One of those ‘Only in America’ news items in the Financial Times today notes that “Americans will be intrigued – and the rest of the world utterly perplexed – by an award to be handed out on Wednesday in Detroit for the car model with the finest cup holders.”

The FT observes:

Americans consume vast amounts of coffee and soft drinks in their vehicles, especially on their commute to work. Car-makers have been increasingly challenged to design holders that secure a Starbucks venti or one of the ever-bigger soft drink bottles through sharp turns and abrupt stops.

As Al Gore notes on p.272 in his book An Inconvenient Truth, the USA is dead last in auto fuel efficiency — below 25 mpg vs. 45 mpg in the EU and even greater than that in Japan. Ironically, China, a late entry as an auto manufacturing supplier, recently raised standards that now far exceeds the USA’s.

This means that Detroit cannot sell cars made in America to China because we don’t meet their environmental standards.

The American Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE ) standards are intended to help auto companies succeed. But it’s the companies that are building fuel-efficient cars that are doing well, while doing good.

Never mind, as we drive our SUV’s down the road to the future, today’s awards will help ensure that American’s can safely guzzle soda as they guzzle gas. Priorities. Priorities.

Al Gore’s movie on Global Warming is compelling.

But many people will never see it.

The details of the climate crisis are complex, but it’s important that people get the impact on future generations.

These ads from Environmental Defense and the Ad Council make the case.

Take a moment.

Tick

features children ticking off global warming’s worst consequences if action is not taken soon.

The Train

portrays global warming as a train headed for future generations if action is not taken soon.

Bizarre news that a 44-year-old American who disappeared from Orlando, FL over twenty years ago has recently surfaced in a British jail. Charles Stopford was arrested on false passport charges when trying to cross to France from Dover (despite being in the EU, Britain does not have open borders policy such as exists between many other EU countries). He had lived a prosperous life in Britain under the false identity of Lord Christopher Buckingham – titular heir to a family dynasty – using stationery bearing the Buckingham coat of arms, which hasn’t been used since the 17th century.

Stopford was able to “pass” as a member of the British upper classes partly because, from a young age, he had developed a perfect British accent at his parents home in Orlando by watching re-runs of Benny Hill and Monty Python and listening to his extensive collection of Beatles records.

This amazing feat of cultural assimilation should be a lesson to all of us who wish to blend seamlessly into other cultures.

No doubt Stopford paid particular attention to Monty Pythons’ Upperclass Twit of the Year sketch. This would compensate for the Beatles Scouse accents and the strangled guttural squeaks uttered by the terminally randy Benny Hill lusting after disheveled blonds.

I wonder how many other cultural chameleons are out there? Perhaps there’s some illegal immigrant in the USA (a role I know well) hanging out on an Ivy League campus carefully mimicking the tones of Yale graduate President Bush? Maybe they’ll succeed, like Dubya, in disguising their true origins.

As I wrote in my last post, I spent a number of years working in the USA without a Green Card. In the current immigration debate (which comes around like clockwork every 10 years and started with the 1986 Immigration Reform Legislation that granted me Amnesty and put me on the road to citizenship) my sympathies are with those here ‘illegally’ being paid a low wage by employers to do menial jobs. The immigrants, employers and most Americans benefit.

I was never tempted to marry for a Green Card, which was the route chosen by Gérard Depardieu in the epinomous movie. So I was spared the trials and tribulations of a sham marriage. However, there were a number of amusing moments in my life as a wetback.

In 1985 I worked as the tech support guy for a small software company in Berkeley that sold a database product. It was a constant grind of answering 30-40 calls for help a day from frustrated users. One day on returning from lunch I saw the usual pile of pink message slips on my desk awaiting a call back.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the one asking me to call Mr. Smith at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Busted! With trembling fingers I dialed the number and waited for the INS agent to demand I turn myself in. Wrong! Mr. Smith was having trouble building a small dBase program to track illegal immigrants, and could I help fix it? Over the next week I exchanged tips and tricks with the INS to help them design their database. I must admit I was tempted to introduce a few bugs into the code, but resisted the temptation.

These days I imagine the INS has migrated to Oracle.

