Detroit

If there’s an epitome for failure, it’s summed up in one word – Detroit. 

My birthplace’s tragic Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing could likely have

been avoided had its leaders worked to modernize the city and reversed

its many disturbing trends over the last 50 years.

No matter where you fall on Detroit’s woes – black or white, rich or

poor, cityemployee or private sector worker, Republican or

Democrat – you cannot be surprised it hit rock bottom. 

It was just a matter of time.

More than 60 years ago, Detroit boasted a population of nearly 2

million people; today it’s down to just over 700,000, with some

estimates saying the population drop continues.

As the Kresge Foundation reports, the city’s financial recipe led

it to this harrowing state:  Over the years, it cut services and borrowed

to pay off its previous debts, which are estimated to be about $16 billion

today; meanwhile, it’s tax base, which always consists of people, 

fled, meaning it didn’t have the revenue to cover its costs

or its borrowing expenses.

But Detroit’s calamities are so much more. 

They also include a former mayor jailed for a number of crimes,

including racketeering; the ones prior to him were simply incapable

managers, failing to reverse trends that ultimately put the city in

the tank. 

There are enough abandoned buildings in Detroit to form three or

four mid-size cities and about 80,000 abandoned homes, the Daily

Beast reports.

While it’s always easy to blame any city’s leaders for poor

performance, which, in this case, they rightly deserve, you cannot

blame them alone.

Detroit’s private sector, especially its automobile companies, which

long called it home, must be examined too.  They give every

impression of having thrown in the towel years ago.

The long-suspected rumors about the Big Three auto companies never

supporting a commuter rail system for Detroit and its neighboring 

suburbs, which would have helped draw people into the city, giving

it a chance to grow, are disturbing if true. 

But perhaps instead of killing the idea outright, the Big Three just

stopped putting effort behind the idea. 

The mayor, David Bing, a Hall of Fame basketball star, is third or

fourth in line when it comes to running Detroit, behind the emergency

manager charged with putting the city’s books back in order, the judge

overseeing its bankruptcy, and the creditors, not to mention U.S. 

bankruptcy law, which will loom large as Detroit’s finances are restored.

Anyone thinking nothing – at least with the city’s pensions – won’t 

change, better think again.  There are no sacred cows in bankruptcy. 

Everything will be scrutinized.

When I was hawking columns, comics, puzzles in the ‘90s, I visited

Detroit often, sometimes as much as four or five times a year. 

The crime never hit me personally, but it was more than apparent

the city was failing.

When editors in Michigan asked where I was based, I answered

Chicago.

“Oh, Chicago,” they would say, “that’s what Detroit use to be.”

(Chicago’s current ills are for another blog post.)

Detroit’s leaders, whether in the public or private sector, former

or current, should hold their collective heads in shame.

They ruined a great American city, once described as “The Arsenal

of Democracy” by the late President Franklin Roosevelt during

World War II.

FDR’s words offer a stark lesson:  We’re a democracy, meaning our

votes and our actions determine whether our communities, towns,

cities, states and, ultimately, our country, go forward.

If the people of Michigan and Detroit are looking for someone to

blame for this tragedy, they need only look at the first person they

see each morning in the mirror – themselves.

A different twist

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – The newest social networking website comes with a whole new twist: Instead of encouraging its members to connect with friends and professional acquaintances, this one wants people to round up folks they may never have considered – their enemies.

“FuckYou-IHateYou.com,” funded by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Alliance Capital, claims more than 10,000 members and another 1,000,000 enemies.

“Unlike your average LinkedIn member, or Facebook friend, our members aren’t full of shit,” said James Lee, the 24-year-old chief executive officer of FuckYou-IHateYou.com. LinkedIn was one of the first companies to establish itself in the social networking space.

“The average member of our site has around 100 enemies and they hate each and every one of them – with a passion,” said Lee.

“Let’s face it, no one who connects with someone on LinkedIn or any of those other social sites really wants to be someone’s friend,” said Lee. “It’s just a place for frenemies.

