Glossary of Corporate-Speak for College Grads

Introduction

Lately it has occurred to me, amidst all the bad news about the job market, that it’s still technically possible for young college grads to land a spot in corporate America. Instead of bemoaning the loss of entry-level jobs to AI—a topic that has already received plenty of attention—I figured I’d help out those who have been hired, who are probably rather mystified by all the corporate jargon.

[Art by ChatGPT. No rights reserved.]

The glossary

AI (artificial intelligence): Of course we all know what this is, but it’s useful to define it in the specific context of the white-collar workforce: to wit, AI is the software capability that is purportedly rendering humans increasingly unnecessary. That you, recent college grad, have landed a job demonstrates that your new employer believes you possess capabilities that AI hasn’t developed—yet.

Alignment: The state of a company when all the stakeholders (e.g., Sales, Finance, Marketing, Engineering) are working well together toward the same goals. You will generally encounter this term when there is an alignment gap, that being a disconnect between what leadership is prioritizing and what employees are doing day-to-day. This could signal trouble in the form of a reorg, which can cause distraction to say the least.

AOP (annual operating plan): This is a comprehensive 12-month roadmap for how the company will turn its long-term strategic goals into specific targets, usually financial, for the coming year. It shouldn’t directly concern a new hire like you, other than to recognize that, in keeping with the adage “man plans, God laughs,” these plans can and do fail to come to fruition, which in the modern cutthroat realm can lead to swift and often severe consequences.

ATS (applicant tracking system): If you managed to get a job, you’re probably well versed with this recruiting tool, which is essentially a bot that screens résumés so humans don’t have to. Since it lacks the acumen of a human who can discern subtleties, such as a candidate’s rise through the ranks of a company or industry, it is basically screening for skills—that is, buzzwords—on the assumption that recruiting an intelligent, hardworking person you can train on the job is a hopelessly outdated and obsolete notion. If you possess actual intelligence and a real work ethic on top of having obviously mastered the art of listing desirable skills, you may well thrive in your new job.

Attrit: The linguistically unsupportable verb form of “attrition.” Its main purpose is to imply that downsizing at a company is the result of some natural phenomenon akin to erosion. For example, leadership might say, “The workforce is bound to attrit over time.” See also Downsizing, Rightsizing, Managed attrition

Bandwidth: Except in obvious technical contexts, this generally means an employee’s capacity for taking on more work. It is not only a handy metaphor, but adds to the overall conception of employees as basic implements of labor, in this case pipes through which you can shove workloads. See also Resource

Bias for action: A mindset that favors swift decision-making over careful, analysis-driven planning. Its popularity reflects growing impatience among executives, whose compensation is often based on the short-term results demanded by stockholders. In the current layoff-forward business climate, this bias can present serious risks to rank-and-file employees. Note that there is no longer any corresponding bias for analysis. See also Data-driven

BAU (business as usual): This is used to describe the routine, day-to-day operation of a company. In general this idea is threatening to ambitious leaders who want to “disrupt” business and turn existing models on their heads. If you find yourself using the term BAU, make sure to adopt an air of derision. See also Disrupt

Boomerang hire: This refers to the rehiring of an employee who was previously either laid off or coaxed into quitting but who the company has realized it actually needs. Oftentimes in the case of voluntary severance (i.e., a buyout), the boomerang hire is only permitted to return as a contractor, meaning the company is paying more for him or her than it used to, while he or she earns less. See VSP, Involuntary attrition, Voluntary attrition

Data driven: This refers to the idea that decisions should be made based on analyzing real-world data rather than going by somebody’s hunch. Unfortunately, the amount of available data is increasing much faster than any human’s ability to analyze it. Thus, when leadership wants to act quickly, they will lean on AI for answers, e.g., “Read these documents and advise whether I should shut down Project Unicorn.” See also Bias for action

DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion): These all add up to workplace fairness, which—though it may seem an unalloyed good thing—has become a political football. Depending on where you work, you should be careful how you use this term. The tech sector in particular is a minefield here, having tacked to the right with tech bros like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk seeking favorable treatment from the candidly anti-DEI Trump administration.

Disrupt: To use technology, especially in the absence of regulation, to upend a traditional business model and corner a market. Probably about 1% of businesses are actually in a position to disrupt anything, while about 99% only pretend they can. Watch out for force-fits like connected bidets or autonomous razors.

Downsizing: Euphemism for a round of layoffs. In times past, downsizing was reluctantly performed when a company was failing to produce a profit because too much money was going toward salaries. Oddly, the current fashion is for companies that are producing record profits to downsize anyway, just to show off.

EAP (employee assistance program): This is a type of voluntary intervention program designed to help employees cope with the mental health problems caused by their workplace. An EAP is generally easier and less expensive for corporations than treating employees well, and is useful in keeping them from harming themselves and/or becoming less productive.

Efficiency: In Corporate-speak this is generally used as a euphemism for layoffs, and may even be used to indicate a person laid off, as in “We are forecasting about 3,000 efficiencies in the fourth quarter.” See also Impact, RIF, Reduction, Synergy

Flattening the organization: The strategy of reducing the number of layers of management in order to speed up decision-making and facilitate layoffs.

