By Mark Nickolas, on Wed Aug 14, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
From Pure Politics, CN2:
The revelations about the National Security Agency’s phone tracking programs are only the latest iteration of the lengths the government has gone to stretch the law in the name of national security, said a former Kentucky political consultant.
Mark Nickolas, now a film school graduate, was selected to film a documentary on Abdullah al-Kidd, who along with the ACLU, has sued the government after authorities detained Kidd in the wake of 9-11 under what’s called the federal material witness law. The film is called A Cloud of Suspicion.
Kidd, a Kansas-born college football player in Idaho who had only recently converted to Islam, was arrested in March 2003 at Dulles Airport and held under the material witness law under the guise of being called as a witness against a fellow Muslim and University of Idaho student. Kidd was held for 15 months and never called to testify.
The New York Times first reported on Kidd’s saga and has followed it as Kidd and the ACLU have taken it to court. Now the ACLU granted Nickolas access to some of its information and key players as Nickolas puts together the film, which he said will show how the Bush administration overreached, the Obama administration failed to correct it and the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to properly check the powers, including when it comes to “abuse” of the federal material witness law.
“You don’t have the same constitutional rights as a witness. You don’t have Miranda rights because you’re not being charged as a criminal,” Nickolas told Pure Politics (2:30 of the video). You’re being held as a witness. So it’s more insidious than what we had ever done before.
(2:30)
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Aug 13, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
That isn’t actually a rhetorical question – I’m at the age when many women are experiencing heat waves unrelated to the weather. But these days it seems like we’re not alone. So is menopause contagious, or is global warming real?
That one WASN’T rhetorical, because the scientific evidence is overwhelming – not just fluctuations in average temperatures, but polar ice cap melting and rising sea levels are hard to ignore. At this rate, before too long houses in Fresno will be considered beach-front property.
But yet again, there are some politicians who almost willfully ignore the facts. I can agree to disagree with people on the best way to protect the planet, cap-and-trade vs. government regulations vs. investments in smart energy, but it’s hard to have a rational disagreement with someone who claims that since lots of places had snowstorms this past winter, global warming is a liberal hoax. And those people tend to have equally delusional facts-be-damned views on things like Obama’s birth certificate or the benefit of abstinence-only sex education (see Palin: Bristol).
I’m all for gentle delusion when it doesn’t hurt anybody – e.g., I won’t complain when my husband tells me I don’t look a day over 35, and I’ll let it slide when my son insists his room IS organized. But there are real-world consequences toward sticking our heads in the sand when it comes to our environment – I’m hoping that eventually, climate change deniers will be as archaic as those old t.v. commercials where doctors are recommending cigarettes. So here’s a song in honor of debunking deleterious denials…
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Aug 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Some things just aren’t meant to be.
Today, after 5 centuries of avoiding ever, ever spending more than about $7 on a pair of sunglasses from the drug store, I relented. My wife, son and daughter each donned sun glasses this morning and I felt left out.
Later this afternoon I snuck off to the Sunglasses Hut (or something like that) and after trying on about 25 different pairs of sunglasses (that cost over $7), I broke done and purchased the basic non-polorized (sp??) Ray Bans (the cheapest pair of Ray Bans they had). I had asked for something “basic” and “kinda classic” ….and something “that wouldn’t stand out on a person who doesn’t wear sun glasses and never has.”
As I walked out with the sun glasses on I could hear the customer behind me comment surprisingly to the sales clerk, “He bought those?” That was the first sign.
Before leaving the parking lot I texted my wife a picture of me and my new sunglasses before excitedly driving home to “join” the family with my new sunglasses status. My wife texted, “Hilarious!” And then my daughter texted, “LOL!” And my wife reported my son was laughing so hard that he was about to injure himself. Apparently, my sun glasses shot had gone viral within the family.
I explained that “‘Hilarious’ wasn’t what I was going for.” Adding that the “Sales clerk had told me they looked good on me.”
There’s more but before I was able to hang with the fam as the fourth sunglass-wearing member, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. And that I had just paid a little over a $100 for a pair of sunglasses that may be worn on my head but never dropped to my eyes to be worn correctly. I even tried the Tom Cruise Risky Business low sunglasses looking out over them. That was a fail too.
I should instead have bought 6 pairs of new dark socks, a new belt, a new sweat suit and two new pairs of $7 sunglasses from CVS. One for my head and one for my eyes. The latter only to be worn in extreme circumstances when absolutely necessary to protect my eyes against imminent danger (or when recovering from the glaucoma eye test) and no one else is around to see me.
