Fall

Today, fall announced itself in such an un-Northwesterly way.  Not soft drizzles and slowly turning leaves; instead, driving rain and hail, explosive bursts of yellow and red, chill winds.  What little summer we've had, and no real Indian Summer, all gone.  Grey days ahead.

I wandered in woods last weekend.  Foraged mushrooms (I love that word "foraged.")  Fried them up with butter, lemon and garlic; Ann served them (hesitantly) in an autumn casserole.  Foraged -- like getting away with something on Mother Nature -- a guilty pleasure.

Here's a poor haiku for October on Mercer Island.  (Very poor haiku my poet sister will likely find.)

      Yellow leaves drift down
      to blanket slumbering roots
      now dreaming of spring

A good friend, an expert on things Japanese, announced bad news on this blustery day; grey days ahead for him, too.  But I hold fast to that promise of spring for both of us.

We lit a fire tonight. 
Ann just entered the room and announced -- not knowing what I was writing -- "I love wearing wool and heavy shoes." 
One has to be a bit melancholic to love fall and winter in cozy Pacific Northwest.

I Am a Loser . . . and So Are You

We are all losers, about to become more so, and it’s all self-inflicted.

If articles of impeachment are brought against He-who-shall-not-be-named, either of two outcomes make losers of us all.

1)  Were he to be acquitted in the Senate, after a wrenching and divisive trial, his “base” (which is not a homogeneous whole) would be emboldened and triumphalist, having “proved” the he is the greatest.  His defeated detractors would be embittered, might lose the election, might find even scarcer any ground for compromise and pragmatic problem solving. Congress would be even more gridlocked.

               2) Were he found guilty by the Senate, after bitter and destructive debate, the Republican Party would be torn asunder; the white, traditionalist, anti-immigrant portion of his base more embittered, convinced that they have been disenfranchise by those elitists, all the more easily to be radicalized against knowledgeable experts, newly arrived citizens, and the arrogant establishment.  The “what’s in it for me” part of his base all the more ready to use its money and influence to lever government to their selfish ends, all the more eager to find another less toxic politician/tool to be used to advance their self-interest – even among Democrats.  And the winners of a guilty verdict in disarray between triumphalists and rootless Republican turncoats now without a home in either party.  In primaries, those turncoat Republican senators could be replaced by even more distrustful, vengeful radicals, further polarizing us.

Meanwhile, whichever way it goes, the trust and respect of our foreign friends is undercut and eroded while our foreign adversaries gloat over this evidence that democracy is in the end self-destructive and that only oligarchic, homogenized autocracies and can bring focus and stability to a nation.

Whatever the outcome, we all become losers.

A slightly less damaging pathway, as unfeasible as it may be in these fevered times, is to eschew seeking articles of impeachment.  Rather, hold the hearings, air the evidence, and then stand back and rely on election to settle the matter.  Let we the people decide.

The 1850’s and 60’s were more viciously polarized than now.  But in the 20thC and 21stC, is this the most dangerous of times?  My family, like all American families, have been through crises.  The resurgence of the KKK in the early ‘20’s derailed my grandfather’s career, but he recovered and gave my father good civic values. Though born in it, I don’t recall much of the Great Depression though I saw its mark on my frugal mother; it took a World War to recover the nation’s mojo.  As a teen, I saw first-hand the effect of the McCarthyite and HUAC tempests on families of public service patriots.  I lived through and wrestled with the generationally divided 1960’s and 70’s.  But those were episodic crises, serious ones to be sure.  This is different -- more fundamental, a structural attack on what America expects its leaders to stand for and how its Democracy is to work.  

In these times, we are all losers no matter who “wins.”

What can one do? Support hearings but argue against impeachment.  Let we the people vote. I have written my Representative Adam Smith and my Governor Jay Inslee, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, urging them to support full investigation but stop short of articles of impeachment.  More voices raised always help: speak up; don’t let the daily craziness wear us down.  And don't assume that this will just pass and America be the same again.  This is different; we are all losers.

