The Blog

Steven Weber: Making Degrade

2010-07-30T03:17:59Z

The steady erosion of American productivity and viability may not just be unfortunate happenstance or a natural socioeconomic evolution, but a premeditated, consolidated effort to reap reward from fomenting failure.

And, as an interesting bit of collateral damage, people no longer have any faith in someone or something unless there's money involved, hence the curiously adhesive qualities of the moronic quasi libertarian meme of preferring the unregulated shenanigans of the private sector over a democratically elected and regulated government. And here's where those people who have been able to free themselves from the 24-hour-a-day opiate known as The Media slap themselves in their heads and say "Sheesh!"

But as evidenced by the steady reduction of overall quality in ideals America once prided itself on (i.e., productivity, creativity, education, the democratic process) and the attendant illogic of such routine breakdowns of formerly reliable concepts (i.e., quality control, protecting the welfare of all its citizens), there is the sinking feeling that the country that was built upon the highest ideals by those whose grasp of power, history and human nature, has been subsumed by those who revile such high aims. In fact, the guys that run things now have pasted "Fire Sale" over "We the People." And they're cashing in.

The culprit is, of course, the corporate mentality, a plague that manifests in the unrelenting consumption of disposable goods and useless services to maximize profit at the expense of people.

Like the icons she worships, like the plastic personalities digitally downloaded into our daily feeds, America's overriding principle is no longer one of thrift, service and civility but an obsession with things wasteful and divisive. That's our latest and greatest export.

Just because it sometimes feels good to scratch a mosquito bite until it bleeds, let's take Sarah Palin, for instance. The self-styled Mama Grizzly is actually the embodiment of the current fetish for failure, a bespectacled avatar of the mediocre intelligence and misguided ambition that is the hallmark of today's American idol.

While never having been in possession of basic leadership skills, let alone insight into the classic workings of democracy and the awesome responsibility such knowledge should impart, she is instead a facade from a corporate costume shop. Strutting her secondary sexual characteristics and bleating whatever shallow Republican talking point flashes across her staff's iPads, she nonetheless continues to be a leader of the gormless mass who raise fists and rail against that black guy in office and/or anything else she tells them to.

Then there is Jabber the Hate himself, Rush Limbaugh. The undisputed king of caustic right wing vitriol has made it his mission to destroy, divide, delude, and in so doing drive his profits through the roof of what must be a mammoth McMansion, proportionate in volume to his gargantuan ego.

And then there's that confounding blight, which is the so-called Tea Party, the latest Sam's Club clumping of the angry-for-whatever-reason volkische who seek only quick fixes to simplistically labeled problems, loathe their villains and embrace their heroes no matter how inane or discredited their reasoning. Deprived of a decent education and livelihood by the very forces with which they are aligned, they among all other obstacles to progress remain the most frustrating to observe, as the power to effect positive change is in their hands. It's their minds which have been highjacked.

And somewhere in this mishegoss, someone is making a shitload of dosh.

And guess what -- they're right in front of you exhorting you to fear immigrants, hate government, love Big Oil, hate the poor, fear the president and on and on. The right wing loves to court the least informed and most in pain. Because that's how they make their money. They've created a mass of Yokelsteins.

Don't get me wrong: Americans -- be angry! Assemble in the town squares! Take your representatives to task!

But while you're at it, read a book. Or two. Thumb through a reputable newspaper. Go to Europe. Have a conversation with someone from a feared and despised culture. Avail yourselves of the many sources and perspectives out there on the internet, hovering like fruit just waiting to be picked.

Discover agendas. Suss out key investors in places that insist they are trustworthy (*cough* Saudi Arabia and Fox News *cough, cough*). Realize that things are not as fair and balanced as the talking heads are telling you they are.

And then maybe we can get back to some kind of reason and stability. As history has shown repeatedly in the lifespans of many an empire, our days as the greatest superpower on Earth may be waning, and those who revel in the pride that defined our greatest, boldest days might not be willing to relax their desperate grip on such a regrettable reality.

But given the preponderance of proof that the powers that be are making moolah from mass misery, we must not forsake our opportunity to reclaim some civility, dignity and sense, three things that those corporate fascisto-capitalist dickheads who are stoking cynicism and despair for fun and profit detest.

Bad for business, you see.

Alex Pasternack: Is Facebook Shortening Our Lives?

2010-07-29T22:33:34Z

Forget about the alarmism over what Facebook is doing to old ideas of privacy, or to our free time, or to our relationship with advertising. What does it mean for the social connections that help us live long lives?

The argument is well rehearsed: as much as we connect online, we’re actually spending less time together, and this could be bad for us.

A study released this week in PLoS Medicine reinforces a connection researchers have long suggested: strong social relationships are linked with better health. There are several possible reasons for this. People with strong family and social ties may be more active, more likely to seek medical care and have lower stress. We know from research by people like Nicholas Christakis that our social networks can influence our own weight; it’s suspected that maintaining strong bonds in general keeps us happier, more active, more subject to the concern of others.

To be sure, the study focused on real-life relationships, not the sort of social networks that form on Facebook. Christakis and other researchers have argued that Facebook does help reinforce social bonds, allowing us to see our commonalities more easily and initiate more frequent contact. But while Facebook may be a mirror of real-life relationships, it should be clear to anyone who has interacted with friends or so-called friends on Facebook that the content of those interactions are different from real-life ones.

They seem to make us feel differently. An informal survey earlier this year showed that 40 percent of respondents said catching up with their loved ones after work was the happiest time of their day, while more than 20 percent said they were happiest when eating with their families. By contrast, only 5 percent said they were happiest when connecting with friends online, and even fewer – 2 percent – said the first text message of the day made them joyful.

Contrary to those findings, talking to people online can be exhilarating, fun and comforting. But does that lead to more face-to-face interaction, of the sort that has been shown to make us healthier? That’s inconclusive, researchers say. We can’t be sure how face-to-face interaction is changing, or if we’re getting more or less of it (common sense would say that more time in front of a computer means less time being active in the real world).

We do know that we’re interacting online more than ever. So does that automatically mean we’re more social, in the healthy sense of the word?

Of course, the nuanced meaning of being “social” online versus in real life may have disappeared into the black hole that also sucked up the nuances of the words “friend” and “like.” Search for “Facebook” in much of today’s coverage on the study, and the only mention you’ll find is at the end of articles, where we are implored to “like” the article on Facebook.

There is however this misleading headline at the Atlantic about the study, which claims that Facebook could increase your lifespan.

Also, you could get a free iPad.

Exclusive from Motherboard.tv. Read more about Facebook at Motherboard.

Katherine V.W. Stone: Banks, Babies and Biases

2010-07-29T21:24:40Z

Twenty years ago, banks had a reputation for being very conservative. Then came the high flying world of casino banking, with its high roller, risk-embracing culture. Beneath it all, though, the core of the banking industry mentality is deeply conservative -- not the good kind of conservative that makes sure that loans are collateralized and deposits are protected. Rather, it is a conservative mentality produced by an out-of-date understanding of the world in which the loans -- particulary mortgage loans -- operate. And that misunderstanding will continue to spell trouble for all of us.

Here is one telling case in point. In their new efforts to be cautious, banks and other mortgage-lenders are reportedly refusing to give loans to pregnant women. (Tara Siegal Bernard, Need a Mortgage? Don't Get Pregnant, New York Times, July 20, 2010) The refusals are based on the lenders' fear that pregnant women may decide not to return to work, or may not have a job to return to, after childbirth. What this policy reveals is not that the banks are sexist or family-hostile -- which they are -- but that they are about seriously of touch with the reality of the labor market. When was the last time any applicant for a thirty year mortgage had the same job, and income, for thirty years? Fixed-rate, self-amortizing mortgages were designed for a workplace in which workers stayed with their employers for their entire careers. These types of mortgages arose in the 1930 and 1940s, a time when employers wanted workers to stay with them a long time so they could develop loyalty, learn in-house skills and progress gradually up an orderly job ladder until retirement.

Long-term mortgages assume that borrowers have reliable and long-term employment relationships. For much of the 20th century, this was true, much of the time. America's great post-war middle class was comprised of blue-collar workers who enjoyed long-term, stable jobs and predictable promotion paths that extended from hiring to retiring. Auto companies, insurance companies, the steel industry, and other industries dominated by large firms offered their workers de facto job security, orderly promotion opportunities, a rising wage trajectory, dependable benefits and a reliable pension upon retirement. Such jobs were by no means universal -- they eluded most African Americans, women, and rural Americans -- but they formed the template upon which 20th-century social policy was built.

Over the past two decades, the reality of long-term stable employment has vanished for all but a lucky few. Employers have created new types of employment arrangements that do not rely on a stable and loyal workforce, but which provide them flexibility instead. Sometimes this means using temporary workers or independent contractors to perform tasks previously performed by regular employees. But more frequently it means altering employees expectations and repudiating the culture of permanency that employers used to foster. Employers want to be able to bring in new employees with new skills at any level, eliminate those with obsolete skills, and reassign incumbent employees across departmental and functional lines. These changes are not all nefarious -- they have unleashed creativity and enabled many to escape the deadening drone of dull, repetitive work. However, the change in the nature of employment has undermined many crucial elements of our social safety net, including our housing policy.

