"...the goal of living is to grow..."

Spring is in the air. Daffodil spears are poking upwards, and last month marked the end of my presidency of Horizon House, a wonderful, two-year learning experience from which I received much more than I delivered.  (“President” might mislead, the role perhaps better described as chair of the board.)

For those who know it not, Horizon House is a vibrant community of 500-some retirees who live in a complex of apartments in downtown Seattle. The campus sits between a cluster of medical facilities known colloquially as “pill hill” and Seattle’s unique Freeway Park, a water and garden expanse built on a lid over the Interstate that cuts through the heart of our city. The site offers easy walking access, via that park, to the artistic, cultural, dining and shopping core of Seattle.

Horizon House is the leading retirement community in the region because of three coherent but individual strengths – its residents, its professional staff, and its board of trustees. Well, every retirement community has residents, staff and directors; what’s so special? What have ours taught me about success?

First, the residents: they are a highly diverse group, ethnically, socially, religiously, but who share two attitudes – a commitment to participate in urban life and a determination to age creatively and actively in community with others. They do not seek withdrawal in retirement. I learned from them the value of neighborhood, of organizing and aggressively seeking to have an impact on their surroundings, of assertively taking charge of their lives. Our residents have their own independent non-profit organization funded through their own operated thrift shop, and run over 60 programs and special interest clubs. They volunteer around town, and also do not hesitate to badger management to support their interests and civic concerns. I learned from them the truth of e e cumming’s

       in time of daffodils
       who know the goal of living is to grow
       forgetting why
       remember how

The result of that attitude? Our residents outlive actuarial expectations because of the stimulation of true community, because they are determined to extend their springs. And Horizon House, thereby, is given its distinctive character – a vibrancy and energy unlike any other community I have visited.

Staff: not-for-profit service organizations likely have a smaller pool of talents on which to draw than do for-profit enterprises but that does not mean lesser talents. The professionals who choose the not-for-profit world are among the best. I’ve been fortunate to have worked under two outstanding corporate leaders, Bill Marriott and Jim McFarland (of General Mills.) What made them great? Their ability to balance a vision of the long term with attention to immediate details; their upbeat delegation to and support of subordinates; their personal exemplification of the corporation’s values; and their willingness to admit mistakes and move on rather than fear admission as threat to their authority. Bob Anderson, CEO of Horizon House, shares those qualities. Though the scale of his operation is but a fraction of that of a Marriott or a General Mills, he stands beside them as an outstanding builder and leader of an enterprise. 

Trustees: I feel honored to have been chosen to chair such a superb board. How often I felt humbled in the face of the deep experience and talent gathered around the table. Of the 16 trustees (one is a non-voting representative of the UCC, out of which Horizon House was grown,) one third are residents. This is virtually unique among retirement communities, which typically allow none to serve or perhaps one to “represent” residents. Our resident trustees are chosen for their talents and experience; each is trustee first, resident second. It is a working board, the work done in committees made up of trustees, residents, non-resident experts from the community, staffed by relevant department heads. We strive for board productivity through use of advance briefs, consent agendas to minimize time for status reports, workshop-style discussion of anticipated issues, and rigorous self-assessment. The board is intentionally diverse in experience, perspective and talent; trustees are term limited. Horizon House has taught me the value of experimenting and continually seeking ways to make one’s board a substantive source of guidance and insight. The goal is to balance fiduciary, policy, and generative energy and attention.

Another element: mission. A not-for-profit enterprise can be truly mission-driven, undeterred and undistracted by demands of quarterly earnings goals, analysts’ opinions, stock price and the rest. From Horizon House, I have learned how to tie annual budgets, objectives and action plans directly to strategies aimed at long term goals that, in turn, are rooted in mission. This format for strategic planning and annual action is better than any I worked with in industry (where long range strategic plans too often gather dust on the shelf), Marriott and General Mills included. It’s a model, developed by former trustee Neil McReynolds, one that Jim Collins would applaud and one that should be applied to any enterprise, for or not-for profit.

