“What to drink? No Coke. Pepsi…”

Friends:

We are a strange society and when I say “we,” I mean all of us.  Me, you, your sister, your brother’s college roommate’s nephew, everyone.  And when I say that, it’s not because I want to denigrate anyone or raise the suspicion that no one is normal, but in fact, this level of weirdness is normal.  While I am the same way, it perplexes me why this is so.

So what am I talking about?  It is the way every person in society deals with trust.  On three separate occasions this week I was struck with how completely bass-ackwards we as a society are when it comes to trust.
 

We trust when we really shouldn’t and we fail to trust when we have every indication that trust is appropriate.  Really?  Huh?
 

Earlier this week I handled a transaction whereby a shareholder in a company was being bought out by his partners.  By all accounts it was a fairly straightforward deal in which payment for the shares was given and certain books and records were delivered in return.  Simple, clean, zero complexities.  In fact, when it came time to negotiate the definitive documents, the discussions were congenial and cooperative, with very little aggressiveness.  My client, however, believed that disaster was imminent.  He was of the firm and utter belief that the other side, the people with whom he had done business with and was partners with for years, was not trustworthy.  Nothing about the transaction gave me pause for concern, yet my client was adamant that these people could not be trusted.

The second instance was a settlement that blew up between two parties after the documents had been signed.  The terms were discussed and negotiated and documents executed and yet, despite the fact that adequate safeguards were in place in the event of a breach, one side felt that she could not trust the other side and she called the deal off.  This deal, by the way, was between two individuals who had been in business together for over a year.

Trust is a funny, fickle thing and one which cannot be defined.  We have to trust; it is a requirement for daily interaction, yet it is incomprehensible.  Why is it that we sometimes have difficulty trusting business partners or spouses or contracting parties, yet we freely and blindly trust the people who make our food and fly our airplanes and drive along-side us on the freeway?

What brought these thoughts to the forefront of my psyche this week?  I mentioned above that there were three instances this week where trust became an issue.  The third hit very close to home; we sometimes have to place our most treasured possessions into the hands of strangers.  This week we interviewed nannies, people who would come into our home and take care of our daughters.  I struggle so mightily with the task of selecting a stranger in whom I will place my greatest trust.  And yet I feel no trepidation when I eat at a restaurant or fly on an airplane or go to the emergency room.  Any one of those could affect my health or even take my life from me, however I unreservedly trust these people I have never met and, perhaps under different circumstances, wouldn’t trust with my wallet and five bucks inside of it.  Why, why why?

The only thing I could come up with is actually very silly.  We trust because we have to.  We are an “out of sight, out of mind” people.  If we don’t know the people involved and if we don’t see them at work, then we trick ourselves into believing that the world is good and people are good. 

So why do we sometimes have trouble trusting our closest relations and those who we have in the past trusted so intimately?

I am going to think this one through some more and maybe I will have some ideas for next week.  What I can do, though, is this:  work to be more trustworthy right now.  If I can’t trust other people, the least I can do is make it so other people don’t have the same concern about me.

Rob
 

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“Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war…”

Prepare to be amazed!  Prepare to be astounded!  Prepare for your world to be rocked like it has never been rocked before!  For after you consider what I have only recently discovered, you will question all that you know and everything that you have ever been taught in history class.  Are you ready?  Can you bear the changes that will take place inside of you as you free your mind to my discovery?  If you can handle it, that is…

 

Wait, before I go on, let’s put this into a little bit of perspective.  What I am about to tell you isn’t anything new.  In fact, it is something that you have always known, yet maybe never gave much consideration.  It is something that I only re-discovered yesterday, but has instilled in me a completely new perspective on my own life.

Ok, that being said, here goes:

“History is written by the victors.”



Makes sense, right?  The events as they are described in our history books are as related by the parties who won the wars, who prevailed in the elections, who came out on top of whatever conflict existed at the time.  Not quite clear on what I mean?  Well, let’s put it this way– if Germany had won World War II, would history depict them as monsters and their efforts to eradicate the Jews as genocidal?  Of course not!  