Relax, Unwind, Renew – and Rewind

Busy, busy, busy –

·        Sept 7^th: Pratt open house, then a joyful surprise birthday party with people in from all over – and me totally clueless.

·        9^th: committee meeting at Pratt;

·        10^th: appointment at anti-coagulant clinic, meeting with lawyer to update wills and trusts;

·        11^th: two committee meetings at Pratt, birthday dinner with Ann. 

12^th: thank God, off to the Methow.

The bucolic Methow: unplug and renew in this valley of peace.  We based ourselves at the Mazama Country Inn – no TV, no radio, no nothing except fresh air and good food. 

Sept. 12^th, my day one embarkation on this 86^th year: Ann and I hiked Maple Loop, the most beautiful hike we’ve ever done – notwithstanding the Kleine Schetigg and the Grundewald, the Dolomites and Sud Tyrol, Montana’s Glacier and BC’s Waterton Park, Yosemite and Yellowstone, Lake Louise and the Ice Fields, Mts Rainier and Adams and the rest.  The Maple Pass Loop, a glacial cirque above Rainy Pass in the North Cascades.

Half-way up the north rim; Lake Ann down below.

The north rim takes one up 2,100’ in 4 miles and then curls around the lip and back down the south rim, with Ann Lake on one side and Rainy Lake on the other. We’ve done the seven and a half miles in mist and cloud; this week, in crisp, bright air. . . simply stunning either way.

 

From the lip @6,995', looking northeast into the Cirque 

From the lip, looking southwest toward Glacier Peak (left)

A panorama from the twelve-foot wide south rim; Lake Ann on the left, Rainy Lake on the right; path down the middle. 

Why did the hoary marmot cross the path?  Because he decided Ann was benign.

Friday morning, out on a northern section of the Pacific Crest Trail between Hart’s Pass and the Canadian border.  Despite its glamorous reputation, the trail itself but an unassuming track across Alpine meadow and tundra – just one foot ahead of the other.  One might hope to meet one PCT-er, but we met nine!  Four Kentuckians, 4 months and eleven days from the Mexican border and 31 miles to go; they planned to finish yesterday.  A North Dakota lad, lean and blonde, who finished Thursday, five months and 23 days, who has now walked back south to Hart’s Pass, looking for a ride down to Mazama.  A cold and wet Missouri girl, chilled through and through, calling a halt just 31 miles from her goal; she probably ran out of her food supply – they need 3,000 calories a day.  She planned to warm up a few days in Seattle and then come back and finish.  An Oregon couple, married 34 years, whom we met above Hart’s Pass, adding 31 miles to their completed 2,756; we ran into them at breakfast in town today. 

The Pacific Crest Trail north of Hart's Pass

The border crossing is just a set of post markers and a welcome to Canada sign; no guns, no badges, no questions.  Don't tell Trump.

Finally, Debra, a New Zealander, also finished and coming south. She blew by us at a pace we couldn't match. Debra caught the walking bug back home when for a charity fund-raiser, she did a sponsored walk of the 1700-some miles from south end of South Island to north end of North.  She never went back to her office job in water management civil engineering .  She has walked the Allegheny, on which she acquired a Ohioan boyfriend. Her PCT was interrupted last year in Stevens Pass by a pulmonary embolism that hospitalized her in Wenatchee for two weeks, so she came back this year to finish the last bit in 13 days.  Next: a job in Toronto and then the Continental Divide Trail from Canada to New Mexico.  We gave Debra a lift down to Mazama from where she intended to hitch to Everett and reconnect with trail pals. These free spirits are infectious – but, no, I am not about the tackle the PCT even in small increments.  Seven to ten miles are challenge enough for this lad.

The trail to Blue Lake

Today, a weekend finish on the short, simple Blue Lake Trail between Rainy and Washington Passes.  The huckleberries and blueberries have been hoovered up by the bears; larches turning yellow; small cutthroat hitting at flies in the lake; the rock spires calling for Taylor and Corriell to come and climb.   All is ancient and peaceful and the “real world” far away.  But which is that real world?