One other learning: the babies of 1946 will turn 75 in 2021. And when that wave hits, the demand for aging services will begin to overwhelm their and our collective financial resources. In the next five years, this industry must challenge itself to develop new ways to facilitate healthy aging, to encourage community and combat isolation, and to cushion the social and financial impact of a huge increase in the elders of our tribe. At the same time, there will be "echo" growth in school-age population; we will face a competition for resources between education and aging.  In ten years, this will be the most pressing political and social issue our nation will be dealing with. The aging issue will be even more pressing than here in China, Europe, and Japan, potentially a most destabilizing force to be reckoned with.

PS: I have a great action slide showing age cohorts moving through the population in five year increments, 1950 - 2050, but Blogspot won't let me insert that format.  If you want it, I will e-mail it to you.

How to Redeem Congress? Reform REDS

Is this frozen Congress beginning to show signs of a spring thaw: Republicans dining at the White House; Lindsey Graham talking about revenue; Obama posting Medicare reforms on the web?  Is the ice getting rotten?


The most unpopular Congress in decades is badly in need of redemption. Now, perhaps, is the time to Reform REDS – reform revenues, reform entitlements, reform discretionary spending. If Congress could do all three at once, everyone will be upset about one or another part, but the whole would boost our credit,
credibility and redeem Congress and politics in the eyes of the public.

The key is all three at once – an almost insurmountable goal if the usual committee fragmentation allows special interests to lobby item by item, piece by piece. But Congressional leaders can by-pass that process and risk by appointing a panel – Senate and House -- to make a deal

• on three or four revenue items (e.g., carried interest, estate tax, foreign corporate tax shelters),
• two entitlement matters (e.g., social security and medicare tax lids, means testing medicare, changing inflation indexing),
• and three or four discretionary spending cuts (e.g., Defense, rationalizing the runaway intelligence contracts, reducing the cabinet by merging Education back into a HEW department or Labor with Commerce.)

The deal could be unamended and subject to an up and down. Likely? No. Possible? Yes.

If Congress does not reform REDS in one combination, it won’t happen. But the ice is thawing and getting mushy; now is the time for a bold break-through.

The Coming of The Common Sense Party

The time is coming when the Republican party will join the Whigs in the archives of American political history.

In 1852, the Whigs, for forty years a major political force, had been torn asunder by the Clay and Douglas compromise of 1850, a package of bills which kicked down the road the can of slavery in new territories. In'52, Whigs won only four of 31 states. In '54, disaffected northern Whigs split off to found a new party they named "Republican". In the election of '56, Republican Fremont finished a respectable second out of four, and in '60, the six year old party placed Lincoln in the White House with a solid plurality.

As were those 19thC Whigs, today's Republicans are in zerrissenheit, the state of "torn aparted-ness”, rent between family- value ideologues and fiscal conservatives. And therein lies this opportunity to create a new, potentially powerful political party -- The Common Sense Party.

The Common Sense Party will appeal to and serve the interests of urban, educated people (especially women) and those already in or aspiring to the upper middle class. The party's mission will be to improve America by focusing on solutions to its problems and realization of its new potentialities. The party's values are Civility, Knowledge, and Pragmatism; it will eschew mindless ideology and seek workable consensus.

The party will be formed and energized by moderate Republican dissenters, especially mayors and governors; independents like Michael Bloomberg; and business and financial leaders bolstered by celebrities. It will focus on the Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon and California.

Over two presidential election cycles, it will secure the White House, enjoy a working swing bloc in the Senate, and be challenging for the plurality of the House.

How are pragmatism and knowledge reflected in its platform? The Common Sense Party intends:
In Foreign Policy
~To progressively reduce foreign arms sales to zero

• Counter balancing with subsidized sale of peaceful development ware, e.g., water treatment plants, hospitals and clinics, schools, irrigation equipment, emission control and scrubber equipment

~To support abroad the rule of law, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of assembly, and equal opportunities for women

• Subordinating a focus on elections; freedoms come first

~To revoke the Bush doctrine of preemptive war

~To progressively seek diplomatic engagement with hostile states

~To increase State Dept. funding to progressively larger % of Defense Dept. funding