The current debate in Washington on alternatives to ‘solve’ the problem of illegal immigration reminds me of my own checkered history of living here for seven years without a green card. I was fortunate in my timing and in my profile – arriving in 1980 on a tourist visa that I let expire, with a valid Social Security from my graduate student days a few years earlier, and not being Mexican, I found it a simple matter to get work and launch my career in Silicon Valley. In those pre-9/11 days no employer wanted to see more than a Social Security card and drivers license. In 1986 it was all put to rights by the Amnesty program, I got my green card the same month I got married, and I’m now a US citizen.

Of course, I was unable to leave the country and travel to visit my family in the UK for a long time. But apart from that inconvenience I lived a normal life. I was well aware of the truth of Dylan’s line that to live outside the law you must be honest. Paid my taxes, didn’t jay-walk, went to Church on Sundays.

I wouldn’t recommend doing this today, no more than I would recommend hitch-hiking across the country. But there are clearly two sides to the ‘morality’ of entering America illegally. As Tonto probably said to the Lone Ranger Whose law are you breaking anyway, white man?

Jacob Weisbeg remarked on the paradox of anti-immigrant sentiment in a country built by immigration in Wednesday’s Financial Times:

America has always tolerated such flawed but functional arrangements when it comes to immigration. The country was built by people who did not wait for engraved invitations. New arrivals draw inevitable hostility from native-born workers with whom they compete for jobs, even though the native-born can often recall an immigrant family saga themselves. As a result, the national attitude toward immigration remains marked by ambivalence. We need their muscle. We admire their pluck and sacrifice. At the same time, we object to having to compete with them, we resent their differences and we doubt their commitment to our values. America’s immigration policies will never be fully rational because feelings about a process so central to the American experience will always contain an element of contradiction.

I wish the current crop of immigrants well. As for those who by an accident of birth are Born in the USA, they should decide what they want more. A country of pure-breds? In that case are you willing to spend more for child-care, clean offices, lettuce, strawberries and asparagus? If you demand 99-cent lettuce and there are employers willing to pay illegals to pick the crops in their fields then don’t bitch about your borders.

What is it about White Collar workers who telecommute leading angst ridden days?

I’ve been tasting some of the bitterness involved in working from home this month.

Maybe it was my 10 day bout with a cold/flu/infection that sapped my energy, but not enough to officially ‘take a sick day’. Maybe it was the threat of Jury Duty, which threw my schedule for a loop for two weeks while I played a waiting game to see if I would spend 5-6 weeks on a murder trial jury.

Whatever the reason, I’ve had first hand experience of the downside of 21st Century White Collar work which can lead to angst, anomie, feelings of worthlessness. For me it all comes down to schedules. I find if I can get an early start, take a short lunch break and finish by 5pm I have accomplished quite a lot and still have an evening free for social and family time. This is typically what happens when I commute to the offices of the saucy company I work for (English joke). But when I work from home, as I’ve done for the last two days, I find that even though I’m sitting at my home office desk by 9am, I don’t really get anything done until after lunch, and I’m still working away at 7:30 or 8:00pm.

There is, of course, a boat-load of cultural conditioning affecting all of this. From Weber’s Protestant Ethic to the challenges of the modern Organization Man not to mention twenty years of schooling, none of us have really been prepared for the freedom afforded by telecommuting.

I wonder if anything in European, Asian or Latin America culture better prepares people to telecommute? It’s un-American not to jump into your SUV and clog a freeway or two to sit in a cubicle and access data you could just as easily access from home. Many countries don’t have the infrastructure – either the bandwidth or the homes with room for a den or office. Without the broadband there can be no slippers at noon nor rough stubble afternoons.