The problem now is that few people have the kind of long-term job security that our housing policies take for granted. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median length of time a worker spends with a particular employer has decreased in every age group since 1980, except for women ages 35-44, who saw a slight increase. Today, more and more people have an episodic experience in the labor market, moving from employer to employer, with periods of employment often followed by periods of unemployment and transition. When unemployment strikes, mortgage payments that once had been manageable become impossible.

So banks that refuse loans to pregnant women for fear that childbirth will disrupt the employment relationship are worrying about the wrong problem. Almost no one has safe, reliable employment these days. All workers are at risk of termination and seeing their jobs outsourced to temporary workers, independent contractors, or simply to new blood. The answer is not to single out one group whose employment relationship is precarious -- nearly everyone's is. Instead, banks and other lending institutions need to rethink their lending practices to meet the new reality of people's work life cycles. For example, they should redesign mortgages to have flexible resets that permit mortgage holidays or interest rate dips during spells of unemployment. Some commercial loans currently have this feature for businesses that are in temporary difficulties. Because the nature of employment has changed profoundly, it is time to revisit the structure of housing finance.

Katherine V.W. Stone is the Arjay and Frances Miller Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. She specializes in labor and employment law, and her book, From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace was awarded the Michael Harrington Award for linking scholarship to current issues of social policy.

Aaron E. Carroll: It's the 'Life' in End-of-Life That Matters

2010-07-29T21:17:17Z

Go back through nearly a year of posts, and I bet you won't find many that talk about my experiences with patients. You might not even know I am a doctor. You'd never know that I am actually a pediatrician, and that I do still see patients now and then. I don't talk about my clinical experience much with friends, or even family.

And even when I sit and think about being a doctor, I don't think about the last seven years of being a faculty member here at IU. I don't think of clinic when I was a fellow before that. When I think about being a doctor, I almost always go back to residency.

Look, I know many physicians who love caring for patients. I even know those who remember fondly their days as residents, being in the trenches and completely immersed in clinical care. I was not one of those people. I hated residency. It really didn't agree with me. Ask my wife; for that matter, ask any of my friends. It was obvious to anyone who spent any time with me.

I didn't hate residency because of the hours, although they were terrible. I didn't hate the pay. I didn't hate being overworked or underappreciated. I didn't hate patients or the people I worked with. I hated the system. More specifically, I hated being a doctor in the system.

I just finished Atul Gawande's latest masterpiece. I am rarely so jealous of anyone as I am of him and his skill right now. He brought it all back for me. I can tell you many horror stories of those three years in Seattle. But ask me to rank the top few, and this one inevitably comes to the top:

I was on a rotation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where babies who are born prematurely or really sick are cared for. A couple came in with a midwife after a way-too-long and rather botched attempt at a home delivery. As soon as they arrived, we knew things were not going to go well. The baby was born in extreme distress. It appeared to be septic, or massively infected. Initial vital signs looked really bad. And then things got worse.

One by one, the baby's systems seemed to shut down. He couldn't breathe on his own, so we put in a breathing tube. Then his heart started to fail, so we put lines into his umbilical cord to pump in medications. His lungs collapsed, so we put in tubes into his chest to help them reinflate.

While another doctor and I struggled to keep all this going, I listened as, right behind me, the doctors in charge sounded downright optimistic to the parents, who were, understandably, a mess. They could not imagine how things had gone wrong so fast. They wanted to hear good news. No one seemed to be able to tell them the truth. They were given messages of hope, and they told us to do everything. That's what we do in medicine. That's especially what we do in the NICU.

They left to go home and get clothes and supplies. Everyone dispersed.

So I was alone with this baby. It was small and blueish and had an ungodly number of devices and tubes coming out of it. I was 26, depressed, and I started to cry.

The baby never moved. His heart would slow down, and I'd up his meds. His heart rate would come back up until it didn't, and then it would drop again. So I upped the meds some more. I don't know how long this went on. I didn't eat, I didn't go to the bathroom, I didn't talk to anyone. I just stood and watched.

Eventually, the ventilator stopped getting the job done, so we had to put the baby on an oscillator. Basically, instead of giving normal breaths, this machine shoves tiny amounts of air in and out really fast. It sometimes works when other things fail. It was loud, noisy, and made the baby shake. I don't think he noticed.

Things slowly got worse. Nothing was working, and every vital sign was heading downwards. As instructed, I just kept adding stuff to keep him alive. But deep down inside, I started to think that what I was doing was wrong. Not incorrect -- wrong. I wondered if I was hurting the baby. I just wanted him to be at peace. And, for a moment, I wanted the baby to die.

I don't like to think about it. I try not to. Ever. But it happened.

Not long after, nothing I was doing was working. I called in the doctors in charge, and they agreed. They asked where the parents were. It suddenly dawned on me that they hadn't yet returned. We called them, and they were shocked to hear how bad things were. After all, those same doctors had told them things were going to be OK.

They rushed back as fast as they could. They didn't make it in time.

I thought I would post a piece of Gawande's article and talk about how we completely screw up end-of-life care. I thought I would make a comment about how we spend too much money or waste resources. I thought I would talk about tradeoffs and better choices. But I can't. Partly because I can't do his work justice, and partly because this is an issue where deep down inside I think we are doing a ton of harm. Full stop.

I went home that night and bawled uncontrollably. This kind of thing happened all too often. I toyed with the idea of getting out. I even prepared some resumes to send off to companies outside of medicine.

But, some time later, I found myself back in the NICU. A similar situation was occurring. This time, though, the doctor in charge handled everything differently. She spoke to the patients honestly and in a completely different tone. She asked the parents what they wanted out of the short time they might have with their baby.

They cried at first, but then they stopped. They cleaned the baby up and dressed him in clothes his grandparents had bought. And they took him out.

They were gone for a few hours, and then they came back. They allowed us to give the baby drugs to comfort him. They held him, as a family, as he quietly passed.

I remember quite clearly his sister was in the room. She was about six. I asked her how they had spent the day. She told me how they had taken the baby to the park to see the water. They had brought him to family members so everyone could hold him. They showed him the sun and let him lay in the grass and let a dog lick his face. Her mother was listening in at the end, and somehow smiling.

Some months later, I ran into the mother in a different part of the hospital. She remembered me, and thanked me for all I had done. I remarked that I hadn't done much; they had cared for the baby.

"No," she replied. "Without all of you, he never would have known what chocolate ice cream tastes like."

I spent four years in medical school learning how the body works, how it can break down, and how to repair it. I spent three more learning how to give the right drugs and do the right procedures to fight illness. And in all the time I've been a doctor, I honestly don't know if I've ever done any more good than helping to stop the system so that baby, and that family, could share some ice cream.

I have a hard time explaining what I do to people. I'm not trying to discover a drug or cure a disease. I want to fix the system. That's how I found peace. That's how I practice medicine.

That's why I'm a health services researcher.

Aaron blogs (mostly) about health care policy at Rational Arguments.

Dennis A. Henigan: Dr. King and the "Guys With the Guns" at the NRA

2010-07-29T20:43:20Z

We now know that the National Rifle Association will be joining Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin for Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th Anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Is it possible to imagine a greater offense to the legacy of Dr. King?

The NRA, the leading purveyor of the noxious notion that guns are legitimate tools of political dissent, will be standing in the historic shadow of Dr. King, the apostle of non-violent protest. Dr. King resisted calls to violence from within the civil rights movement with these words: "There is more power in socially organized masses on the march than there is in guns in the hands of a few desperate men. Our enemies would prefer to deal with a small armed group rather than with a huge, unarmed but resolute mass of people...." As history shows, the civil rights movement touched the moral conscience of our Nation, and ended the Jim Crow era, by pursuing Dr. King's path of peaceful sit-ins and marches, rather than resisting Bull Connor's water hoses with bullets.

What would Dr. King have thought of the wild cheers that greeted the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, when he said this at last year's Conservative Political Action Conference: "Freedom is nothing but dust in the wind till it's guarded by the blue steel and dry powder of a free and armed people . . . Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules." The idea, long promoted by the NRA, that the Second Amendment is really about ensuring the threat of violence against the government as a legitimate strategy to achieve political change, is now an anthem of the Far Right. As Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate nominated by the Republicans to run for Harry Reid's Nevada Senate seat, put it recently, "If Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies." In other words, if the Right cannot change the direction of the country through peaceful discussion and dissent, it will be time for the "guys with the guns" to "make the rules." We have seen the words of political intimidation translate into action, as guns have been openly brandished at Tea Party events and town hall meetings.

What irony could be more cruel than the NRA's presence on the steps of the Memorial to President Lincoln, on the Anniversary of Dr. King's speech, a stark reminder that both these American icons were struck down by gunfire in acts of political violence? John Wilkes Booth and James Earl Ray were "guys with the guns" who sought to change the direction of our country through armed force. We need no more powerful demonstration of the horror that can be too easily justified by the insurrectionist ideas of the NRA and its Tea Party friends. And what could be uglier than the planned appearance of guitarist Ted Nugent, an NRA Board Member, who once said that "apartheid isn't that cut and dry," because "all men are not created equal"?

The "Restoring Honor" rally is being sold as an entirely "non-political" event that simply will pay tribute "to America's service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honor." But the ideological agenda is barely concealed. "Help us restore the values that founded this great nation," says Beck's promotional material. What values have been lost that must be restored? Who lost them? How should we restore them? The theme of "lost values that must be restored" is indistinguishable from the Tea Party demand, "We want our country back!" The NRA's presence is an implicit statement that if our values cannot be restored throughout peaceful dissent, the "guys with the guns" will be there to restore them through other means.

