Thoughts on 2019’s arrival: It’s time to write another book

We are barely removed from the end of 2018,

which is a good thing because it was a very challenging year.

The world lost a lot of dear and talented people: 

Stephen Hawking, Tom Wolfe and Penny Marshall come to my mind.

And, there were lesser known but just as important ones we 

lost such as Irena Szewinska, 72, a sprinter and long jumper from 

Poland, who won seven medals in five Olympic Games, tying an 

Olympic women’s record and becoming a national hero in her country. 


For the entire year, the U.S. dealt with a President named Trump.

And, we know how well this has turned out for our country.

However, with the arrival of 2019, the first blank page of a 365-page,

year-long book that each of us will author began to be filled.

All of us start the New Year with a clean slate.

Hopefully, each of us will take the time to write a thoughtful book, 

be it a memoir or a best-selling novel,

day by day, page by page.

 With 2019 coming into clearer view, we welcome its challenges.

Remember, the words of Ecclesiastes, who said:

"The race is not to the swift,

nor the battle to the strong."

Life is to be enjoyed day by day,

 one day at a time.

Take time for family,

read a good book, 

listen to good music,

master a hobby like photography,

talk to good friends – and listen to them, too.

Support the arts, support newspapers.

Vote your conscience, but do vote!

Here's wishing you and your loved ones a Happy New Year.

May each of you enjoy cheers, love and peace on earth

in the New Year ahead.

Thoughts on books: Leadership in turbulent times

Today is Election Day in the United States and throughout America, the mid-term elections serve as a referendum on the direction of our country under President Donald J. Trump. Are we content with the everyday chaos coming out of the White House or do we hearken for something better?

We’re reminded that when the U.S. has been at odds with itself, a born leader has come along to remind us of the common causes we share – and just as important, of our shared humanity. Think back to when Barack Obama became the first black elected President of the United States 10 years ago this week. It seems like such a long time ago, that chilly Election Night victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, when one voice changed the world.

However, with the U.S. becoming more deeply divided by the hate, fear, deviciveness and lies that have characterized the first two years of the Trump presidency, it’s worth looking back to some of our country’s past presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson – all of them leaders, to see if they have something to teach us about the challengers we face as a nation today.

In Leadership in Turbulent Times, published by Simon & Schuster in September, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely – Lincoln, both Roosevelts and Johnson – to show how each recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others.

Seven questions are explored in great detail in Leadership, which form the foundation of Goodwin’s book. They are: Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Do the times make the leader or does the leader shape the times? How can a leader infuse a sense of purpose and meaning into people’s lives? What is the difference between power, title, and leadership? Is leadership possible without a purpose larger than personal ambition?

The blogger meets the author.

According to Goodwin, “No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others.”

In a recent interview with The History Channel, Goodwin said that leadership is elusive because one size does not fit all. “In my book, I have sought to make the concept of leadership less abstract and more practical through specific stories that can provide a guide and inspiration to show how – with ambition, self-reflection and perseverance – leadership skills can be developed and strengthened.

“Through my study of leadership these past five years, I found a family resemblance of traits and patterns of behavior – among them humility, empathy, resilience, courage; the ability to replenish energy, listen to diverse opinions, control negative impulses, connect with all manner of people, communicate through stories and keep one’s word. ... They remind us of what is needed today.”

On Abraham Lincoln, Goodwin characterized the 16th President by writing: “Confident and humble, persistent and patient, Abraham Lincoln had the ability to mediate among different factions of his party, and was able, through his gift for language, to translate the meaning of the struggle into words of matchless force, clarity and beauty.”

We should be grateful for Goodwin’s book – she offers heartening examples of leadership from the past in the hope that “we will not accept our current uncivil polarization as the norm.”

Goodwin hopes that Leadership will provide reassurance through the study and stories of “my guys,” who set forth a template of shared purpose, collaboration and compromise – “the best of our collective identity in times of trouble.”

Leadership in Turbulent Times is timely – very timely – and it’s timeless at the same time.

Super Bowl ads: Are you paying attention, Mr. President?