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Aug 13, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
From America Weekend, a new public radio program on KTRS/St. Louis and streamed nationwide:
Click here to order
Can Anthony Weiner survive his sexting scandal? Can Elliot Spitzer come back from his hooker tryst and be elected to public office again? How did Mark Sanford convince voters to give him another shot at power?
These are some of the questions I discussed on America Weekend with Jeff Smith, a former Missouri state senator who served a year in prison for lying to the FBI about some wrongdoing when he ran for Congress. Smith is one of the contributors to a new book, “The Recovering Politician’s 12 Step Program To Survive Crisis.” Listen, then click here to subscribe to these podcasts via iTunes!
Matchmaker Café, a pop-up cart at the plaza and beer garden outside upscale hotel Andaz Wall Street, has been serving coffee — and connecting couples — since launching two weeks ago.
The shop is an outpost for longtime New York City matchmaker Nancy Slotnick’s virtual concierge dating service of the same name, which she started in November.
“We’re really happy to have an actual spot for people to meet,” Slotnick said.
“We’re trying to help harness that serendipity that naturally happens between two people — and maybe give it a little bit of a push.”
The cafe, which serves coffee from Brooklyn Roasting Company, is part of the city’s new effort to energize the publicly owned private spaces — known as POPs — that run along Water Street. The program, called Water Street Pops!, includes a variety of activities and events through Labor Day, to help reinvigorate the Sandy-hit neighborhood.
At the cafe, as matchmaker-baristas serve up coffee they also try to find out if the customer is single.
“Since we have a huge sign that says Matchmaker Café, people usually ask about it, but sometimes we just let them know what we’re all about,” Slotnick said.
“The idea is to connect local people with each other, get them offline and actually meeting, even if it’s for a quick 20-minute coffee.”
If single customers are interested, Slotnick takes their picture, chats about their dating life and uploads them into her database of New York City singles.
The single guy or gal can then look through the database of photos on Slotnick’s iPad of other people who stopped by the pop-up cafe, to see if anyone piques his or her interest. If so, Slotnick or one of her matchmakers will make the connection between the potential couple.
For this week, making a call to potential dates is still free, but starting next week Slotnick will charge $5 for three calls and $10 for 10 calls. She also offers longer dating advice sessions and subscriptions to her online dating site, which has more than 5,000 members.
New customer Kathleen Christatos, 27, who stopped by the pop-up recently, said she was excited to get offline with dating, and have Slotnick guide her through the process.
“This just feels simple,” said Christatos as Slotnick emailed several young men from the cafe, whom Christatos chose by perusing the database on Slotnick’s iPad. “It makes it feel a little easier and personal.”
The pop-up is a continuation of Drip Café, an Upper West Side coffee shop Slotnick launched in 1996 which was devoted to helping people find relationships during its nine-year run.
At Drip, customers could spend time flipping through binders of hand-written dating profiles, and then Slotnick would help schedule a date at the cafe.
Slotnick, who was featured on “Oprah” thanks to her cafe and dating book, “Turn Your Cablight On,” said hundreds of marriages came out of her Drip days.
Since launching Matchmaker Café’s pop-up, Slotnick said she has collected about 30 profiles and set up a handful of dates.
“We’d like to make this permanent, and have this in neighborhoods across the city,” Slotnick said. “I think the idea of a cafe is [a] very friendly, inviting place — a regular hangout where you can let your guard down, and maybe be open to something more.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Aug 12, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
From John Y. Brown, III:
My liberal instincts got the best of me and I felt the need to be an equal opportunity promoter of faith based music for both the heavenly and heathen alike.
Of course, completely tongue in cheek. And very funny. I think.
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Aug 12, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET
The period before time, before we started traveling together, we each did a lot of traveling in different areas. In multiple trips, thinkCHUA spent over a year in South America and LOCAVORista spent almost as long in Europe. This means each of us has “been there, done that”, so what do you do when one partner has “not done that, but wants to”?
.
HE SAID…
South America is the first place on this trip that either of us had spent a considerable amount of time. I did the tourist circuit from Tierra del Fuego to Ecaudor almost 10 years ago. We returned because there are so many awesome things to do, many things I missed, and experiences I wanted to share with my wife. The other side of the coin is that there are many overrated tourist destinations that I have no interest in returning to…but they are considered the “must-dos” by fellow tourists and guide books. South America has made us make more compromises than anywhere else on the trip.