In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. King said this: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence." The appearance of the NRA at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28 shows a shameful contempt for Dr. King's memory and the principles of non-violent protest for which he lived, and died.

We must have faith that Dr. King's legacy will remain strong enough to ensure that the guys with the guns do not make the rules.

For more information, see Dennis Henigan's Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009)

Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn: How to Grill Great Steakhouse Steaks

2010-07-29T20:09:51Z

You can read more reports from Meathead's grill deck at AmazingRibs.com

"The secret of a great meal ain't what's on the table. It's what's on the chairs." Meathead

Steaks are easy. Hard to mess up. Unless you overcook them. But you use a good digital instant read thermometer so you never ruin expensive steaks, don't you? Regardless of what cut of steak you cook, there are some basic tips and techniques that can raise your game, and when you master them, you will have your guests reeling in deliria.

The cuts

The prime steakhouses, like my fave, David Burke's Primehouse in Chicago (that's Chef Rick Gresh at right), specialize in the best cuts which all come from the rib and loin area, along the back of the cow, the most tender, most flavorful steaks on the steer. They are also the most expensive: Ribeyes, porterhouses, T-bones, strip steaks, and cuts from the tenderloin. You can make darn tasty meals from the sirloin, round, flank, and chuck, but they are just not not as tender. Most serious steak students agree that the ribeye is the best all round cut for flavor and tenderness combined. A lot of folks like meat from the tenderloin like chateaubriand and filet mignon because they are the more tender, but, because they are also leaner than ribeyes, filets don't have the flavor fat brings to the party. Read this to learn more about The Zen of Beef Cuts.

The grades

A note to vegans

This article is NOT about the merits about eating meat. If you would like to debate that, Huffington Post has a lively ongoing discussion on the subject, just click here. Moderators will delete all comments on the subject and flag you as abusive under these terms of Huffington Post policy:
(1) Your comments are off-topic
(2) They are intended to provoke.

Notice I refer to the best steakhouses as prime steakhouses. Prime is the top grade of meat and you won't find it in discount steakhouses in mall parking lots or in your grocery. Prime beef is selected because it has a lot of marbling, thin hairline grains of fat that weave weblike through the fibers of protein. You can see it. Most of it goes to restaurants.

Some steakhouses also serve aged meat, another commodity that is not readily available to we peons. For more about prime meat and the other grades of beef that a good backyard cook needs to know, read my article on The Zen of Beef Grades & Labels.

You can get prime meat, and aged meat, for cooking at home, just like restaurants. But you have to look for it. Only specialty butchers have it. If you can't find it in stores, order it online. I'm a fan of the meats sold by Allen Brothers in Chicago. I've toured their plant and it is very very impressive. The suppliers are top notch, the meat is fresh, beautiful, it is stored properly, the plant is highly organized and clean, and the trimmers are very skilled. Their packing and shipping operation is impressive.

If you can't get prime, the next grade is choice, and choice is common in grocery stores. But not all choice is the same. Don't just grab any old steak from the meat counter. Ask you butcher for help. Many supermarkets have a butcher in the back. Go in early on a weekday, and ask for the head butcher. Get to know him or her (many of them are women nowadays). Explain you have a special dinner and you want the best looking cuts they can find. They will often be pleased to look in the back room for a particularly nice piece of meat and custom cut exactly what you want. If you can give them a week advanced warning they have more meat to choose from. Tell them you want "bone-in ribeyes, from the center of the roast, with the most marbling they can find, at least 1.5" thick, and please try to make all steaks about the same thickness." You'll be pleased with what you get.

Plan on 3/4 to 1 pound per adult for bone-in steak and 1/2 pound per adult for boneless steak. If there are leftovers they can go home with guests or make an appearance on a sandwich or salad the next night.

Don't be swayed by the ads for Certified Angus Beef (CAB). I am not convinced it is worth the extra price. There is no doubt that Angus breeds produce superior meat, but the regulations of the CAB association allow the Angus breed to be so genetically diluted beef that it is meaningless in my mind. To me, this label is mostly a marketing ploy and not a brand of quality.

The thickness

The cuts they sell at prime steakhouses are usually 1.5" to 2" thick. This allows them to sear the exterior as dark as possible, a chemical transformation, called the Maillard reaction, that develops complex flavors and makes steaks crisp while leaving the interior red to pink. Skinny steaks are well done inside by the time the exterior is seared properly. If you have someone who likes their steaks medium or well done, use a thinner steak so you don't burn the exterior.

Prep

Trim off excess hunks of fat down to about 1/8" thick. Too much fat can melt and cause flareups. Those flames can deposit soot on the meat and char the surface. Research has indicated that charred black carbonized meat can be a carcinogen. Besides, it tastes bad.

Some prime steakhouses have a secret mix of herbs and spices they season the meat with, the most famous being Lawry's Seasoned Salt. But most primehouses use only salt and pepper, and some use only salt. None of them marinate. Why? The seasonings sit on the surface, and at the scorching temps they cook at incinerates expensive seasonings, even pepper. The remnants can have more bitterness than flavor. Marinades mask the steak's natural flavors, they don't penetrate very far, they don't tenderize much, and if the meat's surface is wet they form steam and prevents crust formation. Click here to read more about how marinades do, and don't, work.

Dry brining

Unless your doctor forbids you from using salt, use it. It really brings out the flavors. Salt is an amplifier. It is also an annihilator. Adding the right amount will amplify the meats flavor. Add too much and it will make it inedible. It also holds in the moisture and denatures the proteins making the meat more tender and juicy.

Brining is a method of adding moisture and salt by soaking meat in salty water. But too much water can bloat a steak and dilute its beefiness. So here's a technique popularized by Chef Judy Rodgers of San Francisco's famous Zuni Cafe. Let's call it dry brining. It is illustrated in the photos of a boneless ribeye, at right.

1) Take the meat out of the fridge about an hour before cooking and pat it thoroughly dry with a paper towel. Sprinkle salt on the meat and let it come to room temp.

2) The salt draws out moisture which dissolves the salt. See how the meat has become shiny with moisture?

3) The meat reabsorbs the moisture bringing the salt in with it. Notice how the color of the fat at right has changed where the salt has soaked in.

4) Letting it sit at room temp allows enzymes to activate and they also tenderize the meat. Don't worry, this is safe. Any microbes on the steak will be killed within 10 seconds of hitting the grill.

Just before cooking, pat the meat dry with a paper towel. Moisture on the surface just cools the meat, creates steam, and slows searing. Coat it with a thin layer of vegetable oil. Oiling the meat is better than oiling the grates. When you oil grates it vaporizes almost instantly and can create an acrid smell. When oiled meat hits the grill, the oil will heat up quickly and transmit that heat. It will slightly fry the surface and help create crust.

Cooking method

Most prime steakhouses broil their meat with open flames from above, not below, fueled by gas, not charcoal or wood, and they can hit temps from 800 to 1000F. To the right, you'll see the broiler at my favorite steakhouse, David Burke's Primehouse in Chicago. They have a talented team, a purebred Angus bull in Kentucky who sires all their meat, and a impressive aging locker lined with what they say are 800 year old salt blocks from the Himalayas.

At prime steakhouses, meat sits on grates that allow them to raise and lower it if they want it closer or further from the flame. There are a few that use grills with flames from below, and still even fewer that use charcoal. Most don't like fire from below because flareups from dripping fat that can burn the meat.

I want all of you charcoal diehards who swear that you cannot grill with gas to note that almost all prime steakhouses broil from above at very high temps with gas, so clearly the secret of searing great steaks is the temp not the tool. The lesson is, if you can get a gas grill hot enough, you can sear steaks just as well with charcoal. Problem is, most gas grills cannot reach charcoal temps. And that's why I cook all my steaks over charcoal. Below is a ribeye on my good ol' Weber Kettle charcoal grill. That is the color of a perfect sear with just a little char on the fat. Read my article on charcoal vs. gas.

Here's how to cook your steaks: Set up your grill for 2-zone cooking. On a charcoal grill, get a whole chimney, about 100 briquets, fully hot, covered in white ash, and push them all to one side. On my Weber Kettle I have even been known to put bricks in the bottom and raise the grates to within an inch or two of the top grate. I also use the Hovergrill that I got when I bought my Smokenator to hold the coals. If you can't raise the coals, use more coals than you usually use.

On a gas grill, use your sear burner (a.k.a. infrared burner) if you have one. If not, you should consider buying GrillGrates. These replace your grates and amplify the heat. You want to get your grill as hot as possible so preheat it longer than usual with the lid down. You might even be able to remove your grates and lower them to sit right on top of the flavor bars or deflectors that protect your burners. Heat dissipates rapidly, so the closer you get to the source, the better. Then set up a 2-zone system by turning off at least one burner.

If you have a pellet grill, consider buying a cheap hibachi or even a disposable charcoal grill. You pellet burner just can't generate the heat for a uniform nutty brown sear. It might give you good grill marks, but the rest of the surface should be the same color as the grill marks. I can cook better steaks on a $30 hibachi than I do on my $2,500 pellet grill.

Once the grill is as hot as it can get, scrub the carbon and grease from the grates. Dirty grates can give the meat a funny flavor, and clean grates will transmit more heat to the meat. Use a good wire brush or grate cleaner. In a pinch, a wad of crinkled aluminum foil will do a good job. Place the steaks over the hottest part of your grill and stand by your grill! Do not wander off and chat up your guests or check your email. Things will move quickly and you need to be ready to react.