Follow the puck: This is a fairly meaningless bit of advice resulting from the erosion of a pithy aphorism from the hockey great Wayne Gretzky, “I skate to where the puck is going, not where it’s been.” It’s a nice example of how a corporate-speak cliché can get mangled over time without losing popularity. Another example would be “peel back the onion,” which means essentially nothing but perhaps started out as something meaningful from, like, Julia Child.

Forced distribution: Also called stack ranking, this is the practice of requiring managers to categorize their employees by performance rating. It may mandate, for example, that only 10% can be “top performers,” 80% must be considered “average,” and 10% must be classified as “low performers.” Since the job market is currently so tight, and so many corporations have had massive layoffs, it’s kind of hard to believe anyone who has managed to land or keep a job is a low or even average performer. Still, that quaint notion cannot get in the way of the benefits of this practice: namely, that a company doesn’t have to give very many good raises, and can instantly lay off employees en masse by telling managers, “Jettison all your low performers.” See also Stack ranking

FTE (full-time equivalent): A unit of measurement representing the workload of a 40-hour-per-week employee. This is often used as a synonym for “employee,” to suggest that these are not so much humans as machineries of work that are essentially interchangeable, and by extension expendable. See also Resource

Ghost posting: This is a fake job posted to LinkedIn or a company’s recruiting web page, usually to create the illusion of growth or to frighten current employees into thinking their employer is seeking to replace them. Such postings cause countless hours of soul-crushingly pointless activity by job seekers. See also Requisition aging

Guidance: Refers to the predictions, aka “forward-looking statements,” that publicly traded companies make to Wall Street. If the guidance is too conservative, the stock will suffer, yet if a company realizes it won’t deliver on its guidance (i.e., “misses guidance”), it has to backtrack and “restate guidance.” This leads to severe punishment from investors, resulting invariably in layoffs. It doesn’t actually matter that the employees being laid off had nothing to do with the guidance; Wall Street tends to respond favorably to layoffs and that’s all that matters.

HR (human resources): This is the department that manages employee’s affairs beyond the recruitment phase, including “organizational health.” In theory it gives employees a way to pursue remediation in the event they are mistreated. In practice, HR employees can easily be punished by leadership for making waves, whereas rank-and-file employees cannot harm anyone in HR. For this reason, distrust of HR is commonplace if not ubiquitous.

Impact: As a verb, indicates a person was laid off, e.g., “Unfortunately, Tom has been impacted.” There is no need to say by what; staff reduction is always implied. See also Attrit, Downsizing, Efficiency, Involuntary attrition, RIF, Rightsizing, Synergy

Involuntary attrition: Euphemism for laying off employees. See also Voluntary attrition

KPI (key performance indicator): A measurable contribution to a company, the absence of which suggests that an employee is underperforming. Corporate America doesn’t seem to see any issue in pretending that all employee contributions are easily measurable. If marriage partners adopted this same mindset, divorce could be prevented only by documenting specific marital deliverables like income generated, sex acts committed, chores completed, and hours of childcare performed.

Leaning in: Generic term for actively engaging instead of stepping back or hiding out. This started out as the Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s call to action for women to stop being reticent, but was genericized to mean “take initiative,” regardless of gender, and then further genericized to simply mean “work harder.” I suspect that this term’s popularity stems partly from the word “lean” lurking in there, implying “trim the fat,” which is to say a smaller workforce.

Managed attrition: A workforce-reduction strategy of resolving not to replace employees who leave voluntarily. A hiring freeze, especially when accompanied by unpopular changes such as eliminating perks or eschewing raises, is much easier and cheaper than laying people off. See also RTO, Voluntary attrition

Missed guidance: see Guidance

North Star metric: This is the single most important measurable result of a company’s efforts, and rather than being about the revenue received, tends to focus on what customers have gotten; e.g., Airbnb nights booked, Spotify time spent listening, WhatsApp messages sent. When a company needs to justify underpaying employee bonuses, it’s useful to have a solid-numbers goal that employees are powerless to meet, since it’s based on the whims of customers. Needless to say, this is a very northern-hemisphere-centric term. There is no southern-hemisphere equivalent, such as “Southern Cross metric.” South of the equator people still use the term “North Star metric,” which might feel a little strange, but then these people also celebrate Christmas in the summer.

OKR (objectives & key results): Similar to KPIs, except these are assigned in advance as the way an employee’s performance will be measured. These tend to be quantitative (e.g., “grow revenue 10%) and “stretch goals” meaning they’re conveniently unachievable. If you achieve 100% of your OKR, it will be deemed “not enough of a stretch” and increased for the next measurement period. The main benefits of the OKR model are, obviously, justification for underpaying bonuses and assigning a poor stack ranking. See also Forced distribution, Involuntary attrition, KPI, Stack ranking

Parking lot: This is a metaphorical space where tangential ideas introduced during a meeting are set aside for a separate discussion. It is more polite than telling a colleague to shut up. See also Take it offline, HR

Pre-wire: This is an informal discussion between two or more leaders before a formal meeting to make sure they already agree on the way forward. This prevents them from embarrassing each other during the meeting by having different strategies. It also prevents the meeting from generating friction-inducing embellishments to the existing plan, while giving non-leaders the feeling of being involved. See also Alignment