How did I spend my Super Bowl Sunday? Watching the big game, of course. As much as I was riveted by the exciting outcome – New England beat Atlanta, 34-28, after coming from behind to force the first overtime game in the 51-year history of the Super Bowl – I focused on the commercials, too.

This year, many ads contained politically charged messages and several TV spots highlighted hot-button themes such as immigration (Budweiser, 84 Lumber), equal pay (Audi) and inclusion (Coca-Cola). Are you paying attention, Mr. President?

Long after the game ends, collectively, we do seem to remember the commercials, especially the good ones. There were a couple of ads that resonated with me for a variety of reasons, for Coca-Cola and for Airbnb. Both aired early during Sunday evening's Super Bowl LI game broadcast.

In "It's Beautiful," Coca-Cola's message was simple: "Together is beautiful." The Atlanta-based soft drink titan scored a touchdown with its Super Bowl ad that aired just before kickoff, in which culturally diverse Americans sang a multilingual version of "America The Beautiful," in English, Hindi, Arabic and Tagalog.

The 60-second spot designed by Wieden + Kennedy debuted during the 2014 Super Bowl to mixed results and was revived during last year's Rio Olympic Games. However, given the current national conversation many Americans have been sharing about immigration and diversity, its message seemed more relevant. "It's Beautiful" featured plenty of beautiful, multicultural images depicting America as a nation of many races, many ethnicities and many religions. It promoted optimism, inclusion and humanity, themes which seem foreign to the dystopian American carnage being propagated by the Trump Administration. It was beautifully filmed and edited, and given today's political climate, "It's Beautiful" took on a certain poignance this time.

Another commercial worth applauding came from Airbnb, whose politically charged message in its "We Accept" ad spoke volumes about diversity and acceptance: "Acceptance starts with all of us." In its Super Bowl commercial, put together on short notice  – perhaps seen as a Silicon Valley response to President Trump's immigration ban – Airbnb reminded us of this simple but important message: "We believe no matter who you are, where you're from, who you love, or who you worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept." Indeed, the world is more beautiful the more #weaccept. The hashtag went viral by halftime.

Afterwards, I learned Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced that the company is aiming to provide short-term housing for 100,000 refugees, disaster survivors, and other displaced persons over the next five years. Additionally, over the next four years, Airbnb will donate $4 million to the International Rescue Committee.

"We couldn't talk about the lack of acceptance in the world without pointing out the challenges in our own community at Airbnb," the company said in a statement following the airing of its ad. "The painful truth is that guests on Airbnb have experienced discrimination, something that is the very opposite of our values. We know we have work to do and are dedicated to achieving greater acceptance in our community."

Looking back on both ads – expressions of American values I support – reminded me of this: I have many multicultural friends – thanks, Facebook – who are close and dear to me. They represent many races and ethnic backgrounds, come from many different religious faiths, and speak multiple languages. I have friends who identify with the LGBTQ community. I have friends who are biracial. I have friends who are raising biracial children and friends who are parenting transgendered children. Thus, it's important to see advertisers, representing both legacy and start-up companies, reaching out to all Americans by conveying positive messages about inclusion, diversity and acceptance. After all, there's no larger TV audience than a Super Bowl audience for spreading a good message.

Regardless of what you think, Mr. President, these ads conveyed the true spirit of our America.

Cover photo: Courtesy of Google Images. Videos: Courtesy of YouTube.

Farewell to 2016: Everyday we wrote the book

Flying over Mount Adams, Washington, en route to Seattle,
provided me this photo opportunity last Friday morning.

We are less than a week removed from the end of 2016,

which is a good thing because it was a very tough year.

We lost a lot of dear and talented people: Ali, Bowie, Wiesel, come to mind.

However, with the arrival of 2017, the first blank page of a 365-page,

year-long book that each of us will author began to be filled.

All of us start the New Year with a clean slate.

Hopefully, each of us will take the time to write a thoughtful book, 

be it a memoir or a best-selling novel,

day by day, page by page.

 With 2017 coming into clearer view, we welcome its challenges.