For steaks 1.5" thick or thicker, close the lid so it will sear from below while heat from above will help roast the center. Closing the lid will also help prevent flareups. But just in case, keep a squirt gun of water on hand to fight flareups, but be careful not to cool off the fire and create a lot of steam. You want the darkest brown possible but you don't want black meat. If a little of the edge fat blackens, that's OK, but don't blacken the protein. You get optimal flavor when fat is almost, but not quite, charred black. Click here to learn more about two different methods for searing steaks.

The vineyard method

When visiting wineries in Bordeaux, the French region that makes wine perfectly designed for steaks, I saw a cooking method that blew me away.

Every winter vineyard owners prune most of the new branches, called canes, off the vines. They then have huge piles of grapevine wood, rarely thicker than a pencil.

During the fall harvest season they will take a big stack of dried canes, and set them on fire. They quickly burn down to a glowing mound, and the workers will grill meats over the embers. The flavor is exquisite. The French call this method sarment (pronounced sar-MO), and the Spanish call it sarmiento.

Here in Illinois grapevines abound wild in the woods and grow on fences along the roadside. I even planted a Himrod few table grapes (the best I have ever tasted) and I save the prunings. Each year I get enough wood for four to five cooks.

I crumple two sheets of newspaper and put it in the bottom of my Weber Kettle. Then I stuff as many dried vine prunings as I can fit on top of the paper, all the way to the top of the kettle. On goes the top grate. I light the paper from below, and the whole thing goes poof in a few minutes with 5' flames. VERY impressive. Within a few minutes I have glowing white hot embers. I wait until I can no longer see yellow flame. For some reason this makes the meat slightly bitter. Then I scrape the top grate, on goes the meat, usually about 3/4" thick, lid is off, turn in 3 to 4 minutes, and it's done in another 3 to 4 minutes. The burning fruitwood creates temps in the 1000F range and gives it a fine flavor. I've also done this successfully with cherry tree twigs.

Wait about three minutes. The meat may stick at first, but it will release as it browns. You can flip the steak as often as you want. I know you have read not to do this, but flipping is a subject of much debate among steakheads. One theory is that the juices migrate to the cool side, and flipping keeps them evenly distributed. Another theory holds that flipping replicates the action of a rotisserie, a system that works well because a side is hot, then cool, then hot, then cool, etc. Another theory holds that if you flip the top side gets wet from juices and that prevents browning and softens the surface. Me? I flip once. I wait til one side is perfectly dark mahogany brown, about 5 minutes into the cook on a very hot charcoal Weber Kettle. Then I flip with tongs, not a fork. Don't poke any holes in your steaks and lose valuable juices.

By the way, those juices are myoglobin, a protein liquid found in the muscles, and they are not blood. The blood is drained during slaughter. Tell that to your squeamish teenagers.

The second side will take less time. I start checking the interior temp with a very thin probe very fast thermocouple thermometer. Wear an oven mit and insert the probe into the thickest part away from the fat and the bone. Push it most of the way through and slowly back it out and note the lowest temp.

Why should you keep the probe away from the bone? Muscle and bone are very different composition. Muscle is mostly water. Bone has a hard, dense, outer shell, and the center, can be gelatinous or a honeycomb of mostly air. When you begin to cook meat with bone, the muscle and bone heat at different rates. At first the bone does not heat up as rapidly as the meat, but then, when the bone gets hot, it can get hotter than the muscle. So if you take the temp close to the bone or touching the bone at the beginning of a cook, the temp will be lower than the center of the muscle mass because the bone is acting like an insulator. If you take the temp near or touching the bone, the reading will be higher.

I remove the meat when the lowest temp is about 125F even if the other side is not perfectly seared. The temp will rise a few degrees after you remove it, a process called carryover. If the sear is perfect and the interior is still too cold, I slide the meat over to the indirect side and close the lid for a few minutes.

For steaks thinner than 1.5" cook with the lid off. That keeps the top of the meat cool and prevents it from overcooking in the center. Get a good sear on one side, and if the other side isn't seared, well one good sear is better than two mediocre sears.

Doneness

Prime steakhouses know that beef is most tender, flavorful, and juicy when cooked to rare or medium rare, from red to pink, from 125 to 135F. Click here for a chart of steak doneness. Any lower and it is almost raw. It is chewy, stringy, the fats and collagens haven't melted yet, and the flavors haven't begun to develop. Any warmer and the proteins begin to knot up, the juices are squeezed out and evaporate, and things get tough and stringy.

A prime steakhouse will serve you a well-done steak if you order it, but they'll think you're a rube. One chef I know in NY confessed to me that when people order well-done meat, they use choice cuts, not prime. Illegal, he knew, but justified, he believed. He considered it a bigger crime to cook aged prime well done.

The pros who cook hundreds of identical steaks a day can tell the center temp by look and feel. I cannot. Some books tell you you can compare the springiness of the meat to the flesh in you palm, or the flesh between your thumb and forefinger, or the tip of your nose. This is absurd. Every hand, nose, and steak is different.

One method that works fairly well is watching for juices pooling on the surface as in the picture at right. That seems to happen at about 125F, but it is not a perfectly reliable gauge. I rely on a high quality digital instant read thermometer with a thin probe like the Thermoworks Thermapen. Yes, I know that's not macho, but I hate serving expensive meat that is overcooked. I just do not trust my sense of sight and touch. If you don't have a good thermometer, you can make a small cut in the meat to see the color, but beware, the color will be a bit lighter than after it has been exposed to air for a few minutes, so it will look more cooked. Err on the side of undercooking, you can always put a steak back on the grill, but if it is overcooked, you cannot bring it back to life.

Resting

When steaks cook, the heat inside builds and pressure plumps the meat. Juices move away from the hot side and try to escape. If you cut into a steak right off the grill, juices will come gushing out. Prime steakhouses let the meat rest at least 5 minutes to allow pressure to go down and for the juices to distribute themselves. I put the steaks on a wire rack or the clean grates of a cold grill to rest. If you put them on a plate the bottom will get soggy.

Serve simple

Prime steakhouses like to let the meat speak for itself. You don't see prime steakhouses putting A1 on the table, and if you ask for it, listen for cursing in the kitchen.

Some steakhouses like to place a daub of butter on the surface to add unctuousness, sometimes it is even an herbed butter. At David Burke's Primehouse, Che Gresh keeps a cup of "beef love", melted beef fat trimmed from his aged steaks, next to his grill. He paints the steaks with it before they go into the dining room.

If you absolutely have to dress up your steaks, try to keep it simple. My rich red wine sauce is a classic, as is horseradish cream sauce, but I prefer to save them for leaner cuts like flank steak or sirloin. I have a Japanese friend who served me a great steak with tangy green wasabi paste, the horseradish-like root. I liked it a lot, but it did mask the natural goodness of the meat. In Argentina, herbaceous chimichurri sauce is everywhere. Caramelized onions, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, grilled red peppers, are also popular, garnishes.

Some prime steakhouses, like my NY fave, Peter Luger in Brooklyn, cuts the meat off the porterhouse, slices the strip thin across the grain, and then reassembles the whole thing on the platter. This is also a nice approach if you have huge steaks and one person cannot eat a whole steak.

Accompaniments

Let the steak be the center of the show. Meat and potatoes are unbeatable, although rice is nice and couscous is cool. Try my really simple Warm French Potato Salad. Keep the veggies simple, like my Crunchy French Green Beans, or, since the grill is primed and ready, go for Grilled Asparagus.

Two things I insist on with my steaks: A big red wine and good friends.

Tell me how you like your steaks and what you serve with them.

All text and photos are Copyright (c) 2010 By Meathead, and all rights are reserved

For more of Meathead's writing, photos, and recipes, please visit his website AmazingRibs.com

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Martin Maidenberg: Dating or Data Entry?

2010-07-29T20:04:37Z

Dating at 40-something. I never thought I would be here, but after the demise of two long-term relationships over the past 20 years I now found myself struggling to make my way through the dating world, once again. In actuality, I find dating to bring out more or less the same anxiety I felt in my 20s but, as many friends have explained to me, there are many more options at my disposal. Options that take away the uncertainty of blind dates or cold set ups and make it that much easier to find those who share your interests and passions. How much more simple could it be? And so, with a new focus toward taking advantage of all the perks the modern world, I signed up for an online dating service and began my new journey to romance in 2010.

My first step seemed easy enough: fill out a personal profile. How liberating it felt to be able to list all of my best qualities without being interrupted by someone else's irritating questions. Finally, a chance to enumerate what was great about me without having to bother with mentioning any of my pesky idiosyncrasies that people sometimes like to focus on. Wow. This was going so well. I was already imagining nights by the fire, cuddling up to Friday Night Lights with a glass of Rose and my new, as yet unnamed loved one. This whole profile thing was saving an enormous amount of time and effort -- I no longer had to worry about weeding though people who wouldn't appreciate the "real" me. Who has the time for that? In this age of immediacy, don't worry -- you can just read all about me in my handy-dandy, easy-to-read profile?

When I dated back in my 20s, I can't begin to describe the panic that used to set in as my dates looked to me with a flourish of disbelief and confusion when I asked them to tell me about themselves. The profile eliminates the need for those conversations and so, when we actually do connect with someone online, we are free to start imagining scenarios involving a storybook romance unfolding in front of our eyes before we even get to our shrimp cocktail appetizers.