Requisition aging (aka Req aging): This is a measurement of how long a job posting has been open and unfilled. Traditionally this was a way to see if a company’s recruiter was doing a good job of finding candidates, and was an input into deciding to revise the salary offer or requirements as needed. In the modern climate, however, this metric is essentially meaningless because most reqs are fake and there is actually no job on offer. See also Ghost posting

Resource: A generic word for employee, which is used to imply that all employees are interchangeable; e.g., “We will get a resource on that task right away.” See also FTE

RIF (reduction in force): Standard term for a wave of layoffs, frequently used as a verb; e.g., “Unfortunately, Tim was the only one who understood that system and he just got RIF’d.” See also Attrit, Downsizing, Impact, Efficiency, Rightsizing, Synergy, Involuntary attrition

Rightsizing: This is just a euphemism for downsizing, emphasizing that if you don’t like it, you’re simply wrong. See also Downsizing

RTO (return to office): This refers to the growing practice of companies requiring teleworkers to return to offices despite widespread acknowledgement that remote work is highly effective. There is a generally accepted theory that RTO mandates are imposed solely to erode employee morale as part of a managed attrition strategy. See also Managed attrition, Voluntary attrition

Skip-level: This is a meeting with your boss’s boss, so that he or she can get candid feedback about the health of the team and the effectiveness of middle management. Of course, you need to be very careful about just how candid to be, and channel your inner Dirty Harry by asking yourself, “Do I feel lucky today?”

Stack ranking: See Forced distribution

Synergy: This formerly described the way in which partnerships or mergers could deliver more value than the sum of their parts, but has lately evolved to simply mean layoffs, and usually indicate a person laid off, as in “We are forecasting about 3,000 synergies in the fourth quarter.” See also Downsizing, Efficiency, Impact, RIF, Reduction, Rightsizing

Take it offline: This is a way, during a meeting, to table a side discussion. It can be confusing because it suggests data network connectivity but is actually totally unrelated to being online or not. What does it mean to be “offline” when so many meetings are conducted via videoconference? Don’t overthink it. See also Parking lot

Ventilate: To lay off employees. This term suggests that downsizing is required because the workplace is being stifled by too many people. Leadership might say something like, “It’s no secret this workforce needs to be ventilated.”

Voluntary attrition: This is when employees leave a company of their own volition. Quite often they are either nudged along with unpopular changes (e.g., lack of raises, RTO mandates), or offered an attractive severance package. In the past, HR would analyze voluntary attrition levels as a way to measure company health and morale, but in the modern workplace it is widely considered the desired outcome of a well-played rightsizing strategy. In other words, practically a gift. See also Attrit, Managed attrition, Rightsizing, RTO, VSP

VSP (voluntary severance program): Also referred to as “buyout,” this can be an attractive alternative to a RIF, because it lets a company save face while downsizing. With a VSP, a company pays a severance that is generally better than what an employee would get if laid off, and is often tied to years of service, meaning the employees with the most tenure have the most to gain from it. It’s also particularly attractive to top performers who know they can find employment elsewhere, vs. the deadwood the company really hopes to lose. However, to the extent those left behind by a VSP are ill-equipped to cope, this strategy fits in nicely with subsequent managed attrition programs. See also Attrit, Boomerang hire, Downsizing, Efficiency, Impact, Managed attrition, RIF, Rightsizing, Synergy

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From the Archives - Book Review: Bill Bryson’s “Lost Continent”

Introduction

Did I really write a book review, for practically no audience, all the way back in 1994? Yes, I just now stumbled across it. This review was within a letter to my brother, who’d recommended Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America. You might as well read my review; it’s really more about dining out in small towns than it is about helping you decide whether to read Lost Continent.

Book Review: The Lost Continent – January 10, 1994

I must say, that Bryson fellow has a sharp sense of humor and a keen eye for detail. I especially like his made-up town names: Draino, Indiana; Tapwater, Missouri. And his mockery of American products: Hunk o’ Meat Beef Stew ‘n’ Gravy; Sniffa-Snax; Country Sunshine Honey-Toasted Wheat Nut ‘n’ Sugar Bits Breakfast Cereal. It’s an easy book to get in and out of, since it rambles along playfully without any complicated structure. I read it eagerly during my recent trip to Oregon, and then at the Amtrak station while waiting for my train, and then while the train was delayed.

Well, I’m almost done with the book now, and upon careful consideration I must conclude that as far as I can tell, Bryson has not given America a fair shake. After a while his clever critiques became tiresome, cranky complaints that I didn’t need to hear. My moment of epiphany came when I read his description of Wells, Nevada: 

              I spent the night in Wells, Nevada, the sorriest, seediest, most raggedy-assed town I’ve ever seen. Most of the streets were unpaved and lined with battered-looking trailer homes … Such economic life as Wells could muster came from the passing traffic of I-80 … I turned up my collar and trudged the half-mile from the town proper to the interstate junction with US 93, where the most prosperous-looking truck stops were gathered, forming an oasis of brightness in the pinkish dusk.