Remember, the words of Ecclesiastes, who said:

"The race is not to the swift,

nor the battle to the strong."

Life is to be enjoyed day by day,

 one day at a time.

Take time for reading, listen to good music,

master a hobby like photography,

talk to good friends – and listen to them, too.

Here's wishing you and your loved ones a Happy New Year.

May each of you enjoy cheers, love and peace on earth

in the New Year ahead.

I cannot live without books, either

More than 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson once said, "I cannot live without books." As one of our country's Founding Fathers, Jefferson was onto something – and today, I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment.

While I have a nice living room display and collection of books, it's become increasingly challenging to find and make good time to read books on a regular basis. Mind you, I enjoy reading – even if I have a reading list I will never finish. Every day, I spend time reading The New York Times and I keep up with the newsfeed of my Facebook. Still, I would like to spend more time with books. Doesn't matter if they are hardcover or softcover. A good book is something that's hard to put down.

Fortunately, each time I go to the gym – usually five times a week – I bring a book with me and spend 30 minutes riding a stationary bike with an open book to take my mind off of exercising. After all, it's been said, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

While reading a book is like taking a good journey, three books which I have recently read and recommend to everyone are:

Indentured / Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss
The rebellion against
the college sports cartel.

• Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA by Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss. The authors (one a columnist, the other a contributing writer for The New York Times) have long recognized that there is a widespread corruption that plagues big-time college sports. Indentured grew out of a controversial New York Times column Nocera wrote four years ago in which he asked pointblank: "How can the NCAA blithely wreck careers without regard to due process or common fairness? How can it act so ruthlessly to enforce rules that are so petty? Why won't anybody stand up to these outrageous violations of American values and American justice?"

As millions of high school seniors each year accept athletic scholarships to American colleges and universities to chase their dream of fame and fortune as "student-athletes," sports fans have finally come to realize that athletes in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball and football, "are little more than indentured servants." Their best interests are not being served by the NCAA, notes Nocera and Strauss.

They write: "For about 5 percent of top-division players, college ends with a golden ticket to the NFL or the NBA. But what about the overwhelming majority who never turn pro? They don't earn a dime from the estimated $13 billion generated annually by college sports – an ocean of cash that enriches schools, conferences, coaches, TV networks, and apparel companies ... everyone except those who give their blood and sweat to entertain the fans."

Indentured is a must read book for college sports fans – a real eye-opening drama and a good page-turner – and chapter after compelling chapter, it tells a story of a group of "rebels" – former athletes, coaches, marketers – who decided to fight for justice against the hypocrisy of the NCAA.

Saving Capitalism /
For the Many, Not the Few
By Robert B. Reich.

• Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert B. Reich is a book that's an intersection of economics and politics, "a myth-shattering breakdown of how the economic system that helped make America so strong is now failing us, and what it will take to fix it." Reich has served in three national administrations – he was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton – and currently is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economics. So, he knows his subject matter very well.

In Saving Capitalism, Reich "reveals how power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in eighty years." His writing throughout the book is both filled with passion and it's precisely argued.

Reich recalls how in the post-World II outlook, America created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. "Then, the economy generated hope. Hard work paid off, education was the means toward upward mobility, those who contributed most reaped the largest rewards, economic growth created more and better jobs, the living standards of most people improved throughout their working lives, our children would enjoy better lives than we had, and the rules of the game were basically fair," writes Reich.

He continues: "But today all these assumptions ring hollow. Confidence in the economic system has declined sharply. The apparent arbitrariness and unfairness of the economy have undermined the public's faith in its basic tenets. Cynicism abounds. To many, the economic and political systems seem rigged, the deck stacked in favor of those at the top. The threat to capitalism is no longer communism or fascism but a steady undermining of the trust modern societies need for grown and stability."

Robert Reich is one of the best economists in modern American history, according to U.S. Senator and Democratic Presidential contender Bernie Sanders. "He understands that there is something profoundly wrong when the top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. This book is a road map on how to rebuild the middle class and fix a rigged economy that has been propped up by a corrupt campaign finance system," said Sanders.