The article I mentioned yesterday on those Dutch cyclists who avoid dressing in spandex and helmets points to European differences from mainstream American culture when it comes to sports:

In the U.S. we have a “hiking culture� – people who have trail maps, Gore-Tex, special boots, trekking poles, GPS, etc. Then there’s the guy who is walking down the street to get from the bus stop to the mall. He’s more analogous to the cyclists I photographed in Amsterdam

This reminds of a time when my younger cousin and his wife came over from England to visit, and spent a weekend camping in Yosemite. One afternoon they were leaving their campsite to explore the Valley when a friendly Yank at the next campground asked “Hey! Are you guys going for a hike?”. “Actually, no,” my cousin replied – somewhat mystified – “we’re just going to walk around a bit…”

Only in America will you find “The World’s Largest Sporting Goods Store” and trade associations dedicated to marketing everything from hunting, shooting and fishing to equipping a home gym or kitting out junior for the soccer or softball league. This is big business. He who dies with the most toys wins. Those with money to burn, like the CEO of Oracle, spend millions on sport.

Meanwhile, the redwood forests, gulf stream waters, diamond deserts and endless highways are there to explore for free in this land that was made for you and me.

C.I.C.L.E. has a fascinating post about the bicycle culture of Amsterdam. Laura Domela’s uncannily beautiful photographs are all taken from her apartment window, looking down on the heads of the cyclists as they passed by. Check out the .pdf file to see the range of people of all ages and sizes on their bikes alone, or carrying children, pets, furniture, groceries.

Cycling in Amsterdam is not a specialized activity. It’s a daily mode of transportation. People don’t dress special to ride their bike any more than we dress special to drive our car to the grocery store. They are wearing business suits and high heels because they’re on their way to work and that’s what they wear to do those activities. When you drive to the store you don’t think “I’m going for a drive;� you think “I’m going to the store�…or to work, or to the park, or wherever. Culturally it’s a reflection of cycling not being an activity in and unto itself, but an enabler of daily life.

She notes that cycling is a great equalizer. The Dutch, even those who drive, aren’t as obsessed as many Americans and British are with their car as a status symbol.

I’ve always loved to cycle. In the USA it’s quite dangerous – in 15 years I made two trips to the emergency room, and since I was wearing a helmet, lived to tell the tale. I envy these sexy Dutch folks their cycling freedom – loose in a safe city, out for a ride.

At some post-petroleum point in the future these are images that might be as common in New Amsterdam as they are today in Old.

All images © Laura Domela 1998-2006

Last week at the Ragan Speechwriters Conference David Kusnet asked how politicians can best communicate in the post-rhetorical era. One example of a public figure making waves recently is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berluscino.

Alexander Stille’s profile in Friday’s Financial Times (subscription required) highlights the many bizarre aspects of the Italian Premier’s bid for re-election. He has “alternately compared himself, in the space of abut a week, to Napoleon, Churchill and Jesus Christ while also vowing to give up sex until after the April poll.” The Italian premier courts publicity, any publicity. His outrageous behavior endears him to voters, especially those who get most of their information from television.

Mr. Berlusconi is perhaps the first truly post-modern politician to turn many of the old rules of his trade upside down. Traditional politicians – closely connected to a party, an ideology and a set of programs – did not need to be personally charismatic. In a post-ideological age, what Mr. Berlusconi is selling is Mr. Berusconi, not a party or program. By dominating the media…he controls the political discourse and silences his critics..

We’ll know in April if the Italian voters are swayed by style over substance. If so, there’s a lesson here for corporate speakers and those who manage their external communications. Don’t just focus on the message. Fancy rhetoric, facts and supporting evidence have their place. But don’t lose sight of the impact that the unexpected, outrageous and plain bizarre has with today’s audiences.

This amazing documentary by Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day captures the sights and sounds of Kumbh Mela, an extraordinary spiritual festival attended by more than 70 million pilgrims (70 Million! That’s not a typo, there are 25 million people there at any one time, living in tent villages, sharing food, noise, dust and joy).

It’s the largest gathering of people on the planet (Woodstock Nation ain’t got nothing on this). Held every 12 years (for more than 2,000 years) near Allahabad, India, Kumbh Mela attracts young Hindu monks, wise old sages, honored guest the Dalai Lama and other Hindu and Buddhist leaders.

Maurizio is a fellow student in the the Pro-Track meetings sponsored by the National Speakers Association.

His colleague Nick Day shares a remarkable insight into cultural differences in an interview with the filmmakers on the DVD. Commenting on what it was like to make the film:

Amen.

I rented the movie from Netflix.