These magical 31 years with Ann; we are so lucky to have each other and to share our love of outdoor air, of views, of ascendant challenges.  Onward and upward to renew, recharge, rewind and to keep life in perspective.

PS.  On the way out, we made reservations at the Freestone for MLK Jr weekend in January.  Our winter Methow-fix.

14Sept’19

To Jamie Dimon: Long Over-due But Still Insufficient

Jamie Dimon and The Business Roundtable recently made headlines re “shareholder value” and the “purpose” of corporations.  Long overdue, but still insufficient. 

In 1976, on becoming an officer of General Mills, I began to be invited to management retreats.  I regularly had appeared before the board and top management as part of the “venture teams” that were indulging in (runaway?) mergers and acquisitions, taking us into toys and games, specialty retailing, restaurants and fashion.  (GMI has subsequently divested itself of all of these – but that’s a different story.)  The point is that despite being a new and very junior officer I was confident and comfortable with top brass and unrestrained in speaking up.

At that time of increasing rates of inflation, how to set GMI’s annual goals was a lively issue.  Henry Porter, whom I had in a minor way helped Bo Polk recruit to General Mills, was our brilliant, hard-charging Treasurer. (It’s an interesting feeling watching someone younger attain high position before you; in my case, more bemusement rather than resentment for I acknowledged Henry’s brilliance.) Henry was a crusader for “shareholder value” as the prime measure of success and the metric of our corporate goals. “Shareholder value” is a just fancy way of saying stock price. 

I along with Bernie Loomis of Kenner and a couple of others argued, year after year, against this simplistic goal of increasing “shareholder value” because translated into action it meant focus on quarter-over-quarter gains in earnings per share at a rate higher than the inflating CPI, and catering to investment analyst lemmings.  I was a member of a squad who regularly met with industry investment analysts; my beat was the Toy and Amusement Industry gurus, who really didn’t know much more than what they were fed by me and other company spokespersons as I.

My beef with shareholder value was and is that it rewards short-term thinking and penalizes investment of energy and capital in long-term opportunity.  I always lost those debates with Henry; he was the more articulate, had more at stake than did I, and had the backing of stock-option motivated top management.  One evening at such a retreat at a flossy golf club, Bob Kinney, then President of GMI, and I were relaxing and amusing ourselves on the putting green.  I not only lost money to Bob but he gently but firmly shut me down as I reprised my concerns about focus on stock price and market esteem.  “Fletch, just put one quarter ahead of the last and everything else will take care of itself.”   Two corporate moves later, at UAL/Westin, CEO Dick Ferris won my respect when he refused to allow release of quarterly estimates to the market for the same reason of not indulging short-term focus.  His reward was the financial markets turning on him and on our creation of an integrated airline/ hotel/ rental car/ reservation travel company and helping corporate raiders -- Icahn, Trump, the Basses and finally the Coniston Partners -- to break up UAL.

Now, forty-some years later, comes Jamie Dimon and The Business Roundtable pronouncing on August 19^th that shareholder value is not enough, that a corporation should adopt as its purpose “to deliver value to its customers, . . . to invest in its employees, . . . to deal fairly and ethically with its suppliers, . . . to support the communities in which it works, . . . and to generate long term value for its shareholders.”  The 181 CEOs who signed on were not motivated by my concern about short-term focus. They were more concerned about the Elizabeth Warrens and Bernie Sanders of the world who are challenging the very foundations of corporate rights and structure.  And they are right to be concerned and right to adopt these self-evident and self-servicing “purposes” (for what sensible business leader other than the con-artist-who-shall-not-be-named would expect to succeed by delivering shoddy value, screwing his employees, screwing his suppliers, and weakening his community?)

As laudable as is this statement of “stakeholder capitalism” signed off on by Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, Ben and Jerry, Muilenberg of Boeing and Barra of GM and their 174 compatriots -- it is insufficient.  It won’t help return long-term thinking to the forefront or encourage investment and opportunity seeking.  And the immediate push-back from the editors of The Economist and The Council of Institutional Investors demonstrates that more must change than just anodyne statements of purpose.  Corporate goals and management incentives must change. Society’s tolerance of privatization and mergers must change.