 

As I said, this came to me just yesterday as I became further engrossed in a work of non-fiction describing the terrors and tortures an American bombardier experienced at the hands of the Japanese while a prisoner of war during World War II.  To say that the treatment of the American POW’s was horrific is an understatement; the levels of degradation, humiliation and deprivation were enough to make even the hardest of heart squirm in his seat.  But it occurred to me that the events as they unfolded, while atrocious to us because of the villainy of the Japanese, would have been celebrated and rewarded had the Japanese prevailed during the War.  “The techniques used were necessary to stamp out the evilness of the Americans and it is through these efforts that the American will was defeated, an historic victory for the Emperor!”

Don’t agree? 

As I read and writhe in discomfort at the torment and anguish of the POWs, my thoughts travel to the other side of the battlefield and the Allied forces, whether in the Pacific or in Europe.  Am I to understand that treatment of POWs by the Allies was not similarly despicable and inhumane?  You don’t hear a lot about that, do you?  We know all about Auschwitz, Andersonville, the Hanoi Hilton, and Siberia, but does that mean that the Americans didn’t have similar places with similar goals of torture and terror?

I don’t mean to be cynical; in fact, I feel that my position in this is more from the perspective of an historian.  But are we really supposed to believe that the Americans have always followed the rules of the Geneva Convention and have treated prisoners with respect and honor? 

But since the Americans, the good guys, won the way, our history books are filled with examples of the villainy of the bad guys.  How else to substantiate and validate the thousands of lives lost in defeating such evil?  And when you do hear about the heinous nature of tactics used against American enemies, the torturing souls are outcast and castigated as rogues, as exceptions to the rule.  Or they are downplayed, with the suggestion being that the actions need to be examined based on the circumstances of the time.  No one anywhere would attempt to compare the American conquest of the Native Americans to the Armenian Genocide, right?  At the time of the Native American conquest, America was an unexplored and undiscovered country and the Native Americans were uncivilized savages.  What the Americans did wasn’t good, but can you blame them?  They used the only tactics they knew…

Maybe I am being cynical.  Maybe I really do want to believe that as Americans, or as the good guys, or simply as the victors, that we played fair and let our actions on the battlefield speak for itself.  That we didn’t have to resort to terror, persecution, and mistreatment; that we didn’t have to sink to the levels of our enemies in order to prevail. 

I said that this all had a personal impact on me and I wasn’t being haughty.  We all know that you can’t win them all.  You can’t win every lawsuit; you can’t get every client; you can’t sell every house at the price you want; you can’t always get it right.  So on those occasions in which you don’t prevail, that you don’t get the client, that you don’t make the best deal possible, how do you want to be remembered?  Keep in mind, that when that happens, you won’t be the one writing the history of it, the other guy will.  What’s he going to say about you?  What’s she going to say about how you played the game?

“It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”  In some respect, I disagree.  For us to be successful in our professional lives, it really is whether you win or lose.  That could be the difference between providing for your family and having to scrape to get by.  But understanding that you won’t always win… how will you want your actions to be perceived?  Will you want to be regarded as an adequate foe who shot straight and just didn’t get the job done at the end, but not for a lack of trying and hard-work?  Or will you want to be remembered as the one who played dirty, employed nasty tactics, and still lost the battle?

The villainy of the loser is made more prominent as a further justification for the efforts needed to quell the enemy.  I am not so naive as to think that Americans, or any victors in general, always played by the rules.  I know that war is hell, campaigns are hell, battle is hell.  And I know that much of life is winner-take-all… But does winner-take-all also mean that winner take dramatic license in reporting history?

How do you want to be remembered?

Rob

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“More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose.”

My Fellow Americans:
 

In the coming days, I will be going through a monumental transformation, one which we all are privileged to experience, the greatness of which few acknowledge.  Pursuant to Section 1 of Article 2 of the United States Constitution, on January 22, 2011, I, Robert A. Cohen, will become eligible to assume the oath of office as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2013.
 

For on January 22, 2011, I will become 35 years of age, the minimum age for presidential eligibility.  What better time than the present to state my candidacy and outline my experience?  I am sure that you will conclude that I am more than qualified for such an esteemed position and that you would be well advised to cast your vote for me on Election Day, 2012.