In Defense
~To progressively reduce the defense establishment to under 3% of GDP

~To follow Joint Chiefs weapons requests

• Eliminating Congressional weapons overrides of JC

~To acknowledge natural spheres of influence

• reducing NATO presence
• reducing overseas troop commitments
• Forcing European Community, NATO, So. Korea and Japan to take on more of their own defense
• Strengthening our response capabilities and reaffirming mutual defense commitments in Europe and Asia, but as second responder rather than first-line presence

In Intelligence
~To dismantle the bloated national intelligence bureaucracy

• Removing CIA from offensive, covert military actions, e.g., drone attacks, and focusing on foreign Intel
• Assigning to DOD all military, special forces and covert operations
• Assigning the FBI all domestic Intel
• Renouncing “war on terror” language and treating terrorism as a criminal conspiracy
• Quantifying and reducing the intelligence contractor community
• Dismantling the Dept. of Homeland Security
• Assigning National Security Advisor the task of consolidating CIA, Pentagon and FBI information for Executive Branch digestion

In Budgets, Debt and Deficits
~To reduce entitlement load

• Increasing cap on payroll tax, and apply means test to sustain Social Security net
• Funding Medicaid until incomes rise and the demographic bulge passes, reducing citizens’ reliance
• Continuing to expand medical insurance access
• Supporting home care, home health care, and efforts to reduce hospital admission recidivism

~To progressively reduce agriculture subsidies to zero

•  Relying on market dynamics
• Using food exports as commerce and as foreign policy mechanisms

~To merge the departments of Labor and Commerce

~To eliminate foreign registered-US based corporate tax advantages

~To end depletion allowance and special income treatments, e.g., carried interest

~To adopt a carbon tax

~To veto tax “bills of attainder”

~To increase infrastructure spending to create entry level and trade employment opportunities

~To study and determine whether value added tax coupled with upper income taxation would fairly generate revenues while simplifying tax collection and filing

~To set a national goal of reducing income inequality to 1960’s levels

• Strengthening the progressive tax system
• Reestablishing upper rates at Reagan-era levels
• Developing an immigration work permit program and pathway to citizenship
• Promulgating the Dream Act 
• To achieve balanced federal budgets by 2024

In Environment
~To enforce EPA responsibility for CO2 emissions

~To develop social and externality cost accounting and incorporate it in industrial and utility permitting processes

~To adopt progressive excise tax on gasoline to balance increased mpg performance

• Using gasoline excise taxes to fund development of mass transit and emission reduction options

~To restore traditional funding for National Parks and establish a new version of Civilian Conservation Corps

In Education
~To fund research and development of programs to reduce male high school dropout rates and prepare and motivate males to enter college

~To fund and reward community college/industry joint ventures to develop needed high-wage skilled labor

~To revoke “no child left behind” and other Federal mandates

• leaving standards, achievement testing, and teacher evaluation to states and localities

~To reduce the Dept. of Education staffing and budget

In Civil Society
~To reduce prevalence and accessibility of weapons, especially of hand guns

• Promoting that guns make all less safe, not more
• Banning sale and use of high capacity magazines
• Mandating universal background checks on gun purchasers
• Banning public sale of body armor and highly lethal ammunition
• Imposing high excise taxes on ammunition, using funds for gun education programs

~To adopt a universal service regimen at age 18

• Option: two years in military, with college subsidy after service
• Or one year in neo-CCC or other qualified social services
• Or two years social service after college

~To eliminate Federal Government intrusion into matters of sex, marriage, abortion and recreational drug use

• Leaving social regulations entirely to states
• Delegating gun sales control to states and localities so long as consistent with 2nd Amendment

~To intensify anti-trust monitoring and aggressively represent consumer interest in mergers and acquisitions

~To reduce incarcerations by funding drug treatment programs and sentencing guidlines

~To increase funding for FDA and USDA inspection and monitoring

In Governance
~To test levels of government funding of elections with a view to equalizing access

• Studying provision of free air time to candidates as a provision of broadcasting license
• while encouraging premium pricing for PACs

~To sell lobbyist registrations, in effect a lobby license, to fund election support

~To attack and remove obstacles to voting

~At state level, to work to reduce “safe seat” districting

~To limit campaign donations to constituents only

~To close the 501(c)(4) loophole providing anonymity to PAC contributors

~To prohibit public service unions from political donations to officials of organizations with which they negotiate labor agreements and contracts

~To make unionized public services open shops



My son, Steve, observes that civility is a currency, i.e., a medium of exchange; the more you spend it, he says, the easier and more valuable exchanges become



The World Turned Upside Down

On year’s longest night,

moon tilted on its side, the

world turned upside down.