Some places I was excited to go back to. One of these was Madidi National Park in Bolivia and the nearby pampas. Containing a startling 44% of all mammal species, I have found memories of piranha fishing, swimming with dolphins, and watching alligators devour capybaras. Excited to go back we booked a trip (this time taking the 50 minute flight instead of the 20-40 hour bus ride). Arriving, we found rainy season had just ended, the pampas were underwater and the mammals had run off. The things I wanted to see together, weren’t there, letting me down and making me question my fond memories.
Then there are the places I don’t want to return to. The places that the Lonely Planet plays up, but having been there I know it’s just not that cool. Not going is hard, I am only arguing to skip something because I have been there, but if I hadn’t gone, I probably would go. So what to do? There is no easy answer, because compromising isn’t an easy answer. I don’t know for certain that LOCAVORista wouldn’t like something just because I didn’t, but I’m also not about to get on a 17 hour bus to check it out. Sadly I had to put my foot down on a couple places and say, “not this trip”.
There are no easy answers…it is so much easier if we just kept going to new places…
.
SHE SAID…
Our first date was in South America when thinkCHUA was studying in Chile, we traveled through Peru and I fell in love. I fell in love with both my now husband and South America. I couldn’t wait for the day that I would return and see the amazing sights that thinkCHUA described, I wanted to see the grafitti-filled streets of Valparaiso, the rodents of unusual size in Bolivia and venture to the southern most point of Chile. Little did I know my return visit would be with him and that he wouldn’t want to see all of these things again.
I’m glad I saw the hills of Valparaiso, even though thinkCHUA spent months there. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this view.
Read the rest of… Erica & Matt Chua: He Said/She Said: When One has “Done That”
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Aug 12, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Question: Is it possible for a 4000 pound vehicle to vanish?
Answer: Yes. But it costs $124 to make it come back.
Today in Lexington I had lunch with a client and when I returned to my car in the parking lot it wasn’t a matter of not remembering the slot I parked or seeing my car after it had been dented by another driver and left without any explanation. It was a matter of just not being ther…e at all. Poof!
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. My usual defense mechanism for when I feel frustration, disappointment or anger coming on is to make a wisecrack to distract form the tension.
I went inside and asked for the towing company and called:
Me: “Do you have a Maroon Honda Accord?”
Operator at towing service: “Yes. We are on Manchester Lane and you can pick it up.”
Me: “How much is it to pick up?”
Operator at towing service: “$124”
Me: “Geez. You are kidding me?”
Operator at towing service: “No. I’m not”
Me: For $248 could you tow it back to where you picked it up? I don’t have a car to get to you.”
Operator at towing service: “No. We have to see a picture ID and proof of ownership before we can move the car.”
Later while paying my towing fee I asked the clerk if they had a punch card that offered a gift or prize after the 5th or 10th tow….like a car air freshener.
Clerk at towing service: No. Please sign here”
I then looked proudly at my car who was sitting there so unassuming and out of place. I wanted to ask the clerk if my car had behaved better than the other towed cars. But didn’t. I knew the feeble attempt at humor wouldn’t have been received well.
And yet I was proud of my car. it looked cleaner and not like an automotive miscreant like many of the others. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get you out of here. You don’t belong in this place. I’ve sprung you.”
And I grinned to myself. Which just goes to show you if you do somethign stupid and try to deflect attention from it by making other people laugh and that doesn’t work. You still have yourself to laugh at yourself. It works. And sounds so silly trying to explain it will help you laugh even louder at yourself until you no longer are mad at yourself.
Of course it helps if you have your same sense of humor. ; )
ST. LOUIS • Former political adversaries Jeff Smith and Rod Jetton sat at a long table at Pi Pizzeria on Delmar next to a stack of crisp softcover books, scrawling their signatures and chatting with a couple dozen patrons lined up around them.
On the menu was complimentary deep-dish pizza, soft drinks and humility.
“Hopefully, people can learn from the mistakes I made,” said Smith, whose preprison political talents were once compared to those of Barack Obama. “Really smart people learn from other people’s mistakes.”
Next to him, Jetton — in that retro-political fashion statement, the seersucker suit — explained how his own politics have changed as a result of his downfall. “I’m not near as judgmental,” said the one-time most powerful conservative in the Missouri House. “You make as many mistakes as I have, it’s hard to be judgmental, right?”
Smith, a Democrat and former Missouri state senator, and Jetton, a Republican and former Missouri House speaker, each wrote a chapter in the new book, “The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis.”