 

While there are many characteristics and experience levels that are considered when analyzing credentials for the highest office in the land, none are dispositive and certainly none guarantee excellence in the Oval Office.  Nonetheless, I believe I can compete with anyone when it comes to qualifications.

1) Prior Service Experience:  I am no stranger to the responsibility of being an elected official and the rigors and demands placed thereon.  In 7th grade, running on a platform of being “A Superman For the Job,” I defeated all of my opponents to become 7th Grade Senator, famous most for the monumentally successful 7th Grade Dance which I devised, organized, and hosted.  When the first chords of Salt ‘N Pepa’s “Push It” boomed from the cassette player housed in the audio/visual room of the cafeteria, everyone knew that a new regime was in power, one which was successful at following through on its promises. 

2) Eloquence:  As Senator from the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at C.S.U.N., I famously made history as one of the few Associated Students representatives who objected to the invitation extended to former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Louisiana State Representative David Dukes.  Because of my vocal opposition to the invitation, I was given a platform on KABC (with Larry Elder), among others, and had the opportunity to expound on my disagreement with the “debate.”  All to no avail, however, for the debate proceeded, and failed miserably.  What was supposed to be a civil debate about Proposition 209 became a powder keg of social unrest on an otherwise peaceful campus. 

3)  Familiarity with the Credit Crisis:  As the only 7th Grade Senator to successfully win re-election to the Senate as an 8th Grader, I displayed an astuteness to the vagaries of the credit system by running on the platform that I was like the American Express Card– you didn’t want to leave the 8th Grade without me.

 

4) High Morals:  Despite the fact that my fellow 8th Graders had elected me to represent them in the Senate, I could not abide the leadership class’s daily focus on coloring inside the lines instead of important junior high affairs and, with a heavy-heart, I resigned my position in defiance of such strictures requiring coloring inside the lines.

5) Diplomacy:  I do not believe in violence and certainly do not promote the use of fisticuffs as a means to address conflict, except when absolutely necessary.  Before my fellow candidates obtain this information and attempt to use it against me, I will state with the utmost conviction, that the kid I bit in pre-school absolutely, positively deserved it and it was only after I had exhausted all other non-violent means of resolving the dispute did I resort to using my teeth.

6) Foreign Affairs:  As a world traveler I have had numerous opportunities to explore foreign cultures and understand how small this world really is.  Not only I have I been to Disneyland, DisneyWorld and Euro-Disney (and have “It’s A Small World” on repeat on my iPod), I have also eaten at McDonald’s restaurants on multiple continents, thus familiarizing myself with the disparities in the preparation of the Big Mac across cultural lines.

7) Calm Under Pressure:  Being calm and collected under pressure is something which is innate, not learned.  For example, when the American with whom I was traveling was being forcibly ejected from a nightclub in London, I had the level head.  No, I was not the one attempting to persuade the Bobbies not to take my companion to the hoosegow, but instead I had the presence of mind to obtain my friend’s coat-check claim ticket from him, so as to retrieve his Burberry Men’s Dark Brown Leather Jacket (MSRP $759.99).  Certainly a night in jail was more preferable to losing his treasured coat to the Hippodrome night club.  
 
8 ) Humility:  A President gains respect through his past actions.  But he maintains that respect with dignity and humility.  Mere days after I had been elected 7th Grade Senator and was the talk of the school with my moving, inspirational and legendary “Superman” speech (as it later became known through the halls of Patrick Henry Junior High School), I found myself on the wrong side of the law, having been caught throwing tater tots in the lunch area and striking, with authority (but by accident), the Assistant Principal, Mrs. Barnett.  With great humility and humbleness, I served my sentence, picking up each of the 25 pieces of trash required of me for my paper pick-up punishment.  One cannot attempt to institute programs to rehabilitate the imprisoned without first having walked in the shoes of the criminal.  My shoes were well traveled and I include my experiences in the criminal element as amongst the most powerful and influential of my life.