“Our members are honest. If they say they hate you, they really hate you,” Lee added.

Lee, who started FuckYou-IHateYou.com during his freshman year at Stanford University, says that members of his site just list their enemies.

“There’s none of this BS like asking for permission to be someone’s enemy. Our members just list their enemies and that’s it. They’re done!”

Members can view one another’s enemy list, Lee said, to make sure they’re hating “the right people.”

“If you and another member have someone you hate in common, that’s even better,” said Lee.

When told that his site sounded like another version of President Richard Nixon’s enemy list, Lee, looking confused, asked, “What was he president of?”

Members of FuckYou-IHateYou.com are encouraged to increase their enemies list as fast as possible.

“The member listing the most enemies any given week can win prizes, trips – even a car,” said FuckYou-IHateYou.com’s membership vice president Toby Benwick.

Perfect people to list as enemies, Lee said, include “anyone who ever dissed you or anyone you refer to as ‘ex’. That could be an ex-girlfriend, wife, husband, boyfriend, lover, employee.

“Bosses are always good,” he added.

Members are encouraged, Lee said, to post pictures and video clips of the people they hate.

“Our staff always does a round of high fives if a member’s enemy dies,” said Benwick. “That’s just the coolest.”

Unlike Facebook, which has a “like” button people can click when their friends post something, at FuckYou-IHateYou.dom, there’s a button marked “BS”.

Membership to the website is free. Sponsors for it include divorce attorneys and various hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Not to be outdone, the Nation of Islam is considering what Benwick describes as a “huge” sponsorship opportunity on the site.

Lee says he’s also heard from the Tea Party as well as groups identifying themselves as politically progressive.

“We’re bipartisan in our hatred,” he said.

Not to be outdone by a certain leading executive at a leading social networking website, FuckYou-IHateYou.com’s CEO Lee announced that he, too, just signed a deal with Random House to write a book.

It’s entitled “Stop #@$%& Leaning on Me:  Get a Life, Damnit!!!!”

Details are being finalized, Benwick said, for some of the site’s members and their selected enemies to make special appearances on various daytime television talk shows.

“We look forward to our first smack down with the FuckYou-IHateYou.com people,” Jerry Springer said through a spokesman for his television show.

That useless brain

Why ask why? 

For those old enough to remember, that was the question posed

in a television commercial in a bygone era, and one that should

be asked again today.

But the problem with asking why is that it presupposes you’ll

actually think.

And, hey, why do that? 

It’s so much easier to follow the crowd.

That’s what Holman W. Jenkins Jr., writes about in one of his latest

columns in The Wall Street Journal. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578539453974685238.html)

That journalism suffers from a lack of mental dexterity or that

people are more easily swayed by their emotions or habits they

picked up from their parents and ancestors– anything but their brains!

– in deciding their votes or other important issues should come as no surprise.

After all, if your parents were Democrats, you’ll likely be one, too;

the same goes for Republicans. 

Religious beliefs are similar.  If you were brought up Catholic, you’ll

likely be one as an adult; and the same holds for every other religion.

It’s easy to simplify problems.  All we need is demon and a solution.

The fact that medical care is expensive is the demon.  The easy

solution – as brought to us by Congress and President Obama -- is to

make health insurance affordable and, thus, accessible to all. 

The fact that healthcare, as provided by the doctors and

the nurses, might suffer is not something you should think about.

And, whatever you do, don’t think about basic economics and the

fact that, at any time, you introduce a third-party payer – as the

current health care system is set up – the provider of any service,

medical care included, is given the ability to raise their prices, thereby

making healthcare unaffordable to anyone who doesn’t buy a

health insurance policy.

Or the fact that insurance companies, forced to cover any and

all illnesses, might compel some doctors to leave the system so

they're able to only accept private money for their services

isn’t something you should worry about either.  

The easier thing, instead, is to go along with the people who have

a complication to solve the complication.  It comes to us as the

Affordable Care Act, which, essentially, sells us to the health

insurance industry. 

