Electoral Dance

Questions from readers! (I love it.)

Q: Clinton, Obama, McCain... your take?

A: David Brooks’ New York Times column today made it clear even to a dense marketing professor like me: Clinton is selling a product, Obama is selling an experience. 

Obama is to Clinton as the Mac is to the PC, as The Body Shop is to Walgreen’s.

Thus Barak Obama is more in tune with modern times.  He’s also more likely to get young people excited about politics.  Both valuable characteristics.

I have a suspicion about Hillary.  GW Bush eviscerated checks and balances in our government, and created an imperial presidency.  Sometimes I think Hillary looks at the imperial presidency and thinks, "I want one of those."

I personally like Obama better – though Hillary thinks faster on her feet in a debate – but the real question is: Who can better defeat McCain?

I hear the reactionary Republicans are ready to throw this presidential election rather than support McCain.  They’ll let the Dems have this one.  They’ll retreat, regroup, and rebuild strength for 2012.  But we can’t count on the GOP taking a dive; we gotta make sure the Republicans get outta the White House now.

John McCain is by far the least objectionable of the Republicans.  Trouble is, he’s old, and he will choose a running mate from among younger Republicans.  His VP candidate could be one of these neocon jerks who don’t know that they’re all washed up now, and s/he may well end up President if a victorious McCain is later incapacitated.

So is Clinton or Obama better able to prevent this?  This question can be answered only be detailed, precinct-by-precinct research in districts that may swing to the Republicans.  The Clinton and Obama campaigns have (I hope) done this research, or maybe the Democratic Party has. They ain’t sayin’. I certainly don’t have access to such research, so: I’ll vote for the Dem, whoever it may be.

 

Q: What brought on the tango passion?

A: Saw it, thought it was beautiful, took the odd introductory lesson (in Portland, then in Maastricht, then in San Diego) without learning much over a span of four years.  Finally, business travels eased up; I would be in the same city for four consecutive Tuesdays!  I signed up for the 4-week beginner sequence last month.  Now I’ve graduated, and have started taking the “Salon 1” sequence.

Check out this video of Yo-Yo Ma, and see if it doesn’t do something for you

 too.

There’s another one you must see, but YouTube won’t let me embed it in this

 page.  Right-click this URL and tell your browser to open in a new window: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEe2j43X-Ms.

Like aikido, tango is a worldwide community that welcomes sincere strangers.  (I was welcomed at a tango bar in Lima last summer - here's their poster - even tho I had no skill then.) Like aikido, tango is a lifelong endeavor in which you can improve slowly and surely without end.  I love aikido and still do it, but I confess that as I get old and creaky, getting slammed into the aikido mat a couple hundred times a day is no longer my idea of a good time. So you see, there’s method in my madness.

Haragei: A story of Beppu

The Conscious Manager: Zen for Decision Makers featured stories of the weird and wonderful, and readers have asked for more. Here we go…

My wife had asked me to bring her chabako, traditional tea boxes, from Japan. My host in the city of Oita agreed to take me on a chabako quest, before delivering me to the Oita aikido club that evening. Because the boxes were more likely to be found in Beppu, the neighboring hot springs resort town, we climbed into Keiji’s car and were soon navigating the narrow streets of Beppu.

(Nomao map of Beppu)

“The allies never bombed Beppu during the Pacific War…unfortunately,” Keiji remarked.

“Why do you say ‘unfortunately’?” I asked.

“They bombed Oita very obligingly,” he replied, “and we got to rebuild it with nice, wide streets, good for driving cars. But it was a dirty war, and the American pilots knew they would need a bath afterward. So they kept the bombs away from Beppu, and it still has these damn narrow streets. By the way, isn’t this a lot of trouble to get a tea box for your ex-wife?”

“Keiji-san, I’m sorry if I was unclear. This is for my wife. I don’t have an ex-wife.”

Keiji said, “Neither do I…unfortunately.”

By the time I could control my laughter, we had arrived at an old-fashioned tea retailer. The tea merchant explained that his deliveries came in ordinary cardboard boxes – but if we drove up another three narrow streets we would find a merchant who still received the old-style tin-lined wooden boxes. Keiji and I thanked him and turned to leave, but the tea merchant continued to talk, saying that he would close a few minutes early because on Tuesdays he always went to train at the Beppu aikido club.

Keiji, a thoroughly modern Japanese who worked in an Oita government office, was shocked. Japanese shopkeepers do not make unnecessary small talk with casual customers. Moreover, not many people practice aikido, even in Japan, and I could almost hear Keiji thinking, “What are the chances…”

In fact, the odds of one aikidoist randomly finding, in a small town on Japan’s far-southern island, another aikidoist who happened to be an impolite chatterbox were vanishingly small. I was surprised too. I checked my clothing for telltale aikido logos, finding none.

Finally, Tea Guy ran out of steam and stood there with a “what am I saying?” look on his face. Keiji put him out of his misery, explaining that the visiting gaijin with no ex-wife was an aikidoist too. Tea Guy was relieved and satisfied; this obviously had been haragei, Japanese telepathy, and was therefore completely reasonable.

Keiji was shaking his head over the incident well into the next day. It’s not that he did not believe in haragei; rather, he was shocked only by the shopkeeper’s chatty breach of social etiquette.

Remember to enter the contest: Propose a title for the follow-up to the Conscious Manager book.  Post your entry in a comment on this page, or email info(at)generalinformatics.com