              I went into what I looked to be the best of them, the 4-Way Café, which I gather took its name from the fact that it consisted of a gift shop, restaurant, casino and bar … It was absolutely, in my opinion, the worst food I have ever had in America, at any time, under any circumstances, and that includes hospital food, gas station food and airport coffee shop food … I pushed the plate away and wished that I still smoked. The waitress, seeing how much I had left, asked me if I wanted a doggy bag.

              “No thank you,” I said through a thin smile, “I don’t believe I could find a dog that would eat it.”

I did get a chuckle out of that, but then realized, wait, I’ve been to Wells, Nevada, recently, and had a totally different experience.

It was the summer of 1991, when I was driving out to Boulder with a friend of a friend. We stopped for the night, got rooms at the Motel 6, and relaxed for a while before setting out to find a worthy restaurant. The motel was about like all Motel 6’s everywhere: clean, perhaps a bit too air conditioned for its own good, but generally a fair bit nicer than many of the apartments I’ve lived in. Scoping out the town didn’t take too long. We even went to the 4-Way Café, which as Bryson reported was a conglomerate of gift shop, restaurant, casino, and bar. But we never even considered eating there; it was clearly not even an option. Nothing obvious about it tipped us off as a lousy place; it just seemed lacking in whatever local flavor a café in Wells, Nevada could have. Wouldn’t anyone rather go to a place that’s only a restaurant? Have you ever encountered a gift shop or casino that appealed in any way?

We found a more promising little café not far away, right next to the visitor’s center. Now here’s something interesting: this so-called “raggedy-ass town” actually had a visitor’s center. It wasn’t a commercial operation, but more like a tiny museum of whatever heritage Wells happened to have. Free coffee, a cheerful docent, etc. Would the sorriest, raggedy-assed town in America have a visitor’s center?

The café we went to also seemed to try harder than it really needed to. It wasn’t overbearing or self-important, mind you; not like Zachary’s Pizza, which has all its awards framed and on display. But the mop-topped glasses-faced kid behind the counter was friendly, and looked at us intently, maybe trying to figure out where we came from and what brought us to Wells.

My philosophy about eating in strange towns, or even at strange restaurants in general, has just two basic tenets:

• Stick with simple stuff. It’s hard to ruin a big steak or hamburger. Grilled ahi tuna 800 miles from the nearest ocean, cooked by someone who’s never had a chance to try the genuine article, is not a good bet.
• Ask the restaurant staff what they recommend. If there’s a loss-leader on the menu, they’ll usually steer you away from it. And if you can spot actual enthusiasm about a dish, you know you can’t go wrong.
• [For my more modern guide to spotting bad restaurants, click here.]

My rules for dining out are not nearly as humorous as Bill Bryson’s [which include prohibitions against photographs of the food, flocked wallpaper, live entertainers, bloodstains on the walls, or staff you can overhear talking in the kitchen]. My rules, though, may be a bit more practical. I asked the teenager behind the counter what he thought was the best thing on the menu. He broke into this wide Ritchie Cunningham grin, and with a little gleam in his eye, declared without a hint of hesitation, “The Super-Deluxe burger. With fries. Oh yeah.” It was just like when a customer at the bike shop asks me to tell him about my bike.

The kid did not steer me wrong. I love a good burger anyway, but the whole time I was eating it I was envisioning this guy back in the kitchen, inspired by my order to make a Super Deluxe for himself. He’s smashing down the patty with his little steel spatula, almost in tears, murmuring to it, “Oh, yeah, that’s it, boy, that’s my half-pound of grade-A American beef, oh, and let’s grill those onions!” He does a little spin, maybe, then flips that patty over with the skilled flick of the wrist that has become his trademark, and he can just envision the delectable grease slowly soaking into the sesame-seed bun.

This is my memory of Wells, Nevada. I remember it was late in the afternoon, but still sunny, and nothing struck me as unpleasant in the slightest. Granted, I wasn’t expecting the earth to move for me; I was just glad to get out of the car and have some food and get some rest. When I read Bryson’s account of Wells, an unsettling question crept up on me: what would that teenager at the café think, reading about the “sorriest, seediest, most raggedy-assed town” our critic had ever seen? Would this guy go on thinking it’s even worth bothering trying to do right by snooty tourists? Does Bryson assume the citizens of Wells are all illiterate?

Reading this book, I am frequently reminded of Peter Jenkins’ travel book, A Walk Across America. Jenkins isn’t as funny as Bryson, to be sure. In fact, he admits in the first chapter that prior to writing the book, he had no idea how to construct a sentence. But it was enjoyable reading, anyway, and the author wasn’t so cynical. And yet, didn’t these guys tour the same country? How much of what they reported was based on what they’d hoped to find? Jenkins said his whole purpose in walking was to find out, as he hoped, that he was wrong to be ashamed of America. Bryson, on the other hand, seemed intent on proving beyond reasonable doubt that this country is going to hell in a handbasket (whatever that means).

The two writers’ methods are quite different. I saw Jenkins give a lecture once, and found him really charismatic. As you can read about in his books, he talks to people wherever he goes; lived with various folks here and there along the way; and even did his best to fit in at the cult-like commune called “The Farm.” He’s a real people-person.