Last Thursday, the night cleared briefly, the first time this month, and there it was -- a half-moon tipped over, bottom lit, top dark, lighted from far below the equator by a sun at its farthest away. I suppose “The world turned upside down” comes to mind because I have been reading Kenneth Roberts’ Rabble in Arms. Roberts’ tale is of our 1776 retreat from Quebec, the stubborn defeats along Lake Champlain that delayed Burgoyne and denied the British until we rallied in ’77 to defeat him at Saratoga, the turning point of the war. That 18thC English pop song was played by the British as they stacked arms and surrendered at Saratoga (and again six years later at Yorktown.) My Mom gave me Rabble in Arms when I was twelve, beginning my life-long love of American History. I just sent my 12-year old grandson a long out-of-print copy for Christmas, hoping to set him on the same path.

Roberts extols the tactical genius and battle-field leadership of Benedict Arnold while vividly describing the travails of the Continental Army and the inconstancy of the militia that were to supplement it. A few militia units excelled, but most proved unreliable, undisciplined, incompetent. The difference lay in leadership. Perhaps that is why Mason penned “… a well regulated militia…” later to be the conundrum of Madison’s Second Amendment. Mason wrote “That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty;….” Even when Washington came to see the need for a professional army, the first force formed in 1792 avoided the word; it was constituted as “The Legion of the United States.” Its first General was Anthony Wayne; one of its key commanders Arnold’s old nemesis, General Wilkinson, who later also turned traitor to the US.

So there was no standing army in 1789 when Madison wrote the 2nd and said that (therefore) citizens’ right to bear arms should not be abridged. What a far cry from today; now we have a huge standing army, and military suppliers adapt an individual’s weapon of mass destruction and sell it to most any of us – three and a half million assault weapons so far in civilian hands, more than the army has. Is this not madness?

… Madness … General Wayne was known as Mad Anthony Wayne, a tribute to his fiery, battlefield leadership. The Army says Sgt. Bales is not mad – despite wearing a cape costume while assaulting Afghan women and children asleep in their homes, and going out a second time without remorse to do it again that same night. Sounds pretty mad to me. And the Army Psychiatrist, Nidal Hasan? Mad? No, says the military court, but not a terrorist either. ???

And Virginia Tech’s Seung-Hui Cho, who bought semi-automatic handguns from licensed dealers? Who passed background checks with flying colors? And Newtown’s Adam Lanza, said by his mother to have Asperger’s Syndrom? But that is not madness. Is it mental illness? My Asperger grandson, raised by patient, loving, caring parents and specially trained teachers, is now a fully functioning adult, married to a woman he met in college (yes, college), thriving in his auto repair career, loving father of Natalie, my first great-grand child.

What is mentally unfit? Who is to judge?

My grandson’s fine, responsible Dad, my first-born, says guns are inanimate objects, that guns don’t kill people, etc., etc. Well, bats don’t hit homeruns, but take them away and there are no home runs to marvel at …. And then comes Wayne LaPierre who wants more -- more guns, more ammo, more high capacity magazines, more automatic hand guns, more old white guys volunteering to guard public places with concealed weapons … because a highly regulated militia is essential to our freedom.

Oh God….

Just northwest ruminations on a dark December day … the world turned upside down.

Inauguration Celebration ... or Corruption?

The Obama "finance team", reports the NYT, is selling four inaugural packages to corporations and other institutions -- read unions and think tanks.  Price? For $1 million, you get the "Washington" package; or for $500k, the "Adams" package. The "Jefferson" goes for $250k and the "Madison" for $100k. 