Re goals: long-term objectives, strategies, tactics and annual goals must be set for each “stakeholder” and management held accountable for performance on each one.

 

Re management incentives: managers should not be rewarded in stock.  Yes, not; pay management in cash.  The old saw about “aligning management goals with shareholder interests” is crap, a glib rationalization for management taking excess rewards.  Shareholders, most of whom are fund managers, have no loyalty to companies or to its long-term goals.  Their rewards and penalties are today’s price rises and falls and the fees they can collect. Remove management’s near-sighted dependence on stock awards and options and you will free them to look up and outward and to become better business developers and stewards of your investment.  Pay them in cash and you will steadily reduce the compensation gap between them and their employees.  Pay them in cash and you will deter stock-buybacks and encourage new investment and search for new opportunities to use capital.

Re privatizations and mergers: we need more corporations, not fewer.  In 1998 there were some 7,300 corporate equites listed on US market exchanges.  Today there are around 3,600.  Imagine that! In but two decades, at a time when low yields on bonds drive investors toward equities, your choice of what to buy has been halved. Little wonder that the bull market continues despite worries and risks ever more evident; more investors are chasing fewer things to buy.  The FTC and DOJ must change their permissive stance on mergers and acquisitions.  Privatizations must be constrained. (I have no idea how to do that but smarter guys than I, young Henry Porter types, ought to be put to work on how to reduce private equity tale-overs through tax and regulatory constraints.)  I repeat: we need more corporations, not fewer.

Corporations must change themselves or be changed.  The fault is not narrow purpose or lack of recognizing stakeholders.  The fault is management rewards and incentives and inadequate regulation of stock buy-backs, mergers, acquisitions and privatizations. Stakeholder capitalism is and always has been the foundation of a healthy, growing, equitable economy, but the way to realize it is to change management’s goals, rewards and attentions and the rules of the game they play.       

---

 [FW1]

The Balkans: Lands of Honey & Blood

Northwest Ruminations has been silent not for lack of rumination but to edit photos and produce our latest trip book, The Balkans: Lands of Honey & Blood. (In addition to four-days, eight hours a day, learning from a Hawaiian master to carve stone pendants and weave Polynesian-style cords and lashings for them; plus fishing far off the web in northern British Columbia for a week; plus working as Pratt's board president on our retreat, reflections and re-direction.  To boot, I am drafting this en-route to and from Piedmont for grandson Peter Waller’s wonderful wedding to Mary Garner, a perfect Roo to Peter’s Eeyore. The Dr.s Mary and Peter are newly minted PhDs from Cal Berkeley.)

But about the Balkans: bal in Turkish means honey; kans, blood: an apt metaphor for these lands of the South Slavs where West has conflicted with East for 1,500 years. These verdant, beautiful lands. These fraught and violent lands. The first European war of the bloody 20thC took place here; the last European war of the 20thC took place here along with medieval massacres and cruelties. The first European war of the 21stC, God forbid? It could likely start here.

These handsome, lovely people, so hospitable and gracious to us — each of their three religions teach to welcome the stranger — but they so distrust and detest their neighbors.  Croat, Montenegrin, Albanian, Bosniak, Kosovar, Serb, Slovene, Macedonian — one's ethno-religious background labels you no matter what passport you carry, no matter how secular or religious you are. After the “Yugoslav Civil War” as Serbs call it, “The Homeland Wars” to Croats and Bosniaks, these countries now have self-segregated, becoming more and more homogeneous and rigidly jingoistic. One Dalmatian Croat living close to “our enemy”, i.e., Montenegro, growled in explanation to me “Today, neighbor; never friend.” I asked a young, educated, secular Croat “is there a Balkan Desmond Tutu; what religious leaders are working on reconciliation?” “None,” he answered, “they are all preaching superiority and separation.”