Which means, other than allowing you to buy health insurance,

nothing’s been resolved.

But don’t think about that.

A better solution – if someone really wanted to lower the

doctors’ fees, hospital prices and drug prices – would have

been to eliminate insurance companies.

But that would have been too radical.

And since you’re struggling with basic thinking, Senators,

Members of Congress and the President know you can’t

handle hard solutions that require arduous thinking.

If everyone in the healthcare industry was forced to compete on

price – like the car companies are – drugs and doctor visits

wouldn’t cost nearly as much. 

Sure, there would some high-priced doctors and hospitals just like

there are high-priced cars and houses.  Those on the high end

would sell better service.

At the lowest tier, doctors charging far less would offer economy care.

And most doctors would likely fall somewhere in the middle for things

like physicals and urgent care.

But, hey, why think? 

It’s so much easier to leave that to someone else.

I need a fake ID

For the first time in a very long time – since I was a teenager – I’m

giving thought to acquiring something I’ve never needed. 

What’s surprising is that I didn’t need one when I wanted a particular

controlled substance when I was a teenager – booze.

When the drinking age was 18, I had little or no trouble buying beer

and wine without an ID.  Maybe it was my looks or maybe it was the

way I came across when making a purchase.

And when I was in college in Indiana, where the drinking age was

21, I still had little or no trouble buying beer, either at a store or at a

bar frequented by the locals in Greencastle.

So here I am, well over 21 – likely considered a geezer by my

children – with never a record of drinking under the influence or ever

abusing drugs and there’s one thing I can’t buy as often as I need, all

because of government regulations.

Claritin D – an incredibly effective drug at controlling allergies – can

only be purchased by individuals at the rate of 7.5 grams per month,

which from the information I can gather, is around 30 pills a month.

The problem I ran into the other night at my local drugstore was that

I had purchased some of these pills twice in the last few weeks and

had gone over government-imposed limit.  This was because my

wife had used some of them. 

As a result, the pharmacist refused to sell them to me, saying I could get a

prescription to successfully circle around government regulations.

The regulations, she said, are about preventing people from cooking

down the Claritin D pills so they can acquire methampetamine, an

obvious problem in the little suburb where we live.

Methampetamine, usually referred to as “meth,” is an illegal substance

used by some people to get high; there are published reports saying

young women will smoke crystal meth so they can lose weight rapidly. 

What’s interesting about the regulation over Claritin D is that it

has little to do with acquiring the drug as much as it has to do with

purchasing too many of the pills in too short of a time.  It’s thought

that by regulating the purchase times, the distribution of meth will

be dampened. 

I guess, if I was really determined to cook up some crystal meth – and

not that I am – I could store the pills until I have enough to create huge

batch of this illegal drug.

But, really, all I’m trying to do is breath, so the last thing I’m about to

do is cook up some meth – the lure of the money notwithstanding. 

I’m neither an addict nor a pusher and nor a buyer of illegal substances.

I just want to breath so I can go on my four plus mile run five mornings

a week. 

(In fact, come to think of it, I’d like to see my doctor – maybe even the

pharmacist – on this run, too.)

So I’m now giving serious consideration to acquiring a fake ID that

can be used at places like CVS and Walgreens so I can buy Claritin D

whenever I need it. 

We’re hardly talking heroin or cocaine here.  We’re talking a little pill

that helps me breath. 

Check out struggling to breath, and you’ll understand my cry.

So, really, thank you for your worries about my well being – whether

you work at the Food and Drug Administration, you’re a police

officer, a judge, a prosecutor, the local pharmacist, the president

or vice president of the United States or a member of Congress. 

Thank you.  But, really, I got this!

If you’re really worried I’m about to start up a meth lab – really I don’t

have the time! – you’re more than welcome to search my house, anytime.

Just show me your warrant at the door.

Tumblr says Google is worth $4.2 trillion

Barron’s story about Yahoo’s acquisition of tumblr fuels fears

and reservations about Silicon Valley valuations, especially

compared to ones that are grounded in reality.