I'd Know That Voice Anywhere /
By Frank Deford
A collection of his NPR commentaries.

• I'd Know That Voice Anywhere by Frank Deford. The longtime NPR Morning Edition commentator, who is also senior contributing writer at Sports Illustrated and a senior correspondent on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, is one of America's most beloved sport commentators. Since 1980, Deford has recorded over 2,000 commentaries for NPR – "the serious, the foolish, the noble, the idiosyncratic; this game, that athletic." His latest book – his nineteenth – is a collection of literary sports commentaries that brings together a charming, insightful and wide-ranging look at athletes and the sports world.

"Being a writer, I never paid much attention to my voice," writes Deford in the forward for I'd Know That Voice Anywhere. "Since, when it came to interviewing, I was a primitive pen-and-notebook reporter, I rarely even heard myself speak on a tape recorder. ... Then, in the autumn of 1979, through impossibly serendipitous circumstances, National Public Radio approached me about doing a weekly sports commentary, and suddenly I had to direct that run-of-the-mill voice of mine into a microphone. But then, to my utter delight (shock and awe?), I soon found myself being complimented, advised that I possessed a distinct "radio voice." Where did you get that? people asked me, as if you could pick it out at an appliance store."

In I'd Know That Voice Anywhere, Deford muses everything sport from our continued love affair for Joe DiMaggio to the similarities between Babe Ruth and Winnie the Pooh. He rhapsodizes about how football reminds him of Venice, and even offers Super Bowl coverage in the form of a Shakespearian sonnet. Deford waxes poetically about the most popular sports of yesteryear such as boxing, golf and horse racing, and compares the Olympics to an independent movie comprised of foreign actors you've never heard of.

"Sports is, on the one level, mere amusement, but it is found in every culture," notes Deford, "and while it's not an absolute necessity for us, as eating and drinking and procreation are – sports is a card-carrying part of the human condition, in the same league with religion and drama and art and music. You can ignore sports, just as  you might choose not to care about other of those optional devotions, but sports does have a hefty place in our world, and I'm pleased to have been its troubadour on NPR. To voice sports may well be the next best thing to being out on the field itself, playing. And there's no risk of concussions."

A sense of space: Thoughts on where I write

In a perfect world, I would have a garden shed reminiscent of George Bernard Shaw or a Key West cottage replete with cats like Ernest Hemingway in which to creatively write and do a little divining. Instead, I have our modest-but-comfortable 1927 California-style bungalow in the hills above the flatlands of Oakland's Dimond District, which has been my home since 1999.

While having a huge chunk of time to focus on writing would be great in that perfect world, finding a good rhythm while writing -- and a sense of space -- is something that challenges me all the time.

A winning combo /
My MacBook and a mug of French roast coffee.

Surrounded by the clamor of everyday life, I do most of my writing sitting at our dining room table. It's me and my MacBook. While there may be nothing special to this space which I reconfigure each day -- after all, it's not a dedicated room but a pop-up work space -- I am surrounded by a variety of photographs, artwork and family mementos. Best of all, when I write -- often during the morning hours -- there's always room at the table for a mug of my favorite French roast coffee. And, I usually have my iPhone and the national edition of The New York Times at arm's reach.

Sometimes, when I write, it's tempting to look out the dining room window that faces the cul-de-sac and do a little curative daydreaming while also observing and absorbing the sights and sounds of the neighborhood. I love hearing the noise of chirping birds that visit the big tree outside. Drawing open the dining room curtains just a little bit allows the sun to freely shine in. It's a bonus if there's a gentle breeze, too.

I like to listen to music and create an ambient soundtrack to fit my creative space. If I'm writing on a weekday between nine and noon, chances are good I'm connected via my iPad to the "Morning Becomes Eclectic" program airing on KCRW.com.

While writing can be a sedentary experience, if I need a change of scenery, sometimes, I merely pick up my laptop and move into the living room and take up space either on the sofa facing the fireplace or plop down in my comfortable Ikea Poang chair.

At the end of the day, I pack up my MacBook and set the dining room table for dinner.

Photograph by Michael Dickens © 2014.