Bryson seems like the opposite. He’s seems like kind of a loner, who doesn’t recall much dialogue other than brief exchanges with service-sector people whom he seems to always conclude are incompetent. His modus operandi is to drive from one tourist trap to another, silently build his case against the stupid tourists there, get back in his car, and drive on. The only distinguishing feature that separates him from his fellow tourists is that he takes mental notes and contrives clever ways to deride them later, while the tourists just putter around, buy souvenirs, and quite possibly enjoy themselves.

I also have to wonder if Bryson doesn’t actually look for trouble, in the service of his art. Maybe he chose the 4-Way Café because he predicted it’d be lame, which would give him a cleverer story than my admittedly sentimental, cloying one. I also suspect Bryson exaggerates a bit, and possibly even fabricates details. Consider this passage, about another place he ate at:

I was the only customer in the restaurant. I was quite clearly the only thing standing between the waitresses and their going home … The waitresses stood against the wall and watched me chew my food. After a while they started whispering and tittering, still watching me as they did so, which frankly I found a trifle unsettling. I may only have imagined it, but I also had the distinct impression that someone was little by little turning a dimmer switch so that the light in the room was gradually disappearing. By the end of my meal I was finding my food more or less by touch and occasionally by lowering my head to the plate and sniffing. Before I was quite finished, when I just paused for a moment to grope for my glass of iced water somewhere in the gloom beyond the flickering candle, my waitress whipped the plate away and put down my bill.

That’s definitely some funny shit, but I’m not sure I believe it. Consider Bryson’s qualifier, “I may have only imagined it,” about the dimmer switch. If what follows had actually happened, he would have no doubt that a dimmer switch was involved. If not, what could possibly account for the room getting so dark? I think he introduced this idea of a gradually darkening room on a lark, and developed it for maximum comedic effect without worrying too much about veracity. I could be wrong about this, of course, but at least my theory would help explain why nothing like this ever happened to Peter Jenkins, or to me.

When you really stop and think, in fact, the whole premise of this man’s book is absurd. What we have here is an expatriate, coming back for a visit in order to write a book about the place he has forsaken. When he describes towns like Wells, it’s like he’s run his experience through a filter of disgust and complaint. I almost wonder if he’s being careful not to enjoy himself too much here, so he won’t have any regret when he returns to England. If that’s true, perhaps we might conclude he’s more of an anti-travel writer than anything.

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Autocomplete Zeitgeist Revisited

Before we begin

In this post, which examines the American zeitgeist, I adopt a tone of playful criticism. Please don’t mistake me for one of those tedious killjoys who only finds fault. Believe me, I am very grateful for my country and its people.

Introduction

As everybody knows, Google Autocomplete is a function of Google Search that starts providing feedback even before you’ve finished typing your query. The search engine predicts what you’re looking for based on what others have searched for. As such, it’s a good indicator of where people’s heads are. In a previous post I asked Google a range of questions designed to examine the national zeitgeist as of March 31, 2018. Today, exactly four years later, I googled the same questions to see how things have changed and what people seek answers for in 2022.

(Note: to improve the accuracy of this experiment—that is, to make it more about the people instead of about me—I turned off “Personal Results” so my own previous searches won’t influence the Autocomplete suggestions.)

Persecution mania

Four years ago, the query “is it illegal to…” prompted Autocomplete suggestions that included “to burn the US flag,” “to drive without shoes,” “to change lanes in an intersection,” “to burn money,” and “to run away.” Today, this same short phrase produces the following top Autocomplete suggestions:

• Is it illegal to drive barefoot
• Is it illegal to collect rainwater
• Is it illegal to work weekends in France
• Is it illegal to hit a girl
• Is it illegal to burn money

Compared to four years ago, it looks like Americans still hate wearing shoes; are perhaps more patriotic, being a) no longer interested in flag-burning, and b) presumably indignant about the lazy French; are apparently clueless about the most basic rules of law and human decency as regards assault; and (the current stock market nosedive notwithstanding) still feel uncomfortable with their own wealth (or have become inured to losing their money). It’s bizarre that anybody might assume collecting rainwater could be illegal … I mean, we’re talking about something that literally falls from the sky! And how on earth would enforcing such a law be arranged? Cops peering over your backyard fence looking for buckets?

Tweaking the query to “Is it against the law” produces just a few changes. Driving barefoot is still the first suggestion, but then we get:

• Is it against the law to dumpster dive
• Is it against the law to record someone
• Is it against the law to slap someone
• Is it against the law to threaten someone
• Is it against the law to hit a woman

How strange that violence against a female is something so commonly searched on. I mean, why would this be a different question than hitting, slapping, or threatening anyone? It’s hard to speculate what was different in 2018....

Moving on to “can you be arrested for,” this yields almost totally different results than “against the law” (the only common suggestion being “for slapping someone,” which perhaps stems from the recent Oscar dustup and the subsequent endless analysis of whether slapping can be assault). Here are the other top suggestions:

• Can you be arrested for speeding
• Can you be arrested for driving without a license
• Can you be arrested for a misdemeanor
• Can you be arrested for trespassing
• Can you be arrested for not paying child support

It looks like the modern American profile is starting to take shape: these are people who possibly can’t afford shoes, are forsaking pricey bottled water for local rainwater, may engage in dumpster diving, can’t afford child support, have no interest in safe driving, and are quite ready to commit violence if they think they can get away with it. Not a pretty picture.