To be clear, this is not meant as a knock against Barron’s reporting.

It’s outstanding, as usual.

What’s disturbing is the $1.1 billion price Yahoo paid for tumblr,

a company that received more than $125 million in venture funding

but has only produced $13 million in revenue, Barron’s reported.

The metric used for valuating Yahoo’s price for tumblr is about 84.62

times the micro-blogging website’s annual revenue. 

While tumblr may bring a unique advantage to Yahoo, what hasn’t

been made clear in any of the reporting is whether tumblr’s

technology is so proprietary it can’t be duplicated.

Tumblr, then, in many ways, is a glimpse of how venture capitalists

value website start-ups; but this euphoria or, if you prefer, valuations

far beyond reality, cannot last.

At some point, Silicon Valley industry directors and executives will

sober up, realizing Wall Street values these start-ups for far less than

the venture capitalists searching for the next greatest fool to pay

a price that's far beyond reasonable for the company they’ve invested

in and helped build.

The tumblr acquisition shows that venture capitalists, their investors

and the start-up’s employees are the winners.  The shareholders

of the acquiring company, based on what happened to Yahoo’s

stock last week, are the losers. 

If the metrics for valuating tumblr are used with Yahoo or with the

Silicon Valley’s standard-bearer of the health of the technology

industry, Google, then these two companies are worth far more,

at least by venture capitalist standards, than Wall Street says.

For example, Yahoo, during 2012, produced about $4.9 billion

in revenue; its market capitalization is about $30 billion, which is

just over six times the company’s annual revenue, a metric far

less than what it paid for tumblr.

But if tumblr’s recent value – based on the price for which it was

just purchased – is applied to Yahoo, then Yahoo should be worth

about $422 billion. 

For that matter, Google, which produced about $50 billion in 2012,

should be worth about $4.2 trillion and yet the search engine’s market

capitalization is but a humble $290 billion, just under six times

annual revenue.

Facebook, the most recent Silicon Valley player to go public,

produced $5 billion in revenue in 2012 and has a market

capitalization of $60 billion, or 12 times revenue; applying the

tumblr valuation, the social media website should be worth $422 billion.

Based on the reality of Wall Street – around six times annual

revenue – Yahoo shouldn’t have bid more than $80 million for tumblr.

How long venture capitalists can secure the kind of valuations that

tumblr just received is hard to say.  How long Silicon Valley executives

want to be the fools of venture capitalists is also difficult to predict.

But anyone who’s ever followed valuations and traditional 

economics knows prices cannot remain this high forever.  At some

point, the rubber meets the road.

Beauty's tyranny

Clothing styles constantly change – especially for women – but our

collective thoughts about what constitutes a beautiful woman

remains, with a few nuances, steady:  She’s young, often blond,

slim, with breasts and buttocks men will notice.

If a woman’s physical appearance falls outside this precise

definition, she’s old, ugly, worthless, to be ostracized, perhaps

even used.

And while many a man, including me, has cracked a few jokes

about the time it takes a woman to get ready, there’s something

all men would do well to keep in mind:  Women’s looks are harshly

judged and often their inner voices are bellowing, telling them

they’re not thin enough, young enough, stylish enough, beautiful

enough, possibly even blond enough, to attract a man.

It’s in the advertising; the magazines and newspapers; on the web;

on television; it’s in the movies and it’s in the stores.  Women

are surrounded and pressured by this message.

Beauty requires monthly appointments at the hair stylist, time

for a facial, never enjoying a meal, never eating dessert, and

allotting enough minutes in the bathroom, so she can make her

hair just right and her skin youthful, so she turns a few heads,

if not from men, from her biggest critics – other women.

Compare what she endures to how the average man sees

himself:  He might be 20 – 30 pounds overweight, but Adonis

is in the mirror, even when he’s naked.

Women feel something that rarely touches any man:  The

tyranny of beauty.

For teenage girls, especially, as well as young women in

their 20s, these exacting standards are so powerful they can

make them depressed, feeling ugly, unwanted, unappreciated,

leaving, potentially, a life-lasting impact.