Holbrook’s West-imposed Dayton accords ended the fighting but at a price of establishing an unstable structure of shared power that emasculates governance and totally blocks economic re-development. Every former Yugoslav country has lost population since 1999 — a debilitating brain drain. Bosnia is especially ungovernable, with everyone hankering back to days of Tito.  A Sarajevo actress told us she is longing for “the right strong man” to come along and sweep all this away.  Milorad Dodik, leader of the federated Republika Srpska, a Dayton-creation, last month announced formation of an independent Srpska militia and his desire (with Putin egging him on) to secede from Bosnia and be annexed by Serbia. Last year, Oliver Ivanovo, Deputy State Minister of Kosovo, was killed in a drive-by assassination, just another in a long string — one might say “as Balkan as assassination.” The Serbian prime minister last month charged Kosovo and Albania with plotting to unite. 

Here in these former Yugoslavian countries, for all the world to see, is identity politics taken to its logical/illogical extreme with a strong undertow of violence mixed in.  Yearning, vulnerable, anxious people surrounded by rising retro-autocrats, populist nationalists like Orban of Hungary, Salvini of Italy, Hofer of Austria, Erdogan of Turkey., LePen of France: the Balkans are kindling awaiting a match.

This OAT* trip revealed to me how little I knew of this amazing, confounding history. (Churchill quipped “the Balkans produce more history than they can consume.”) Also, I have learned to revere Rebecca West; her Black Lamb, Grey Falcon (1940), the most marvelous travelogue/history/incisive commentary I have ever read, all 1200 pages of it.

Do not let me dissuade you. Go explore the Balkans. Enjoy sun in the Dalmatian islands. Wonder at Roman emperor Diocletian’s retirement Palace in Split, at the mountains of Montenegro, at the Ottoman bridge of Mostar, at the caves of Postojna and more — and learn. Learn how little we know of this 1500 year conflict zone between east and west and how it colors our times. Learn what lack of diversity can yield in paranoiac chauvinism. Learn what ancient injury can do to scar national psyche if not healed with vision and leadership and education. And learn to be a stranger on the receiving end of warm, eager and welcoming hospitality.

We on the upper wall around the old town of
Dubrovnik, Croatia

Motovun, in the Istrian region of Croatia

Hunting truffles with an Istrian
hunter and her trained sniffer-dog

Karanac (kah-RAHN-ass), Croatia: making new cheese
 for tomorrow's breakfast

In the Gulf of Kotor in Montenegro

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Early morning along the esplanade in
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina: the original 16thC Ottoman
bridge destroyed by Croat insurgents in the war, 1993, and
re-built in 2003-'04  

One of the many caverns in Postonja Caves.
(Note the walkway for scale.)

A "Sarajevo Rose": several hundred mortar shell
holes where at least three persons were killed during the three-year siege are memorialized
with red resin fillings. 

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: a display in the
Srebrenica Exhibit of mass graves created by Serb and Croat
 militias and the Yugoslav army during the Bosnian War, 1992- '95

Split: an early-morning fashion
shoot in one of the plazas of
Diocletian's retirement palace.

Split, Croatia: Mestrovic's statue of Bishop Gregory
of Nin, who performed the mass in Serbo-Croation
and was banished for his transgression --
500 years before Luther! 

Zagreb, Croatia: Cardinal Stepanic.  Saint or War Criminal?

The Austro-Hungarian skyline of old Zagreb

And that BC fishing trip?  An insufferably satisfied
Roger W, a fishing pal who consistently out-fishes me,
with a nice kamloops rainbow.

*OAT: Overseas Adventure Travel, of Boston. Ann and I went to Croatia on our own, then joined an OAT group in Dubrovnik. We were very pleased with their staff, their planning and also their flexibility to seize opportunities, with their attention to detail, with their local guides and opportunities to mix and dine with locals in their homes. And with our compatible and interested fellow travelers, several of whom are repeat OAT loyalists. We’d recommend OAT.

A Few Words About An Under-appreciated Man

It's been ten weeks since last posting thoughts.  A result of fraught times, personal and public, plus three weeks exploring the Balkans.  I will blog about that remarkable trip as soon as I finish editing some 1600 photos -- no, I won't include all of them.

