Fran Tip 2: Politicians and emotions

hawthornewriter — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:33:27 +0000

President Obama is too cool. Mitt Romney is too robotic. George H.W. Bush, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis were too wooden. Newt Gingrich sort-of shows emotion, but it’s intellectualized anger. Now, Bill Clinton was someone who could feel your pain; unfortunately, he felt a bit too much — in the literal, physical sense, when it came to women. Michele Bachmann could be a real firebrand– and she garnered almost no votes. Conventional wisdom says that lack of emotion is hurting both Romney and Obama, yet how much emotion do we really want in the person with a finger on the nuclear button? P.S. Anyway, if anyone doubs that President Obama has emotions, take a look at the long, caring hug he gave Gabrielle Giffords before the State of the Union speech.

Fran Tip 1: Who’s a guest? What’s a team?

hawthornewriter — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:31:40 +0000

When did customers become “guests”? That’s what you hear increasingly at banks, stores, and coffee houses: ”Next guest, please.” And for that matter, there are no employees any more; the people who provide services to “guests” are “team members” and “partners.” At first I was furious because this is an abuse of the English language, cheapening the concept of truly inviting guests into your home (do you ask your house guests to pay for their coffee and pie?) as well as the true concept of teams and partnership (such as the baseball team players who share sweat, tears, grief and joy season after season). But now I realize this language abuse is even worse: It’s trying to humanize capitalism by pretending that we’re all friends. No, capitalism is not a buddy system. It’s a business transaction in which CUSTOMERS pay EMPLOYEES for goods and services, and BOSSES pay EMPLOYEES for their work.