My Fellow Americans, my qualifications are indisputable.  There is no road map to the perfect presidential candidate, but I believe I have the tools and the experience to compete with anyone else who chooses (ill-advisedly) to run against me.  With this, I throw my Los Angeles Dodgers hat into the proverbial ring, and hope that I can count on you to place your vote for me for President in 2012.  A vote for me is a vote against Mickey Mouse, whom I anticipate will be my largest competition. 

Thank you.
 

Robert Alan Cohen
 

Your Next President
 

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“Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and the dog would go in.”

Friends:



As you no doubt have determined, I shy away from hot button issues and opt to avoid taking stances on prominent topics of discussion. Frankly, I just don’t want to inundate you with my political views and this simply is not the appropriate forum for that anyway.  If you are interested in my thoughts on politics or highly debatable and explosive issues, buy me a beer, let’s talk.

 

However, you HAD to know that I would have a position on this whole Mark Twain thing.  And having been a faithful reader these past few months, you have seen my passion for literature come out more heavily than in the months before.  Not only that, but I just happen to be reading a Mark Twain volume right now.  So it was too much to pass up issuing comment.

If you haven’t heard, a new version of “Huckleberry Finn” (not Huckleberry Hound– I always got those two confused!) will be released next month with certain edits and revisions.  Huck Finn is notorious for its crude and offensive language.  It isn’t a secret– in fact, it is the fourth most banned book in schools.  And it is due to its use of derogatory terms to refer to African-Americans and Native Americans; this new version will omit all of these terms, replacing them with more politically correct ones.

And I am 100% in favor of it.  Shocked right?  Isn’t this censorship?  This isn’t the 1960’s when “Catcher in the Rye” was banned.  This is the 21st century.  How much harm could a kids’ book written 125 years ago really do?

A lot, actually.  And I believe that a book like this should be utilized carefully. 

Huck Finn is a hallmark of literature and representative of the works of perhaps our greatest American author.  Mark Twain’s use of satire and comedy for social commentary is unmatched and, even in the early years of education when only the surface of the story is explored, it is just a good story and one which kids will enjoy.  So in that respect, the specific language used should be of secondary concern.  Of primary concern should be attention to the structure of the story and the craft of storytelling.   And, oh yeah, developing a joy for reading, learning of the power of imagination, and sparking an interest in literature.

But I think that when students are in their formative years and the teachers are guided by a strict curriculum, when children are already resistant to being taught the classics (recall how adamant I was that Charles Dickens was a waste of time!), no good can come of placing into their hands information ripe for misuse.  When you force things down a student’s throat, you have to expect not only resistance, but vigilant resistance. 

Children do not take things seriously.  The language of Shakespeare?  How many times has “Romeo and Juliet” been parodied on television through sarcastic and immature renderings?  It is one thing to have Steve Urkel blundering his way through “Where for art thou?”; it is another thing altogether to allow kids free reign to use the new words they have just heard.  Once it gets on the playground, it is impossible to remove. 

Let’s face it– students are not well-equipped to deal with sensitive information.  So much effort has been made of late to eradicate certain derogatory terms from the English language and placing these terms into the minds of teens and younger is simply a recipe for disaster.  We have all seen the show offs on the kickball fields; the 4th grader who went to the “R” rated movie and has to prove to everyone he knows how to use bad language.  Do we really want this kid to also have access to racially insensitive terms like that?   

There is a place for it though, and that is in our colleges and universities.  Leave the “dirty” words in for the literature students, those who are enrolling in literature classes because of an interest and desire to learn.  It is in those places where the literature can be taught more responsibly, with the appropriate seriousness it deserves, where the nuances of the story can be explored and the social commentaries studied.  And where the students voluntarily undertake such study with a real focus on academia and not just prurience. 

One critic of the new version of the book asserts that the original language depicts America’s past and portrays the true period in which Twain was writing.  Do you honestly think a 9th grader is going to understand that, is really going to grasp the minutiae?  Instead, use the novel as a means to debunk the mystery and difficulty of the classics; use it to demonstrate that great American literature did not start with John Grisham and Danielle Steele.  Use it to show that a novel that takes place in the 1830s does not have to have Fabio on the cover to be enjoyable.  Use it to disprove the notion that the words “classic” and “boring” are synonymous.