But, when we physically meet, despite all of our pre-fabricated fantasies of spiritual retreats in India or long kayaking trips down the Ganges, reality sets in. The truth is that, through our profiles, we essentially become lists -- checklists of what we think might play well when presenting ourselves to others. In turn, we wind up writing things that are more a manifestation of what we hope for our lives to be, what we want to be capable of achieving, as opposed to the realities of life as we live it. And, by trying to "connect" in such an abbreviated way, we actually shortchange ourselves by diminishing our uniqueness, our originality, and we ultimately become caricatures of ourselves.

On the surface, online dating might seem like some modern cure-all for all our dating woes -- eliminating the uncertainty of meeting someone for the first time. What ultimately transpires though is that we erase what gives our lives texture and meaning. Without mention of our blemishes and imperfections we're left with these imagined versions of ourselves and when we come under scrutiny there is nothing left but to be disappointed in what we see -- both in ourselves and in others.

What I've come to accept in my dating life is that, despite the shortcuts to happiness readily available to me, I miss the unknown. I miss those nervous butterflies in my stomach on a first date that portends either the beginning of a new adventure or a train wreck that is about to follow. For me, online dating actually takes the romance out of dating. It becomes more of a business transaction or mathematical equation, leaving us to calculate our assets and forgo our liabilities, all in the name of being more "real" and "honest." In that process we lose a part of ourselves and we lose a part of romance.

In my online profile, Marty loves to take long walks on the beach, swim with dolphins and cuddle in front of the fire. The real Marty, however, lives in Manhattan, far from any accessible beach. He has an incinerator instead of a fireplace and he sometimes tries in vain to balance his life as a man in his mid-forties, struggling with work, relationships, school, family and friends. It's not always pretty and it's not always something to brag about but frankly, the real Marty sounds much more interesting to me, complexities and all. Maybe there's someone who wants to grab a cup of coffee with him?

Stephen Schlesinger: Capturing the Birth of the UN on Film

2010-07-29T19:40:13Z

Why has the story of the UN's founding never made it into the cinematic arena? The story of the UN's creation is an extraordinarily dramatic tale that would surely rivet people if they could view how the great leaders of the 1940s -- Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, Stalin -- and their talented diplomats put it all together in the Spring of 1945 following the tragedies of two terrible world wars. Such a film should especially interest Americans, as it was our government that, above all others, pushed hardest for its establishment.

Today, the UN's decisions affect millions of people, its peacekeeping missions are protecting thousands of lives, its health and development agencies are savings huge populations, its sanctions are constricting rogue states (like North Korea and Iran). Yet, for all of its notoriety, few people know where the organization came from, how it was born, and why it grew into so influential a body.

Last fall, I was having drinks in New York with two documentary filmmakers, Romuald Sciorra, and Estelle Moser. We were discussing our favorite subject, the United Nations, and its latest doings. All three of us are longtime UN aficionados. I met both individuals a half-decade earlier through Harper's Magazine editor Louis Lapham, who had put us together because of the publication of my book, Act of Creation, about the 1945 San Francisco conference that created the UN. Later, I was interviewed for two of their films about the UN -- in 2005, At the Glass Building: Interviews with UN Secretaries-General, and in 2008, Planet UN, about the world body's pioneering work at the beginning of the 21st century in development, human rights and peace.

At one point my friends began musing about their possibly doing a documentary on my book. They said it would complete the series of films they had made about the UN. I was both flattered and intrigued. One reason I had written my study was to tell the unusual tale about the UN's origins, which I had found, to my surprise, was almost wholly unknown to many UN delegates, as well as people in general -- and specifically to remind Americans of the key role played by the US in founding the institution. I was also fascinated by the fact that the US had spied on all the other countries attending the San Francisco conference to learn what issues they would support or dispute. The idea of a film to spread the message of the UN's early beginnings to an even larger audience than I had gotten for my book seemed highly attractive.

Soon, we began to explore how we might start this project. We agreed that we should aim to do the movie for next year's 65th anniversary of the organization. Sciorra suggested that I should become one of the writers on the script, along with himself, since I was the expert on the subject. He and Moser considered how long the film should be, at first contemplating an hour in length but later expanding it to 90 minutes because of the unique series of dramas generated at the San Francisco meeting. The two also found interest at the Public Broadcasting System in broadcasting the documentary, which will be in October of 2011.

Then we had to figure out, what would our film cover? Basically we agreed that it would recount the almost operatic saga of how the UN came into being during the nine-week San Francisco event held in the spring of 1945. Most conferences are dull, technical and predictable. This one was anything but -- full of larger-than-life personalities, iconic diplomats, spies, melodramatic confrontations, serious breakups and electrifying speeches. Often it appeared the conference would fail only to be revived at the last moment. Five thousand people attended, two thousand of them journalists who wrote about every angle of the event.

The major intriguer behind the UN was Franklin Roosevelt. This was his legacy. He dispatched an extraordinary array of Americans to the meeting. The US delegates included Senator Arthur Vandenburg, the Republican expert on international affairs who months earlier had discarded isolationism in favor of multilateralism; Democratic Senator Tom Connally of Texas, the colorful head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Harold Stassen, former governor of Minnesota and longtime presidential contender in the Republican Party. The legal adviser to the US mission was John Foster Dulles, who, eight years later, became President Eisenhower's secretary of state. There was Nelson Rockefeller, Roosevelt's assistant secretary for Latin American affairs, whose family bought the land for the UN headquarters and who went on to become governor of New York and Republican vice president of the US under Gerald Ford. Adlai Stevenson, twice the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency in the 1950s, headed communications for the US delegation. Alger Hiss, later accused of being a notorious Soviet spy, was temporary head of the UN during the conference. And one of the reporters at the event was a young journalist named John F. Kennedy, working for the Hearst news syndicate and, later, of course, became president of the US.

With this dazzling line-up, we are now working hard to capture the event, accessing a rich archive of newsreels, pictures, memoirs, biographies, State Department records, CIA and FBI documents and related materials to provide the complete details of the event. Though none of the original participants are alive today, we have many oral accounts by delegates and onlookers, which will give insiders' insights into the conclave. One of our biggest finds have been tapes of Stassen and Hiss reminiscing about their roles at the San Francisco conference, audio files that have never been broadcast before.

We will also interview outside experts. We intend to produce a film that illuminates for students, citizens and the world at large the remarkable epic of this organization's creation and the single-minded role that the US government played in bringing it to fruition.

John Seed: Driving Mr. Basquiat

2010-07-29T18:24:25Z

The Radiant Child, a recently released film by Tamra Davis, and a Basquiat Exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler, have put Jean-Michel Basquiat in the news again. I viewed some of the interview footage used in The Radiant Child at the LA MOCA Basquiat retrospective in 2005, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the completed film.

Basquiat, who I knew for a few months in late 1982 and early 1983, made an indelible impression on me. It seems like a good time to share my recollections. The following essay, based on one I first wrote for my personal website in 1998, contains my most vivid memories.

A bit of background: when I met Jean I was 25, and had recently returned home to LA from Northern California, where I had earned a BA and an MA in Studio Art. Jean, who would have been 22, was a rising star on the New York art scene, spending time in Los Angeles preparing for his second exhibition at the Larry Gagosian Gallery.

* * *

When I met Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1983 he came to the door naked. I had been sent to Venice, California, where Jean was living in a former art gallery. Just a few days before I had been hired by art dealer Larry Gagosian, and had seen my first Basquiat Painting -- Skull, now in the Broad Collection -- at his gallery. Larry had explained to me that Jean needed some help around the studio.

Jean had probably just woken up -- it was early afternoon -- and led me his living space while wrapping himself in a towel.

The Venice Studio/Gallery where Jean lived and worked

He was living in a room that had only two pieces of furniture that I remember: a mattress with no box spring and a small TV set with rabbit ear antennae. As I later learned that he had once lived in a cardboard box in a New York park, the lack of furniture must have been a habit. I also found out later that he was paying Larry $2,500 a month in rent, and he certainly could have afforded furniture if he had wanted it.

The floor was covered with an amazing array of clutter: art history books, cassette tapes, art supplies, and clothing including lots of paint-spattered Armani suits that I later took to the dry cleaners in a plastic garbage bag. There were also drawings on the floor -- many with footprints on them -- and art supplies including oilsticks, paintbrushes and rollers. From time to time I also came across bags of marijuana, and wads of cash.

Jean-Michel never drove that I knew of -- an ancient Dodge that he had planned to use in LA had been stolen -- so I began to go over often, first to deliver the stretchers for him to paint on, and later to pick him up to run errands. Generally, he sat in my Toyota truck looking sullen behind dark glasses, speaking only to direct me to the next destination.

Jean was a big spender. When Madonna, just at the beginning of her celebrity, came from the East Coast to visit, I took him to the bank to get $5,000 cash. It was meant to be his pocket cash for the weekend. Another time, we walked into a local paint and hardware place and just cleaned out the art supply section. Jean-Michel, who cultivated a rasta street kid look, paid by tossing random piles of big bills on the counter so that the stunned cashier could do the counting. I also remember him buying a hundred dollars worth of Neutrogena soap at a Beverly Hills drug store.

One one errand I took him to the office of a doctor who was also an art collector. Jean was being treated for an STD and had arranged to pay for his treatment with drawings. On the way home he asked me to stop at a sandwich place he liked in Beverly Hills. He got out, and told me to just take a spin around the block and pick him up.