Now, given all the national attention on law enforcement after the George Floyd murder, I was eager to see what Autocomplete would suggest for the next category, “can a police officer…” vs. last time around. In both cases the top five included “take your car” and “lie to you.” This year we have a few new suggestions:

• Can a police officer serve court papers
• Can a police officer run your plates
• Can a police officer transfer to another state
• Can a police officer question a minor
• Can a police officer dismiss a ticket

The “transfer to another state” would seem to be a question asked by an officer; maybe some of them don’t like the increasing accountability their communities have demanded. As for serving court papers, running plates, and dismissing tickets, these might just reflect the popularity of current police procedural TV shows. That leaves questioning a minor; I can’t see why this would be a problem, but the cop should expect to have the interview recorded by at least a few smartphones so he’d better behave.

Last time around, three out of the top five suggestions for “are you allowed to” involved smoking weed. This time, none of the suggestions involve that; I guess people have forgotten that weed was ever illegal, and now just assume that half the citizenry is stoned off their gourds at any given moment, and nobody cares. Here are the top five Autocomplete suggestions right now:

• Are you allowed to retire at age 50
• Are you allowed to curse at the Oscars
• Are you allowed to carry a knife in California
• Are you allowed to fight in hockey
• Are you allowed to leave North Korea

Seems kind of remarkable that there are people who are presumably financially capable of retiring but who nonetheless have no idea how the world works. It could be they're just dreaming, or maybe they want another reason to be angry at wealthy people. As for the knife inquiry and the fighting in hockey, I guess that just reinforces the portrait of a populace ready to beat someone’s ass.

Actually, I’ve often wondered why it’s okay for hockey players to fight, without being subject to the normal confines of the law. Think about it: if two players get in an all-out brawl on the ice, they get five minutes or so in the penalty box, but if they have their fight in the locker room, or out in the parking lot, or at a bar later, that would be assault and they could be arrested. It’s like the rules of the game supersede the law, like the NHL is the higher authority. I discussed this with my daughter today and she wasn’t quite sure what I was getting at. “Let’s take it a step further,” I said, “and think of one player killing another, for which he’s merely ejected from the game.” My daughter put in that this would surely increase the popularity of hockey. I decided more research was necessary. This article quotes NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman as saying fighting is “a thermostat for the game,” and that it “may prevent other injuries.” There wasn’t much detail provided on this, so I turned to YouTube for more insight. My daughter and I watched “Top 10 NHL fights of all time” and though we didn’t get a lot of answers, it was a pretty amazing spectacle … our hearts were racing by the end. Of particular note is that the announcers never passed judgment, like everyone saw with Will Smith’s slap at the Oscars. On the contrary, hockey commentators announce a fight as though it’s a boxing match (“  … and Smith comes in with a strong left!”). The cheering of the fans, and even the music playing in the stadium, continue unabated even with some of these fights lasting for several minutes. Anyway, I don’t know where I’m going with all this, but sometimes that’s just how blogging goes.

Who what where why how

Now on to the larger, more existential matters. Concerning the “what” questions, four years ago Americans sought information about Palm Sunday, Bitcoin, their IP addresses, rambler, and net neutrality. Today, the only one of these questions still puzzling people is “what is my IP,” which is pretty silly because these addresses are assigned dynamically via DHCP, so they’re practically the opposite of a fingerprint (i.e., they mean nothing). Here are the other top inquiries:

• What is alopecia
• What is an nft
• What is wordle
• What is a viscount
• What is lynching

The alopecia inquiry pertains to the ailment, suffered by Jada Pinkett Smith, that caused her baldness, which led to the Chris Rock joke that in turn led to the legendary slap by Will Smith. I guess Oscar fans are trying to educate themselves so they know what side to take when they start in on their trolling. With that in mind, along with the cringe-inducing, long-overdue inquiry “what is lynching,” I have to wonder if there’s any point to the human race.

As for NFT (i.e., non-fungible tokens), that’s arguably a variation on the theme of cryptocurrency, so nothing new there except you’re possibly buying nothing for nothing as opposed to something for nothing. Wordle is apparently a word game that as an English major I guess I should love, except that working out the solution to a pointless quiz is no match for actual reading, which is something most Americans know about only from books and have never actually attempted themselves.

Moving on to viscount, I chalk it up to fans of the TV show “Bridgerton,” the insanely popular soap opera that rips off actual literature and gets away with it because, again, nobody reads. So it appears our broke, violence-addicted, bored Americans still don’t understand the royal hierarchy that well. (Which is fine ... I mean, who gives a shit?)

Shifting gears to the “why” question, the first one (“why is the sky blue”) is the same Autocomplete suggestion as four years ago, and “why is my poop green” moved from fourth place to third. Here are new suggestions for 2022:

• Why is russia invading ukraine
• Why is my eye twitching
• Why is gas so expensive
• Why is my poop black
• Why is russia so big

Let’s consider the top answer to the first common question, “Why is the sky blue.” Four years ago, the first response was, “Because it’s a beautiful day.” Today, the top answer is, “The sky is blue due to a phenomenon called Raleigh scattering, which is the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (of which light is a form) by particles of a much smaller wavelength.” So we can conclude that in the last four years, the Internet authorities have lost their sense of humor.