Click here to order
Smith served almost a year in prison after lying to federal investigators about an anonymous smear campaign in his unsuccessful 2004 run for Congress against Russ Carnahan. Smith, now an assistant professor at the New School for Public Engagement in New York, penned a chapter in the book aptly titled, “Tell the Truth: Don’t Even Go Near the Line.”
Smith’s lie collapsed when his “former best friend” wore a wire at the behest of investigators. In the book, Smith recounts telling his parents he might go to prison.
“My mom’s lips quivered. ‘I knew it from the start. Knew you’d get mixed up in something like this. I tried to tell you what politics was like.’
“My dad … asked, ‘How do they even know you lied? What proof could they have?’
“‘Steve’s been wearing a wire for the last couple months.’
“‘That (expletive),’ said my dad.”
Read the rest of… For Missouri politicians gone bad, redemption over pizza
Magic happens in the interstitial space between silos, disciplines, organizations, and sectors. The word interstitial comes from the Latin “interstitium” which was derived from “inter” meaning “between” and “sistere” meaning “to stand” therefore to stand between. Optimum learning, innovation, problem solving, and value creation happens when we stand between.
To fully realize the potential of the 21st century we must get more comfortable and better at standing between. The imperative is to go from interdisciplinary to trans-disciplinary. Only by celebrating the interstitial space between us will we invent new disciplines and system approaches to enable transformation in our important social systems including education, health care, energy, and entrepreneurship.
And yet we spend most of our time in silos. It is comfortable there. We know the language spoken. We know what is expected and our roles. We know the people who inhabit our silos. There are clear rules dictating our behavior within silos and even clearer rules if we dare to dip our toes into the interstitial space outside of well-marked boundaries. Incentives, performance reviews, and job ladders all reinforce insularity. While technology screams permeability, organization infrastructure and operating norms lean against it. Standing in between anything is often considered a career-limiting move.
Most organizations aren’t 21st century ready. Industrial era structures with hierarchical reporting relationships designed around functions will inevitably give way to networked operating models fluidly connecting capabilities both within and outside the organization. Enabling infrastructure and operating norms will celebrate and reinforce interstitial spaces. Standing between disciplines will become the norm rather than the exception. The enabling technology is already here. We don’t need to invent anything new. It isn’t technology that is getting in our way. It is humans and the organizations we live in that are both stubbornly resistant to change and hesitant to fully explore interstitial spaces. Organizations will either transform themselves to capitalize on the value in interstitial spaces or they will be disrupted in the market by others that do. And for those leaders who think they can wait it out. You can’t, the transition has already started and its pace is quickening. Just ask the youngest in your organization. Waiting is not a strategy and will fail.
It is easy to see the potential from enabling random collisions of unusual suspects. Just check out any social media platform. Social media is a hotspot for random collisions. You don’t need to hang out in these virtual places long to know they are populated with very unusual suspects. Interstitial spaces are ubiquitous and magic happens every day. We can bring this magic into our organizations, meetings, and gatherings. We just have to resist the normal tendency to hang out with the usual suspects. Most of the conferences and meetings we go to are teeming with usual suspects who love to get together to admire the problem. We sure do love to admire problems. Solution discussions are narrow and tend to shop around old solutions that have been discussed forever. If you want new ideas, approaches, and solutions go to gatherings that you have absolutely no reason to attend other than you might learn something new or meet somebody with a different perspective and experience. Make it a personal goal to attend gatherings where you don’t know the people or subject matter. Or better yet go to gatherings that are designed to bring unusual suspects together and to enable random collisions.
We are only two weeks away from our annual Collaborative Innovation Summit, BIF-6 on September 15-16. The energy at BIF in the weeks leading up to the summit is at dangerous levels. I am like a kid in a candy store and grateful that the summit is sold out again this year. Like-minded innovation junkies immerse themselves among unusual suspects. We design to optimize the interstitial space in between an incredible line-up of innovation storytellers. The event is not about the stories that will be shared from the stage although they will be great. (Stories will be live streamed during the event and videos posted a few weeks later on our site for those interested). The real magic happens in between stories at extended breaks where all participants and those following the conversation in the social media world collide. It isn’t about the storytellers, it is about random collisions in the interstitial spaces that happen every year among the participants and those connected to the conversation. I can’t wait.
The goal is to get better faster. If you want to get better faster hang out in interstitial spaces. Don’t just dip your toes into interstitial spaces but jump in with all the passion you can ignite. Magic happens in the interstitial space between us.