I got stuck in heavy traffic, and it took 20 minutes to get back. When I got there he didn't say a thing -- he was clutching a sandwich and glaring at me from the curb when I finally returned -- but three weeks later he walked up to me and gave me an utterly detailed description of how I should have taken certain back alley, and used a less busy street. He included street names and knew where I should have gone right, and where I should have gone left. Incidents like this began to show me how intense he was. Jean could remember details of all sorts and spew them out with real intensity at any moment. In many ways, that is what his art is about: intensely felt, but fragmented experience and knowledge.

Jean's heavy spending alarmed me. Once I told Jean that he needed to make investments, and that he ought to get a stockbroker so that if his career burned out he would have some money put away. He was furious, and immediately explained that there was absolutely no need for him to plan for the future. In his mind a star never had to worry about money, and I had insulted him by inadvertently suggesting that someday he his paintings wouldn't leap off the gallery walls.

After that I began to call him "Elvis," which was my way of kidding him about his out of control lifestyle. In response, he came up with "White Sambo Gringo," a jab back at me, his errand boy.

My life at that point was kind of like a twisted version of Driving Miss Daisy. I was a Stanford-educated, upper middle class white man, chauffeuring a younger African American art star who had never finished high school. With all respect to Tamra Davis, if I made a film about my experience of Basquiat it certainly wouldn't be called The Radiant Child, an oddly patronizing title borrowed from a 1981 essay on Basquiat by Rene Ricard. My film, Driving Mr. Basquiat, would be a very dark comedy about complex misunderstandings of race and class.

My other job, besides taking Jean out to buy art supplies and running him around town, was to build his stretcher bars and then prime them for his late night painting sessions that took place after he came home from the China Club. Among the canvasses I made were some triptychs, joined by Douglas fir 1" x 2"s and braced with plywood triangles made from shipping crates that had arrived at the Gagosian Gallery. One of these canvasses, which I had primed with black gesso, later became the "Horn Players" now in the Broad Collection. Working in my parents' garage I also made a series of large square canvasses, one of which became Hollywood Africans, now in the collection of the Whitney Museum.

Horn Players by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Collection of the Broad Art Foundation

Jean Michel, contrary to what you might think, absolutely did not consider himself a "Graffiti Artist." He had some friends like Ramelzee who did use that phrase to describe themselves, but Jean hated it. He once hung up on a woman graduate student who while interviewing him insisted that he was part of the Graffiti Art movement. He felt strongly that he was a fine artist, and his influences ranged from Leonardo da Vinci to Abstract Expressionists like Cy Twombly and Franz Kline. The influence of these and other artists is apparent in his best works.

One day when Jean was away from the studio, I saw a striking five foot square painting leaning against the doorway and decided I had to have it. Titled Future Science Versus the Man, I later learned that it had been in Jean's show at the Fun Gallery in 1982, and that he had brought it to LA where he added to it.

Science was an electric painting, a revenge fantasy meant to mock "white" history and progress as depicted in high school textbooks. It featured line drawings of warplanes, steamboats, Buffalo Bill Cody, a bug-eyed cowboy in a ten gallon hat, and an astronaut figure whose helmet enclosed a manic "Day of the Dead" skull. It also included words and phrases -- carefully printed in Jean's earnest block lettering -- including "Radium," "Egypt," and "Fraud 1/2."

Underneath a three-pointed crown, a signature Basquiat image going back to his days as the tagger SAMO, the phrase "Ten Gallon" was carefully lined out and then Xed out. All of this was set on a black and white background that an would have made a striking Abstract Expressionist painting, complete with drips. Jean had a way of making images completely his own, and maybe part of what he had in mind was to graffiti over a Franz Kline.

I made a deal to buy the painting with Larry, who must not have told Jean about my purchase. That would cause problems later.

I had some money saved, and since I was living at home and not paying rent, I could put most of my salary into payments. I came up with the total of $5,000 in about three months and took the painting home. My parents were mystified, but there we were, a white middle class family living on the west side of Los Angeles with a Basquiat in the downstairs bedroom. Whenever my parents, now in their eighties, see a Basquiat in a magazine it gets their attention. After recently seeing the designer Valentino posed with his Basquiat in a glossy magazine spread, they were anxious to point it out to me.

The author's sister Janet with Basquiat's painting "Future Science Versus the Man" in 1983

After I took the painting home Jean phoned me several times and insisted that I return it. He said that it should go to a "major collector." I wasn't part of the art crowd, and as a social nobody I apparently didn't even deserve to own one of his canvasses. Having grown up feeling excluded because of his race, Jean took a sadistic delight in turning exclusivity around and making it his own tool.

To convince me to let go of the painting Jean offered me a deal. "I have done only two portraits, one of the artist Francesco Clemente, and another of Andy Warhol," he told me. "I will do your portrait, and it will be my third, and I will give it to you." I fell for it, gave the painting back to Larry Gagosian and got my money back plus a $500 profit. I felt like a slick art dealer for about 5 minutes.

It wasn't uncommon for Jean to show hostility towards people who expressed interest in his work. One example of this -- which was related to me by another Gagosian employee -- took place when the wealthy art collector and MOCA founder Marcia Weisman came to visit Jean's studio. When she arrived at his studio, he took an immediate dislike to her. While she looked uncertainly at his work he became defensive and silent, and worked on an oilstick drawing on a very large piece of butcher paper.

The drawing, which showed a sort of frightening caveman holding a bone, was a kind of cartoon parody of savagery. As Marcia was getting ready to leave he added a penis and testicles to the image and later told a gallery employee that it was a depiction of Mrs. Weisman.

Two Gagosian Gallery employees mug in front of the drawing Basquiat stated was a caricature of collector/patron Marcia Weisman.

Jean had his big show in the Spring of 1983, with the painting I had returned on the front of the invitation. The opening was jammed, and he showed up very late and very stoned, listening to a Sony Walkman. I think he really couldn't handle social pressure. A few weeks later, he went back to New York and moved into a loft on Great Jones Street that he leased from Andy Warhol. When I got the job of cleaning up after him I found my portrait among the junk he had left behind. It was painted on one of the cheap canvasses we had bought one day at Standard Brands, and it had a splashed red circle -- my face as a happy face -- in the center.

On the bottom Jean had written my name "John Seed" in oilstick, followed by "White Sambo Gringo" with a red arrow pointing downwards. The arrow, of course, was pointing me down to Hell. Somehow, maybe by calling him "Elvis" or daring to buy one of his paintings, I had brought out his deepest hostility. The portrait had a bit of voodoo about it, and it made me uneasy enough that I never hung it on my wall.

A few weeks later, when I cleaned out his studio, I sent my portrait back to Jean's New York studio in a crate, along with some other things of his. I have never heard of it since and hope it went into a dumpster as soon as it got there. Jean's painting was meant as an insult, and it certainly gave me a jolt. If anything, it got me thinking about racial tension and in a way that nothing in my life ever had before.

As I had discovered, Jean-Michel could be pretty awful. He also could be very kind and sweet, and The Radiant Child apparently showcases that side of Jean's character. In my presence he was often very paranoid about the people surrounding him, and he certainly was right to be that way as so many people were using him in one way or another. At least one of the people who was around his studio stole drawings, and I tend to think that Jean liked to be stolen from: he could then amaze the thief by confronting them and knowing exactly what they had taken.

Putting aside the bad experiences of him, I have to say that he made a positive impression on me as an artist. He really had what I would call "second nature," which means that his art was utterly direct and in touch with deep emotions. I do think of his art as being poetic, and also as being about the alchemy of signs and symbols. He definitely made powerful art about the problems of race, and the sheer vitality of his ideas and imagery continues to dazzle me.

I was very fortunate to know him at the peak of his creativity, but also unfortunate to see his growing paranoia and distrust of those around him. He was a very troubled guy. When friends have asked me about him, I tell them that I truly believe that if he had ever been sober for an extended period, he would have needed psychiatric help. It is a shame that he never got that help: I understand that several people later did try. When I knew him a lot of money was being made; apparently nobody wanted to mess with the "magic," and drug use was a part of that.

People have also asked me if I regret selling my Basquiat painting. Honestly, it would be nice to have something worth millions of dollars, but I shudder when I think of the trouble that painting might have gotten me into over the years. I did see it again at the Basquiat Whitney retrospective in 1993. My wife offered to take my picture with it, but a hovering guard wouldn't allow it. I didn't bother to try and explain that it had once hung in my bedroom.

Across the street from where I teach there is a Red Robin restaurant. Over one of the booths is the now iconic Halsband photo of Jean-Michel and Warhol posed as prizefighters: feisty outsiders who both slugged their way to art world fame. When I take my family there for dinner, I often glance at the poster, and think about the sadness of it. There he is, the guy who was once a young art star, and an artistic genius, now a dead poster god like James Dean, or Elvis.

Of course, maybe that is exactly what he wanted all along.

John Seed in front of the Warhol/Basquiat poster at Red Robin, Menifee, California, July 2010.

David Sirota: GOP Opposes Federal Fracking Regs Regardless of Whether EPA Finds Poisoning

2010-07-29T18:17:51Z

As natural gas exploration expands throughout our energy-starved nation -- from the West and now into the South and Northeast -- many folks living in drilling country are rightfully expressing concern that their groundwater may be susceptible to pollution from the fracking fluids that are central to drilling operations. These are very legitimate fears, as HBO's critically acclaimed documentary Gasland so graphically shows. And yet, to date, the Republican Party has expressed a rather callous "drill first, never ask questions later" attitude -- callous, even for the GOP.