As far as the other questions, since these are what’s on people’s minds, I’ll save you a Google search (and the pruning invariably required) and give you some quick resources so you don’t have to sound completely clueless should these come up in conversation.

Regarding the question of why Russia has invaded Ukraine, this article is pretty useful, and states, “The Russian leader's initial aim was to overrun Ukraine and depose its government, ending for good its desire to join the Western defensive alliance Nato… Beyond his military goals, President Putin's broader demand is to ensure Ukraine’s future neutrality.” I think my own explanation, “Because Russia is led by a blind idiot autocrat,” is probably a similarly useful response for most American audiences, with “commie” and “pinko” available as garnish depending on your bent.

A guide to poop color and what it could mean is here. And some eye-twitching causes are here. I’ve had some trouble with eyelid twitching myself, which I associated with stress. Fortunately, the Atlantic Ocean separates my home from Russia, so my eyelids are behaving at present. (Let’s not get into my poop color other than to say it’s boring.)

The high cost of gasoline is nicely summarized in this article, which states, “Oil and gas are global commodities, subject to the whims of notoriously volatile global markets. Their prices are particularly sensitive to geopolitical events and investor sentiment… In fact, in this case, sky-high gas prices came from a confluence of events. As COVID-19 restrictions eased and economies rebounded rapidly, demand for oil spiked. Pandemic-related supply chain disruptions exacerbated the situation... Then, more recently and perhaps most saliently, [oil markets were roiled by] Russia [and its invasion of Ukraine].”

And why is Russia so big? This short video sums it up pretty handily: Russia was able to conquer Siberia, which comprises 75% of its land, because there wasn’t much opposition, it being “a cold land with only one guy per square kilometer in that time.”

Moving on to “who is,” we get a sense of whom Americans are wondering about right now. Four years ago, the top Autofill suggestion was “Snoke” (some “Star Wars” character now forgotten entirely), with Jesus taking second and third place, followed by “the richest person in the world” and then Marshmello, some music producer. All have fallen of the suggestion list except for “richest person” which moved up to first place, solidifying our sense that Americans are broke and (possibly as a result) have lost their religion. Here are the next four suggestions:

• Who is julia fox
• Who is will smith’s wife
• Who is moon knight
• Who is in the super bowl  2022
• Who is joe rogan

Julia Fox, not surprisingly, is an actress, and I guess she’s a popular search because of her weird Oscar after-party dress and its matching handbag, made out of human hair. Will Smith’s wife is of course another Oscar-themed question, and I’d like to point out that while she (famously) lacks hair, Julia didn’t steal it.

Moon Knight is some stupid comic book character, so our lawless, violent, broke, godless, and celebrity-obsessed modern Americans have officially regressed to childishness as well. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve already forgotten about this year’s Super Bowl, which was last month.

Rounding out this search topic, we get Joe Rogan, who I gather is mainly famous, lately, for a Spotify controversy where Neil Young yanked all his music from the platform to protest their hosting of Rogan’s podcast. There’s a nice synopsis here. Rogan is a major self-taught pundit, who started out in stand-up comedy as opposed to actual journalism. He is also, as far as I can tell, an idiot. But you shouldn’t take my word for it … I’ve never heard his podcast. (If you decide to check it out, don’t report back because I don’t care.)

Now it’s time for the “where” question. For the second year running, top honors go to “where’s my refund,” which showcases the desperation of broke Americans … they actually hope Google has so thoroughly mined their personal data that they can even pinpoint what part of the IRS machinery is currently processing the searcher’s tax return. And, just as we saw four years ago, the second most popular search is “where am I.” So instead of looking around him, perhaps even out a window, the average American is outsourcing his knowledge of his own whereabouts to Google Location Services. Pretty sad.

But now we get a big surprise: the third most popular “where” search is Where the Crawdads Sing, a book. I’ve never seen a book in Autocomplete before, so I’m going to cry bullshit and declare this a paid result. Rounding out the top five we have “where is the super bowl this year” (see above—totally irrelevant question), and “where can I watch euphoria.” Evidently “Euphoria” is a TV show about sexy young drug addicts … just the thing to cheer up us broke, violence-obsessed, stunted, confused, green-pooping, and godless Americans as we (hopefully) come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let’s look at “how.” What are Americans trying to learn how to do in 2022? No longer are we seeking to delete Facebook (perhaps we’ve either given up trying, or succeeded long ago), or trying to buy Bitcoin (it’s far too expensive now that we’re broke), or learning how to tie a tie (since nobody dresses for success anymore, the COVID-driven shift to teleworking having dealt a fatal blow to dress codes nationwide). We’re still ignorant of weights and measures (the #1 suggestion being “how many ounces in a cup” and #5 being ounces in a gallon), clueless in general (#3 being “how many weeks in a year”—are you kidding me?!) but now we suddenly want to know “how to screenshot on mac” which seems incredibly basic (though, factually, I don’t know the answer, but that’s only because I haven’t used a Mac since 1985). Rounding out the top five, Americans suddenly want to know “how old is bruce willis.” This is because his daughter announced yesterday that he’s retired from acting due to a diagnosis of aphasia. I happen to know what that is, but am suddenly surprised that it didn’t come up in my survey of “what is” Autocomplete suggestions. So I tried again and guess what? “What is aphasia” is suddenly #1, Google being as nimble as ever … and alopecia has dropped from the first page of results. (Even though Bruce Willis is famously bald, it’s not because of alopecia. Dang … remember when he had hair? Back then, I had hair too!)