And yet, there’s someone rarely asked for their opinion

about what they want in a woman – a man.

Most men, some published reports say, aren’t likely going

for the woman living the Madison Avenue-developed, 

Hollywood-produced, fashion-idea of good looks.

Both Psychology Today and Everyday Fitness, a blog produced

by the Discovery Channel, report men prefer curvy, fuller

looking women than the ones presented by the fashion industry.

But ideas so rooted in our culture die hard.  Models remain thin

and many of us take our  beauty cues from those appearing in

magazine ads, across television screens, perhaps even on the web.

So it’s no wonder Jes Baker, a woman with a fuller figure, 

perhaps even – dare I say it – fat, took it upon herself to

complain about feeling ostracized by Abercrombie and Fitch

because of her size.  She deserves a medal for her work.

Apparently there’s even a statement, from seven years ago, 

attributed to the retail chain’s CEO, Mike Jeffries, saying he

doesn’t want larger people shopping his store.

But let’s face facts:  The thin model appearing in Abercrombie

and Fitch ads is no different than the one appearing in many other ads.

In fact, the last time I saw an ad featuring “real women” – that

is, those not thin as a rail – goes back maybe a decade ago

and it was for Dove soap. 

As I recall, they placed ads on television and billboards showing

real women in their underwear and, frankly, each one was beautiful.

The soap maker has continued this theme with another round

of television or online video ads, asking women to describe

themselves to an artist who never sees them but draws them

based on their descriptions.

The artist then asks people, who just met these same women,

to describe them. 

Two pictures of each woman are placed side by side and no one

should be surprised to learn that the second pictures, where the

women were described by someone else, were not only a more

accurate representation of their looks but also more beautiful.

In other words, the women failed to realize how attractive they

are.  But others – even those they’d just met – did.

And then an epiphany sets in:  Each woman learns the world

sees her as far better looking than she’s ever seen herself.

So the fashion industry and parts of the retail business, as well

as our own society, have done a fine job providing women

with an inferiority complex.

Men have suffered, too.  These exacting standards prevent 

them from searching for women with great personalities or ones 

with high intelligence – in other words, women who may not

meet beauty’s standards.

Instead, he feels compelled to look for the woman that meets

the definition but who may very well look at him with the

same cutting eyes used against her.

Men have their own beauty expectations to fill.  They’re to be

tall, dark and handsome; in other words, six feet tall, with broad

shoulders.

Beauty forces us into a mold.  Instead of putting our efforts toward

finding someone whose mind connects with ours, who will improve

our souls, through a loving, in-depth relationship, we’re focused

on the superficial – the butts, the boobs, the hair, the height and

the shoulders – which fails all of us no matter our gender.

The worries of Tumblr

You can’t help but wonder what Yahoo’s top corporate executives

are doing.  Sure buying blogging site Tumblr appears, at least on the

surface, to be a fine idea but what about that price?

According to newspaper reports, Yahoo paid $1.1 billion for Tumblr,

a company that generated only $13 million last year. 

Apparently making the deal irresistible was that Tumblr, according

to published reports, has between 117 and 300 million unique monthly

visitors, many of them younger – perhaps even slimmer – than the

average Yahoo user, described, in a blog at the Los Angeles Times,

and another, in Digital Trends, as “Overweight women ages 18 to 49,

who tend to be in relationships of only one to five years with children, 

residing in the suburbs or rural areas.”

The pending acquisition raises many questions and points that, perhaps,

weren’t vetted as closely as possible, including whether Tumblr’s

hipsters will want to be part of a web portal that fat, middle aged women

find attractive?

There are also other questions, too, including the following:

The information about the number of unique monthly visitors isn’t clear.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Tumblr has about 117 million

but according to Tuesday’s Investor’s Business Daily, it’s around

300 million. 

For the sake of shareholders, can Yahoo provide a unique monthly

user number that holds up to what ComScore reports, 117 million?