In the meantime, I'd like to comment on Jay Inslee whose candidacy for President is gaining yawns at best, dismissals as "light-weight" at worst.  I think he deserves more attention and respect, so I rise to his defense, and ask you to listen carefully during the debates.

Inslee was raised in Seattle, worked his way through UW and Willamete, BA in Econ and a JD, set up and practiced law in a rural Washington town.  So he knows and relates to both the urban and the rural sides of the Cascades.  Earning trust of small town and rural neighbors, became a prosecutor, elected to Washington State legislature, then to Congress.

Returned to West side of Cascades and from an urban district, was again elected to US Congress.  Resigned to successively run for Governor, and has been a progressive one:

• environmental protection initiatives for Orcas, clean energy subsidies and incentives
• expansion of health care to 900,000 Washingtonians
• executive pardon program for marijuana possession felons
• executive suspension of use of death penalty
• free college tuition for families under median state income with dedicated funding, endorsed by industry
• State Dream Act, allowing undocumented dreamers access to state colleges and financial aid
• Grants for Apprentice programs in 11 under-served communities, enrolling 29,000 youngsters
• Increased state estate tax
• Supported and enacted purchase constraints on assault weapons

Courage? Toughness?

• Inslee was an adamant and outspoken opponent of Iraq War
• Sponsor of bill for impeachment inquiry into Atty, General Gonzales
• Told Pres. Trump to his face, in the oval office, that "you should Tweet less, listen more."
• Was first to sue against Trump's Muslim Ban

He has chaired the Democratic Governor's Council during the time Democrats increased the number of state houses held.

Prosecutor, Legislator, Governor, Political Pro, trusted by urban and rural constituents -- and a thoroughly down to earth, decent man of common sense and progressive ideas.  What's not to like? What's not to like, Iowans?

Loss

Last Wednesday morning at Johns Hopkins, two specialist surgeons, an anesthesiologist and their OR team shockingly lost a patient: Carol Youmans, debilitated by the tumor eating at her, had not the strength to respond to their frantic attempts to resuscitate and bring her through.  They were, I am sure, stunned by their failure. The rest of us, stunned by a Big Bang of loss.

The citizens of Annapolis (more than the transient bedroom-community residents, legislative part-timers, yachting weekenders) lost a fellow-citizen; a friendly acquaintance; a caring, engaged member of the community; that helpful gal who ran the print shop for years; who had a smile and kind word for everyone.

Friends and fellow plein air painters at Vermont’s Greater Barton Arts Center lost a co-founder and painting coach.  The Colonial Players of Annapolis lost a gifted actor, director, producer, a loyal collaborator who worked ceaselessly over the last 40 seasons of success.  Her passion was theatre; her web handle: “theatreslave.”

Long-time friends, classmates, travel companions up and down the East Coast lost a dear soul who cared deeply, who was always ready to listen.  Empathy and love oozed from every pore.

Her brother lost a younger sister.  He the dutiful, responsible, serious first born; she five years junior, emotional, eager to please, wearing heart on sleeve.  She called him “dearheart” despite his incessant teasing in their childhood; despite now separated by a continent and seeing each other only infrequently. The statistics say I should have gone first.  So long as I am alive they, the younger women in my life, are OK, aren't they?  Her loss also a loss of that innocent assumption; stats are not lives.  The circle of seven cousins broken again; now we are five.

Adrien and Edward lost an older sister, one with whom they had grown very close, especially after Carol lost Jack and the three began to summer together there in Barton in heart of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Working together to bring a dream of a Barton Arts Community into reality. Adrien’s stunning loss came on her way north to be caregiver next week when Carol was expected home from Hopkins. 

And for son Will and his Lisa, for daughter Alice and her Paul and their families the greatest loss, the devastating loss of that reliable, nurturing presence, that loving mother/grandmother/great-grandmother. This unexpected, unbearable loss -- but the loss that must be borne.  Her love animated them; that love endures.

So, at an instant in time and space, a Wednesday morning in a Baltimore OR, a Big Bang of Loss exploded into a mini-Universe of losses shared out in greater or lesser degrees to hundreds of us.

So much loss. Too much lost.