During the Bush years, Republicans managed to legislate an exemption for fracking fluid into the Clean Water Act. Then, Republicans in Congress blocked the proposed FRAC Act, which wouldn't even ban fracking fluid -- it would simply require drilling companies to disclose what's in the fluids they are pumping into the earth near critical groundwater supplies. And now, in perhaps the most extreme step yet, Republicans here in Colorado (a state with one of the biggest natural gas reserves in the world) are demanding the Environmental Protection Agency never regulate fracking, regardless of whether or not the agency discovers that fracking is poisoning people.

As the Colorado Independent reports, you just can't make this up:

Eighteen Republican members of the Colorado State Legislature Monday sent a letter (pdf) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding the federal agency refrain from regulating the natural gas drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," no matter what a two-year EPA study of the process reveals.

In a coincidence that highlights just how extreme the GOP position is, notice that the GOP letter was sent two days after this disturbing dispatch from the Grand Junction Sentinel:

Energy giant agrees to pay record fine
By Dennis Webb
Friday, July 23, 2010

Williams has agreed to pay a record $423,300 fine to resolve a state investigation into a spring-contamination case in which a De Beque man drank benzene-tainted water...

The fine would be the highest ever imposed by the commission for a single incident. The current record is a $390,000 fine handed down by the commission in April against Oxy USA for another case of spring contamination, also northwest of Parachute.

State regulators should be applauded for this catch, but with state budgets so strapped across the country, they clearly should not be the only regulators on the job. Do we really need more Civil Action-like tragedies to teach us that?

According to Republicans who know about the issue (which, incredibly, does not include one proudly ignorant leading Senate candidate), we do. And that cavalier attitude is both immoral and politically dangerous for the GOP. Though the national media has tended to portray debates over drilling as "liberal environmentalists" versus "pro-business conservatives," the fact is that these issues can cut in very unpredictable ways. As I reported back in 2008 for the New York Times magazine, someone living in drilling company may like the energy industry and be a cultural conservative -- but that person probably doesn't like the thought of being able to light their tap water on fire, and might not want to vote for politicians who do.

Greg Mitchell: What's Sadly Missing in Time's Controversial Afghan Cover

2010-07-29T18:04:56Z

The Time magazine cover story this week arrives with a graphic cover image next to the title, "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." It shows an Afghan teen named Aisha whose nose and ears had been sliced off by the Taliban.

Inside, editor Rick Stengel explains that he consulted psychologists about what harm could be done to children who might see this disturbing image. But he also defends the aim of the story itself in the following paragraph:

"The much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war. Our story and the haunting cover image by the distinguished South African photographer Jodi Bieber are meant to contribute to that debate. We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it. We do it to illuminate what is actually happening on the ground. As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead."

This Time treatment arrives on the same day Nick Kristof, a longtime defender of global women's issues, in The New York TImes took a quite different approach, highlighting the gross "misallocation" of U.S. resources to the war when our own country is suffering from horrendous unemployment and a cracking educational system, among other woes.

I've also previously highlighted the surging rate in U.S. soldier suicides--check this shocking official report released just today. Yesterday the Afghan government said 52 civilians had been killed in a NATO missile attack. One could go on. (I do it every day.)

Also very much worth mentioning: the girl on the cover was attacked not in long ago days of Taliban rule but not long ago -- with tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the country.

I have to ask: In Time's mission to really "illuminate what is actually happening on the ground" has it ever put on its cover close-up images of 1) a badly wounded or dead U.S. soldier 2) an Afghan killed in a NATO missile strike 3) an Afghan official, police officer or military commander accepting a bribe from a Taliban war lord?

No one makes light of the plight of women and children in Afghanistan under the Taliban--and, contrary to Stengel's claim, many Americans do know about it. Indeed, liberal women's groups in the U.S. have raised the issue often and expressed mixed feelings about staying (or even escalating) in Afghanistan because of it. It's a serious issue. And please see the response to Time by the Feminist Peace Network. Jezebel with another good take here.

But I'd propose here a few alternative, or at least additional, cover images, all showing Americans here at home, that Time might go with an upcoming cover on "What Happens If We LEAVE Afghanistan." Please supply your own ideas in the comments section below.

-- A student in a high-tech classroom.

-- Workers streaming into a newly re-opened factory.

-- A poor black or Hispanic woman examined by a doctor in a first-class facility.

-- A returning soldier embraced by his wife and two kids.

-- Solar panels being erected on a huge office building.

Well, you get the idea. Contribute to list or take issue below.

Greg Mitchell writes the popular Media Fix blog at The Nation. He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher and author of nine books, including "So Wrong for So Long: How the the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq." His twitter feed is @gregmitch.

Cecile Richards: Governor Christie's Family Planning Veto -- New Jersey's Women Take the Heat

2010-07-29T17:27:20Z

The sun is blazing at the Jersey shore this month, but no one is feeling the heat more than women in the Garden State. Late last week, Governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill passed by the legislature to restore $7.5 million in funding for state family planning services. His veto endangers the health of women throughout the state, since without this funding, 136,000 New Jersey women will lose access to basic health care.

The funding, which supports the work of health centers across the state, would have provided lifesaving preventive health care like cancer screenings, contraception, and annual exams to women who otherwise cannot afford this basic care. While Governor Christie himself originally eliminated family planning from the 2011 state budget, both chambers of the General Assembly acknowledged that crucial health services for low-income women were in jeopardy, and they passed a supplemental bill in late June to restore the funds.

But Governor Christie has put politics ahead of women's health.

What does this shortsighted, heartless veto mean? That thousands of low-income women in New Jersey, who rely on Planned Parenthood for affordable preventive care, may be left on their own. Women count on the family planning state program for a host of preventive care, including screenings for cervical cancer, HIV testing and counseling, testing and treatment for other sexually transmitted infections, pre-pregnancy counseling and education, pregnancy testing, access to contraception, and other critical health services. The governor's veto hits especially hard when you consider that health professionals who provide family planning are often the only source of health care services for women and families who have no health insurance coverage.

If you ever needed a lesson in why elections matter, New Jersey is a case in point. Former Governor Jon Corzine added $2 million to promote women's health through family planning services in New Jersey. Christie did just the opposite. Chris Christie eliminated all funds for family planning in the budget. Christie is trying to push through his opposition to family planning under the cover of cost cutting. But women and the state are eventually bound to pay the cost.

Women aren't fooled. The truth is family planning actually saves New Jersey money over the long term. In fact, studies show that every dollar spent on family planning saves the state four dollars in Medicaid costs. Last year alone, family planning services saved New Jersey $150,000,000 in Medicaid costs. Bottom line: family planning and sound fiscal planning go hand in hand.

The good news is Governor Christie doesn't have to have the last word. The people of New Jersey have the opportunity to tell their legislators to override Governor Christie's veto. They must urge their representatives in Trenton to restore these vital funds and to take a stand for women's health.

It's time to put the heat on Governor Christie. From Newark to Atlantic City and everywhere in between, women are at risk for losing health care and there is no time to waste. We need to work to ensure that New Jersey remains a state where women's health matters.

Cecile Richards is president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, PPFA's political and advocacy arm.

ARTINFO: "WORK OF ART" RECAP: Plato, Private Sexual Acts, and Terence Koh

2010-07-29T17:15:10Z

Every Thursday, ARTINFO reviews the carnage and glory of the previous night's episode of Bravo's art-world reality show Work of Art. (Be sure to visit ARTINFO each Friday for an interview with the participant(s) voted off the show.)

Now, on last night's episode of Work of Art...

Photo by Barbara Nitke/Courtesy, Bravo

This week, the judges of Bravo's Work of Art: The Next Great Artist tried to prove that opposites attract, by having the remaining members of the weary gang pair up. Each duo was then meant to collaborate on one piece that incorporated their opposing thematic forces. (They could have just set up Simon de Pury and Nao Bustamante on a date, but sadly, that ship has sailed.) Anyway, what actually happened was that each person made their own individual work and then placed it in the general vicinity of their partner's in the gallery. This was not the assignment, but for now, let us move on.

China Chow, whose tone is growing more ominous and apocalyptic as her garb becomes more and more prom-appropriate, employs her drama-heightening vacant death stare and intones that there are "only two more challenges to determine who will be going to the finale." All of the artists whisper, "whoa," but China Chow is not a horse and cannot be stopped. Simon de Pury wants "to be blown away," which oddly evokes an image of someone removing the cork concealed somewhere on the auctioneer's body and watching him whiz off, all of the air squealing out of him. Abdi Farah feels "clueless," Mark Velasquez feels "all alone." Peregrine Honig says of the challenge, "Oh wow, that's interesting." And then, in the commercial break Bravo shows nearly back-to-back Toyota and BP ads. Oh wow, that's interesting.

Now down to business: Miles Mendenhall and Jaclyn Santos win for their interpretation of the man/woman dichotomy. Mark gets kicked off for his representation of heaven. And here's why.

ORDER and CHAOS (Nicole Nadeau and Abdi)
"And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul." --PLATO

Nicole suggests that Abdi find inspiration for his depiction of chaos in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Abdi then makes a kind of lumpy sculpture out of what looks like Play Doh, which is a product with which children are meant to play and not a Greek philosopher. Then, Abdi will not stop telling all of the judges that his work was inspired by Socrates's (sic) story about the cave. And none of the judges correct him. No one on the show corrects him, ever.