While apparently it’s difficult but not impossible to sell ads on Tumblr,

a more worrisome issue for Yahoo is Tumblr’s users, who, based

on what’s been reported, have no reason to remain with Tumblr.

In other words, they can flee to other micro blogging websites or

start one of their own.  If that’s true, what’s the value of Tumblr to

Yahoo?  Is this really a technology play?

Did Yahoo consider the possibility that if Tumblr’s revenues never

move north of $13 million, it could take it close to 86 years to earn

what it paid for the site?

If it can generate, as one former Google executive said on his blog,

about $100 million a year, it will only take Yahoo about 10 years

to have Tumblr paid off.  Does that number hold up if the users flee?

If there really are only 117 million unique monthly users for Tumblr,

then Yahoo paid about $9.40 for each of them.  Do they have a plan

in place to keep them?  What will it cost?

While Yahoo’s Tumblr acquisition might make sense – let’s assume

CEO Marissa Mayer knows what she’s doing – what’s not certain

is how this acquisition will move Yahoo’s stock price.

Based on what’s happened this week, so far, the stock market

appears to have welcomed Yahoo’s acquisition, modestly moving

its stock price up from where it had been on Monday, meaning that

while Wall Street approves the deal, it’s far from excited about it,

and, quite possibly, doesn’t understand it.

The larger, overriding issue is that economics catches up with

every industry.  It might not happen for a decade or 20, possibly,

even 30 years but, in time, economics determines how industries

mature, prosper, fall apart and work.

Right now, we appear to be seeing the maturing of the Internet

industry as it consolidates.

When an industry is new, entrepreneurs and companies of all shapes

and sizes often step in because they see an opportunity to thrive.

Only a very limited few will succeed but, as with PowerBall gambling,

if the winnings are viewed as being high enough, many will throw

their hat into the ring.

But eventually there’s a contraction as investors cash out, taking their

earnings and banking them for another future opportunity while

others shut down, not always able to sell the assets they once

used in the new industry.

This activity – of one company buying another – usually leaves

fewer players, making the new industry look like an oligarchy,

with a few dominant companies keeping a close eye on one another.

While it’s hard to believe today, the U.S. automotive

industry back in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, was

composed of about 2,800 companies.  They included mom

and pop shops to long established companies in the horse-drawn

wagon business trying their hand on a new idea – mechanized

transportation.

The automotive industry’s new technology was so successful,

disruptive even, that it killed off horse draw wagons.

Today, there are three automotive companies headquartered in

the United States, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, but only

two are U.S.-owned, Ford and General Motors. Italian carmaker

Fiat owns Chrysler.

The U.S. daily newspaper industry suffered a similar fate, from

being an industry once composed of more than 5,000 titles, back

in the late 19^th century, according to About.com, to one that publishes

just over 1,400 different papers today.

Little deals like Tumblr, at a shocking price of $1.1 billion, are

small.  Tumblr will become a division of Yahoo – not something

that fundamentally alters Yahoo.

Deals like Tumblr – where the company was valued at nearly 85

times more than its annual revenues – can’t continue.  If Tumblr

never brings in $800 million, or even $1 billion – and it’s hard to

see how it will – Internet executives will hesitate, and likely refuse,

to pay such extraordinary multiples for the next company whose

revenues don’t come close to backing up the valuation its

investors claim.

The wild-eyed optimism of the Internet -- $1 billion for Tumblr

or Facebook’s recent valuation at $500 billion (when it’s only

doing over $5 billion a year) – will end. 

As the Internet industry matures, the question that needs to be

answered is what’s the future for Yahoo, Google and Bing?

Which one of these players will buy the other to provide it

with the long-term competitive advantage it needs?

Growing up is hard to do, says the adage, and anyone

who’s been in an industry’s infantile stage knows excitement

dims as the adults move in to make sure it lives up to its claims.

So, David Karp, for your sake, let’s hope you’ve cashed out

handsomely and stashed the money where it’s safe because

you’re about to be upbraided by Marissa Mayer as she holds

your feet to the fire.