For a million, your corporation or union or think tank gets tickets to a "benefactors reception", a children's concert, a candlelight celebration, parade bleacher seats and four tix to the Presidential Ball. 

I assume GW, JA, TJ and JM are spinning in their graves. 

For "finance team" read access peddlers. For "benefactor" read influence seeker.  For "reception" read schmooze time.  For the whole magilla, read corruption.

What a waste!  A waste of money and a wasted opportunity to send a message about this White House and its serious second term.  In these times, when we want banks lending to businesses and businesses innovating, stimulating demand and investing; when we want to close special tax loopholes; when we want people to believe we are serious about shifting the course of our economy ... and to sanctimoniously say "no lobbyists allowed," and then unabashedly sell access to corporations and unions.  What hypocrisy!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the administration and re-election committee announced a bare-minimum inaugural -- because the President had much to do starting Monday, January 21st, and money could be better spent?  Just a speech, a small parade back to the White House, one nice Sunday evening concert or dance, and back to work?  How refreshing would that be?

Isn't it to be celebrated that we have re-elected a black man President, that it wasn't just a self-conscious affirmative action fluke the first time?  Of course; certainly it is.  But this shameful display?  No.  What we need now is the Grinch That Stole the Celebration. 

On second thought, maybe that's what we've got, but apparantly he's working in partnership with the Corruption Fairy.

Who Lost the Election? We Did!

I am sitting here prior to the results even starting to be reported, but already I know who lost. We did.

Representative government lost – when candidate after candidate eschews compromise, represents contributors first and constituents second or when they so clearly represent only those who vote for them and not the whole of their district.

Democracy lost – when a select, few voices are allowed to so outshout the many.

National identity lost – when eleven states representing but 29% of us US citizens receive virtually all the appearances, ads and field work for Presidential candidates; when 79% of us went virtually ignored.

Education lost – when attention being paid was rewarded not with intelligent explanations of the issues, but with pandering, simplistic half-truths, empty slogans and personal attacks.

Trust lost – when the press, TV and radio are filled with stories about voter fraud, voter suppression, last-minute provisional ballot and ID constraints and other dirty tricks, and confidence in the fairness of our election process eroded.

International respect lost – America as exemplar of democracy sullied in the eyes of the world as we squabble, belittle our leaders, waste unbelievable treasure, and mud wrestle our way into the next phase of never-ending political campaigning and partisan gridlock.

Who lost? We did.

January 21st, 2013: What Would You Do…

…not say, do? And not Obama or Romney, but You!

Your inaugural address yesterday has been widely praised for its healing words and for your call to Congress to lay aside ideology, to come together pragmatically, to get to work on our nation’s needs and opportunities -- straight talk that thrilled the huge crowd on the mall and South Lawn and  television audiences around the world.

Now, this morning in the Oval office with your chief of staff, the thin winter light shining coldly in, it begins to sink in: now you have to act. What are the first things you will do to turn those words into action?

You face a House still in Republican control, with John Boehner having barely survived a coup led by Eric Cantor and his Tea Party allies and only then through support of Democrats. Cantor is again House Majority Leader; Nancy Pelosi had little trouble retaining her Minority Leader position. In the Senate, Harry Reid is still Majority Leader, the Democrats retaining its slim majority status with help from independents who caucus with them. Mitch McConnell turned back a revolt among some Senators to retain his Minority Leader post. And everywhere, lots of post-mortems, second guessing, finger pointing going on.

So, what will you now do to get Congress in gear? Grand words from the inaugural address and those platitudes and vague promises from the campaign are all fine and good … but now it’s time to act.

If you are a Republican President, what will you do?
If you are a Democrat President, what will you do?

PS, Fletch talking:
I raised this question at the Olympic Club a couple of weeks ago and have been reflecting on it since. It seems to me an insurmountable opportunity – one of the conundrums that make the Presidency America’s worst job (as the Onion wrote four years ago "US Gives Black Man  Worst Job in America.”) I can’t imagine a sane person wanting to tackle it.

Please post an answer in the comments space below (instead of sending me an e-mail which others cannot share) and tell us where you would start and what your first actions would be to get Congress moving.