 

I know that this will create a slippery slope, for if we allow modification for this purpose then we are opening the door for further revision.  Now it is the removal of derogatory terms from Huck Finn; next it is teaching Shakespeare by watching the movie “10 Things I Hate About You;” then it is omitting any reference to the Holocaust in history class because of its racial insensitivity.  I agree, there is that risk.  But we already trust our educational system to teach our kids, shouldn’t we be able to trust them to make the right decisions as far as “revisionist” history goes?

I just cringe at the thought of 9th graders or 5th graders or 1st graders or even 12th graders having access to this information and thinking that the use of the terminology is acceptable because it is from a “classic.”  Mark Twain used his terms carefully and purposefully.  Children do not.  Twain was very particular with his word selection.  Children are not.  The time it would take to teach maturity and responsibility for the use of the terms would significantly outweigh the time it would take to teach the book itself and would draw negative attention to a novel which, for better or for worse, is truly a classic of American literature. 

Rob

 



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“And she’ll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes her t-bird away…”

Friends:



You all know me pretty well by now and hopefully you can tell when I am being serious and when sarcasm is eking its way out of my pores.  Last week, which one do you think it was?

Well, if you think that I am truly promoting the benefits of laziness and inactivity, then maybe we need to meet more often so that you see through my humor.  That being said, this is my real New Year resolution, although I don’t really believe in resolutions.)  I really do believe that you don’t need a new year to spark the desire to make a change, any change.

The resolution came to me just last week, as my family was making the drive back from a weekend in Las Vegas.  It came from an unlikely source, my five-year old daughter.  And I am admitting it right now, it will be possibly the most difficult resolution ever conceived of.

As we were in hour 4 of our drive back (of what ended up being an 8-hour journey, when adding in traffic and meals and potty breaks (mostly for me) and some outlet shopping) Brooklyn, in her infinite wisdom and innocence, announced to the car and the world at large (or whoever was listening), that she had not had any fun that day.

You can well imagine my reaction.  Incensed is not a kind enough word.  Of course driving back from Las Vegas on the lonely two lane highway through the desert is not fun!  But didn’t we spend the day before at Circus Circus playing silly carnival games and increasing our stuffed-animal collection by 10?  I know that Las Vegas is not the vacation destination for a 5-year old, but it beats being stuck indoors, right?

But then it hit me and it hit me hard, something that I had forgotten since I became a grown up.  Life is supposed to be fun.  Life is not supposed to be a series of stressful interactions.  Life is to be enjoyed and cherished.  We shouldn’t go through the days looking forward to “when” it becomes enjoyable, some unidentifiable date in the future, that elusive “someday.”  Not “Someday I will go to Paris” or “Someday I’m going to write that book” or “Someday I am going to buy that Porsche.” 

So why can’t we have fun everyday?  We all live stressful lives, now more so than ever, with the economy still in its recovery, property values slowly creeping up, and the tax laws in flux.  And yet the words of a 5-year old are simple and understated yet thoroughly inspiring. 

That brought me to my New Year resolution and yes, as I said earlier, I will fail at it, it is a foregone conclusion.  My resolution is to try to have fun every day.  It is going to be tough; it is going to be challenging.  I am going to fail.  It is destined to happen.  I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have bad days; it is a fact of life.  But it is how we respond to those bad days.  Do we sulk and stew in misery or do we find the silver lining and look forward to the next day with an affirmation and commitment to having some fun?  It is a simple adjustment in one’s mindset, but can have a tremendous impact on life.  Not only will you enjoy life and look forward to the sun coming up each day (or the snow coming down) but you will be healthier, will smile more, will laugh more, and will succeed more.  If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!

Now that I have that resolution, I need to think of fun things to do.  If I am going to do something fun every day, I need to find little things that may take only a few minutes, but can have the impact on the day that I need.  It may be a quick game of solitaire on the computer, watching some funny videos online, playing checkers with my daughter, or even changing a poopy diaper.  They all are fun in their own way and makes the stresses of life more bearable.

My friends– I want you all to have some fun…  and a fantastic 2011!

Rob

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