was Lewis Page, whose father was Robert Edward Page, whose father was Mann Page II, whose father was the Honorable Mann Page.

The Honorable Mann Page, it turns out, is our nearest common ancestor.

The Honorable Mann Page had another son, about whom I wrote in that linked blog post: the Honorable John Page, who was friends with Thomas Jefferson at the College of William & Mary. The Honorable John Page’s son was Major Carter Page, whose son was Dr. Mann Page, whose son was Carter Henry Page, whose son was Carter Henry Page, Jr., whose daughter was Katherine Carlisle Page. She was my “Grandma Kate.” Her son was Thomas Page Lipscomb, my natural father.

Thus, as near as I can figure from looking at canon law relationships, Frank Page — Cary’s founder — was my fourth cousin, three times removed.

I doubt that makes anyone more or less likely to vote for me for Cary Town Council. But it’s an interesting coincidence!

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Election Day for the Cary Town Council race is October 6th, but early voting begins on September 24th!

Have you told anyone about my campaign? It’s easy! Just share this post on social media or forward the link to anyone who lives in North Carolina (especially the Research Triangle area or the Town of Cary). Better yet, download a Print-It-Yourself Flyer in either color or black and white and put it up in your office or at your favorite hangout. For additional updates and info, sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right sidebar or visit the election page on my website. Thanks!

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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