Oh, the fuss: The Manners, where are they now?

Etiquette – sometimes referred to as “manners,” that type of behavior

parents once taught their kids so they wouldn’t act on their impulses – 

gives every appearance of being pushed aside, replaced by

insensitive and crass behavior in everything from cutting in line to

drivers flipping one another the bird.

And it isn’t limited to Massachusetts. 

I’ve seen it in many places – from the male chauvinist in Eugene,

Ore., with whom I had business dealings during my Tribune days,

to a racist working at a Boston Market in Lombard, Ill., and a gay

man in Washington, who refused to promote a colleague of mine

because she was African American.

What do they call that, WWB?  Working While Black.

I don’t know.

But it shows that jerks are everywhere.

It was telling moment, three years ago, when a lady working behind

the counter at a nearby Starbucks thanked me for saying please and

thank you as she attended to my order. 

“Thank you for being so considerate,” she said.

““You all do a great job here,” I said, caught off guard by her

comment.

“Not everyone thinks so,” she replied.

Two summers ago, my wife was flipped off as she drove out of the

parking lot of a local train line carrying commuters in and out of 

Boston.  I guess the other driver thought he was more

important. 

Never once did that happen in the 16 years we lived in a Chicago suburb.

But, of course, it’s possible it happens in other suburbs of the country’s

third largest city.

My wife and I spend a lot of time teaching our kids manners.  Everything

from how they dress and speak, including how they handle themselves

at the dinner table, has been reviewed hundreds, thousands, maybe

millions, of times.

Obviously, we haven’t perfected this – we only need to see how our sons,

10 and 9, behave at home to know how badly we’re doing – but we

work on their behavior nonetheless.

I’m always grateful when another adult reports that they’re well behaved,

but I also wonder whose kids they’re really talking about. 

If only we could get them to behave at home – without the constant

reminders!

Right now, we’re following the advice more experienced parents provided:

Eventually they’ll grow up; in the meantime, keep repeating the lessons. 

During recent trips to a nearby mall, where I was buying the boys new

clothes, I kept up the lessons, telling them – well, to be completely

truthful, it entailed gripping their shoulders so they’d stand still – to

allow the women to board and depart the elevator before they did. 

The reaction, on both occasions, was fascinating.

One woman noticed what I was doing and smiled while the other

appeared incredulous, giving the impression that I was wasting

time.  She shook her head and chuckled.  Fortunately neither boy

picked up on the reaction of the second woman.

And while this is hardly a scientific survey, these reactions might

provide a clue as to where we stand on manners today.  Half of

the country is grateful for them while the other half is so jaded

it’s not expecting them – hardly a good thing, I’d say.

Still, we should aim for civilized behavior.  It doesn’t take much

to remind ourselves we’re not the only ones on the planet.  Just

look up from your wireless, handheld device and you’ll see them.

About a year ago, when the boys were earning their Cub Scout

Citizenship Pin, they met the local police chief.  During the

meeting, I had one of the boys ask a question – What could

they do to be good citizens?

He gave a wonderful, simple answer that the kids still remember:

Open doors for others and always say please and thank you.  Be

considerate.  Be nice. 

Words to live by.

U.S. Newspaper Executives are no match for the Koch Brothers

Sometimes it’s hard – really hard! – to take newspapers seriously.

I do when they’re covering wars, politics, crime and most business
events. 

But when it comes to covering their own kind – the newspaper industry
– their collective heads are stuck in their collective … well … I won’t say. 

This is a family-friendly blog, and you get the idea.

If the Koch Brothers – apparently prospective buyers of Tribune’s
newspapers, which includes the Los Angeles Times – read yesterday’s
New York Times, I hope they’re not shaking in their boots. 

More than 1,000 people, said The Times, “pledged to cancel their
subscriptions” and “110,000 (people) … signed petitions opposing
the sale” of the L.A. Times to David and Charles Koch.