Nicole makes a pretty swell piece that sounds like it's going to be one of those Rube Goldberg roll-the-marble-and-hit-the-bucket-and-have-the-toast-pop-out creations, but really it's just something like an endless fortune cookie that you can crank through a spool. But it is neat anyway -- at least until China Chow kind of breaks it during the gallery show.

What was neater, for pure entertainment value, is when Nicole goes into the biggest, nonsensical art-school rant in the history of the MFA: "When you're in the order, you feel fine, but there's this outside entity that's breathing new life into something, you know? Like this supernova, like this explosion, but this beautiful explosion that creates new life. It's like an energy that can't be contained."

MALE and FEMALE (Miles Mendenhall and Jaclyn Santos)
"All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue." --PLATO

Miles is sad that he wasn't paired with Nicole. Primarily, it turns out, because his approach to collaborative art-making is to get his partner to do something sexual -- although not necessarily with him (at least he sets his sights low). Miles's Machiavellian approach to achieving total domination this time around is to feign, in his work, that he is "a man losing control," while Jaclyn makes a related piece about being a "woman gaining it." Miles then commands her to make a painting of herself masturbating. He thinks it will be "pretty saucy." Then he gets her to help him on his contribution to the piece -- an installation of two walls, one covered in tar and one with two small holes -- by varnishing it without a face mask. That's the way to keep a woman in her place.

He keeps telling her to "go inward" but every time he says this, he just makes this curvy lady gesture, from which we infer that Miles wants Jaclyn to paint what is inside of her clothing. Also, here's a thought, masturbation is not the best emblem of feminine power -- especially as Miles has already masturbated on the show for the "shocking art" challenge. Masturbation is not a symbol for everything, Miles.

Jaclyn is so not-at-all empowered by the process of painting herself pleasuring herself that she can't even say the word masturbation. Asked by Simon de Pury what she's up to in the image, she responds, "It's a private sexual act." Then, China Chow inquires during the critique, "what act are you performing?" "It's a sexual act," Jaclyn replies. "So you're masturbating," Chow translates for the rest of us. But Bill Powers still doesn't get it. "This piece is not literal," Powers insists emphatically. This piece is literally a realist self-portrait of Jaclyn masturbating.

Guest judge Ryan McGinness (looking like Andrew McCarthy in "St. Elmo's Fire," i.e. greasy and earnest) asks Jaclyn if she masturbates standing up. "It's important," he says. Creepy. Then Jerry Saltz says of the piece, "I actually get off on that," a phrase that loses all pretense of euphemism when actually discussing masturbation. Finally, Jaclyn gets her groove back, boldly asserting, "the frontal composition makes me seem like an idol, almost." Full-frontal idolatry brought to you by BP and Toyota. Time to discuss....

HEAVEN and HELL (Mark Velasquez and Peregrine Honig)
"As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser." --PLATO

Here is another showdown to see who can get their fellow contestant naked. "I don't know how comfortable you'd be nude," Mark says to his partner, "especially even from behind." Especially even? Peregrine looks sad, perhaps because she grew up on a commune riddled with unsafe sexual experimentation. But she, a woman regaining power, rebuts with, "what about your scar?"

Turns out that Mark had a gastrointestinal condition that once caused his stomach to explode. "I'm still uncomfortable seeing my image large," says Mark, a comment at which we absolutely did not laugh. Peregrine, however, when she mentions that Mark's stomach exploded during the crit, does laugh, which is awkward. Also awkward: when Miles says of Mark moving in, "you never know how he's going to fit into the apartment." Enough with the fat jokes. The partners make some banners out of photos of Mark shirtless. Peregrine uses a lot of glitter. Mark doesn't know what color the sky is.

And Peregrine has a husband?

ALSO OF NOTE
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -- PLATO

The interstitial mid-commercial segment this week brings a rapid-fire montage of the artists espousing words and phrases that they don't understand: "panopticon... tonal variations of the same hue... cerebralism... signifier... planned obsolescence" -- essentially, a condensed version of the entire season of the television program thus far.

Also, Terence Koh is at the opening of the gallery show. This bears repeating: Terence Koh is at the opening of the gallery show. And Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn is missing for the second week in a row. Should we be worried? The other judges seem a little worried. China Chow actually starts crying when she sends Mark home. And Jerry Saltz sounds like he's about to start doling out vigilante justice when he growls, "I've got three people in trouble tonight in my mind... deep trouble."

-Emma Allen

For more Work of Art recaps:
Episode 1: Last Night, on [the First] Work of Art...
Episode 2: Last Night, on Work of Art: Judging a Book by What Jerry Saltz Says About It
Episode 3: Last Night, on Work of Art: Miles and Miles to Go Before We Sleep
Episode 4: Last Night, on Work of Art: The Undead Get Dirty
Episode 5: Last Night, on Work of Art: From Painterbation to the Panopticon
Episode 6: Last Night, on Work of Art: Jumping on the "Noumenon"
Episode 7: Last Night, on Work of Art: Cults and Crayola

And Work of Art contestant exit interviews:
Episode 1: Amanda Williams
Episode 2: Trong Nguyen
Episode 3: Judith Braun
Episode 4: Nao Bustamante and John Parot
Episode 5: Jaime Lynn Henderson
Episode 6: Erik Johnson
Episode 7: Ryan Schultz

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Tony Schwartz: Tony Hayward Is the Identified Patient

2010-07-29T17:14:39Z

In psychology, the term "identified patient" refers to a family member -- often a child or a teenager -- who acts out and then gets scapegoated for behavior that's really just a predictable response to the stress of dealing with a dysfunctional family.

Tony Hayward, now the former CEO of BP, is noxious and repugnant for all the obvious reasons.

But Hayward is also BP's identified patient. It's true he wanted his privileged, aristocratic life back, even in the midst of the environmental catastrophe his company caused. It's true he wouldn't give up yachting on the weekends, even at the height of the crisis. It's true that he was way out of his depth dealing with the disaster for which he was ultimately responsible.

Hayward misbehaved by saying what he felt. But is there any reason to believe he is appreciably worse as an executive than any of his colleagues? He did spend nearly 30 years rising steadily through the ranks at BP, and he was the guy who reached the top.

Hayward was thrown overboard so that BP has someone to blame, and doesn't have to look at the deeper dysfunctions of an organization that chose him as CEO in the first place. It's exactly what happened at so many banks during the subprime crisis, when they needed sacrificial lambs to appease their critics.

BP's mid-level employees have done a better job than Hayward at putting a caring face on the company in its tv ads. This morning I watched Fred Lemond, head of the cleanup efforts, tell me three times over the course of ten minutes that BP will be there till the last drop of oil is gone.

Before that, it was Darryl Willis, head of claims for the oil spill, explaining in his Louisiana drawl why he and BP are committed to working around the clock to assure that every innocent victim of the crisis gets reimbursed for their losses.

"Folks were talking about paying claims in 30 to 60 days, and I knew that was going to be about 30 days too long," Willis told a reporter. "We needed to get people's claims paid as quickly as possible."

These are the sorts of things we want to believe about the leaders and the companies that operate in our communities.

Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that BP's ads are far more about damage control and public relations than they are about real concern and prompt action.

BP has paid out only a fraction of the claims it has received. On Tuesday, NBC ran a story quoting a series of small businesspeople describing their frustration in trying to get losses reimbursed by BP. Even where claims were paid, recipients got only a fraction of what they sought.

The bigger issue here is the myopic worldview of so many executives who run large public companies. It isn't sufficient any longer to say their only responsibility is to their shareholders, particularly when those shareholders are mostly short-term speculators, who buy in and out of their companies.

We need CEOs and senior executives willing to be reflective -- to ask themselves at least three critical questions about any significant strategic choice they face:

1. How will this decision add longer-term value not just to the company, but also to the larger community we serve?

2. What are the potential costs of this decision to any of our constituencies, and am I doing enough to mitigate them?

3. Is this a decision that reflects me operating at my best?

Great leaders are characterized by a big view -- the broadest possible perspective on the effects of their actions, and the constituencies they influence. The world's biggest companies now have the power and reach of large countries, and a corresponding need to think beyond their own borders.

It's all well and good that Tony Hayward is finally gone. The deeper problem is the system that produced him.

Raymond J. Learsy: Quo Vadis Goldman Without Expletives!?

2010-07-29T17:10:25Z

If understood correctly Goldman finally has a truly serious situation on its hands. A memo from above has just been circulated to Goldman's traders that henceforth no expletives are to be used in describing financial junk or otherwise in the text of 'in house' emails. Now we all remember Senator Levin holding up copy of a Goldman-formulated email describing a Goldman fabricated financial instrument as sh..., sorry, I can't say it, but you know what I mean.

Now the dilemma is, without proper clarity, without language and argot that clearly defines what they have brewed in the way of financial engineering for the less wary to gobble up (you know, those who didn't go to MIT or the Harvard Business School) at pension funds or soft overseas marks, how will they communicate to their trading desks to aggressively short (remember derivatives, CDS's and on) those very instruments? How can they now make a double bonanza, first by pocketing commissions selling the sh... (still can't say it) and then betting or having their favored clients bet against them?

This is a big problem. Hank Paulson, where are you when we need you again?