Seriously, take it from me, compared to other previous, controversial
owners who successfully owned newspapers where they weren’t
 greeted with a parade and a red carpet on day one of their ownership,

1,000 or so readers is nothing.

Even if that number is way off – let’s triple it to 3,000 just to be, dare
I use the word, conservative – it’s still hardly anything to fear.

The L.A. Times, according to one of the most recent audits, sells nearly
1 million copies on Sunday and over 650,000 copies Monday
through Friday. 

Do the math, using the daily circulation figure, and you realize
we’re talking way less than 1 percent of the newspaper’s
circulation if those 1,000 readers follow up their threats.

Take it to 3,000 subscribers and the potential circulation loss is
just under half of 1 percent – far from an end-of-the-world-as
-we-know-it nightmare.

Nearly 30 years ago, in January 1984, Rupert Murdoch – you
know, the Devil himself, the man who, when he’s not running
his global media empire, is working hard to kill off democracy
his critics say – purchased the Chicago Sun-Times from Marshall
Field, taking a circulation hit of about 30,000.

Now if 30,000 subscribers abandon the L.A. Times – just over
4.5 percent of the paper’s Monday through Friday consumer
sales – then, yes, there’s reason to worry. 

But if the past is prologue, those readers will soon realize no one
else in Southern California is publishing a newspaper like the
Los Angeles Times, and they’ll return to the fold.

How do I know this?  My dad, Bob Page, was Murdoch’s
publisher at the Sun-Times.

“It took time but it all (the reader losses) came back,” dad says.

I’m not here to promote either Murdoch or a Koch Brothers
purchase of Tribune’s papers.

What I’m here to say is that L.A. Times columnist Steve
Lopez and some of his fellow reporters have little reason
to be upset about the prospect of a Koch Brothers ownership.

Sure there’ll be some changes if they wind up owning the
paper, but what Steve and his colleagues need to keep in
mind is that if that turns out to be the case, they’ll work to
make the Los Angeles Times a successful business. 

Say what you will about them – and I’ll even go along with Mr.
Lopez and say some of the critiques of the Kochs are worrisome
– the Koch Brothers are capitalists first, political partisans second.

It doesn’t do them any good to spend about $1 billion on
Tribune’s papers only to see them close up a year or two later.

Now if Steve and his colleagues want to argue against the
Koch Brothers because they don’t know a thing about running
a newspaper, that’s a different story.  I'm in complete
agreement with that line of thinking.

But instead of doing the obvious, Steve and his colleagues are
focusing on the Kochs’ politics, reasoning the banks and the lenders
– now Tribune Company’s owners – could care less about.

This harsh reaction against the Koch Brothers – solely because of
their politics – is similar to the one that greeted Rupert Murdoch as
he worked to buy Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal.

Many in the media business, including the Financial Times’ Martin
Wolf, said it would be the end of the Journal, a completely
ridiculous thought. 

I exchanged emails with Wolf about his views, suggesting he explain
why the Bancrofts should be allowed to go on as the owners of Dow
Jones.  Even Mr. Wolf – a helluva reporter on everything but the
newspaper industry – thought the Bancrofts hadn’t done a very
good job owning the company.

(And, yes, in case you’re wondering, I still have the email from
Mr. Wolf as well as the one I sent him.)

The great tragedy of the newspaper industry is that its biggest players
are nowhere to be seen or heard of as interested parties in Tribune’s
papers.  Gannett, The Washington Post, The New York Times

Company, even Newhouse and Cox are missing in action.

Instead, according to what’s reported, Tribune’s board of directors
will receive two bids for their papers, one from Rupert Murdoch,
and another from the Koch Brothers, maybe three or four if David

Geffen and Eli Broad step up with their offers.

In other words, besides Murdoch, an Australian by birth and a
U.S. citizen since the ‘80s, no other U.S. newspaper executive is
demonstrating enough confidence in their industry – let alone their
management skills – to bid on the country’s fourth largest newspaper,
the Los Angeles Times, and its sister Tribune papers.

That should be the issue making Steve Lopez’s skin crawl.