But let’s stop dwelling on the past.

The future

Where are we, as Americans, headed? And how are we feeling about that? To find out, I googled “am I going” and compared the suggestions to 2018 when we were concerned with “am I going crazy,” “am I going to die,” “am I going to hell,” “am I going bald,” and “am I going to die alone.” I see several of these repeated, but new for 2022 are “am I going blind” (probably a result of how glued to our screens we’ve been during the pandemic), “am I going to be okay” (perhaps a hint of optimism creeping through the doldrums?), and “am I going through menopause” (which … I don’t know, might suggest the changing demographics of Internet users?).

Switching to “will I ever,” six of the top eight results (will I ever find love again, find love, get married, be happy, find true love, get over my ex) are the same as four years ago, with only two new Autocomplete suggestions: “will I ever be able to buy a house” (reflects what we already knew—Americans are broke) and “will I ever get a ps5.” I guess PlayStation is seen as the last best hope for entertaining ourselves now that we’ve forgotten how to venture outside our homes.

And now, in keeping with my zeitgeist investigation from four years ago, we move the final query, which abandons Google in favor of the Magic 8-Ball. I posed the question “will I ever be happy again” to www.ask8ball.net, and it responded, “It is decidedly so.” I think that’s pretty encouraging, given that I’m surrounded by a cohort of broke, clueless, violence-obsessed scofflaws who drive too fast without licenses, produce green or black feces, and are as worried about Hollywood celebrities as they are about world events.

(I’m just playin’, America. You know I love you.)

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Election Follies II Part II - The Spawning

Introduction

Right off the bat, I love sequels: not the ones Hollywood cranks out, but the opportunities I sometimes get, with this blog, to piggyback on a previous topic. If you even remotely enjoyed my last post, or enjoyed hating it, my second installment of Prop 7, One Year Later should grab you even more forcefully. Perhaps it’ll even shake you around, like a dog with a rag doll!

In this post I explore in some detail the complete and total clusterfuck Prop 7 would create, if it were actually approved by Congress.

First, a correction

In a response to the survey I sent around about Prop 7, one respondent wrote, “Hawaii and Arizona don't observe daylight savings time, so I didn't think Congress would care if California opted out of it.” I commented in my post, “Ah, this is a confused voter (or abstainer). Prop 7 isn’t about staying on standard time—it’s about staying on DST year-round.”

Well, I misconstrued the respondent’s meaning. He replied (via email) that by “it” he meant “opting out of the Uniform Time Act of 1966,” not “opting out of DST.” He did understand that Prop 7 was about year-round DST, and his point is that if Congress already lets two states choose not to conform to the Uniform Time Act, they should tolerate California opting out as well (even if it’s a different flavor of opting out).

Can technology help?

This same respondent opined that modern technology platforms such as Google Calendar and smartphones should make it feasible to handle the complexity of three concurrent flavors of time observance—those being a) the status quo; b) never observing DST; and c) observing DST year-round. He described his exceedingly complicated workday routine and how it’s exacerbated by his kids’ byzantine schedules, but how it’s all manageable because he and his wife can rely their electronic calendars.

I have to disagree with this albertnet reader. You might imagine that my dissent is based on the fact of not everybody using smartphones or calendar software. Actually, that doesn’t bother me so much … if these outliers complain, we can just tell them to get with the program. (I know, terrible pun—I couldn’t resist.) It’s also possible to fault technology in general where DST is concerned. For example, my modern car clock has a setting for automatically adjusting to DST but it quite simply doesn’t work. Meanwhile, my microwave oven has a setting to automatically switch to DST, but it couldn’t work because there’s no way to program the oven with the date. But this is also just static. I have a much bigger issue with my friend’s assertion. The fact is, where deviance from the Uniform Time Act is concerned, computer calendars are absolutely no help.

These electronic tools work great for a complicated family schedule because everyone is in the same time zone, so whatever tweaks are made to DST will affect all family members the same. But interstate business, when DST outliers are involved, is another story entirely. As I wrote in my first Prop 7 post, “Today, Monday, was rough. At work, an 11:00 a.m. conference call threw people into a tailspin because the recurring appointment had been set up by somebody in the Arizona time zone, where DST is not observed. For those outside Arizona, the call automatically jumped forward by an hour on our electronic calendars.”

To make this clearer: at the beginning of March, before DST started, the 11:00 a.m. PST call was at noon MST (or to be more precise, noon Arizona time because Arizona is given its own time zone in Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar). A week later when DST kicked in for CA, AZ hadn’t changed, so the call was still at noon Arizona time. But since CA was now synced with AZ (because PDT is the same as MST), the call suddenly moved to noon for the Californians. This presented conflicts with other noon calls already set up with other non-Arizonians. Despite everybody’s groovy electronic calendar technology, these humans have to bicker about this situation twice a year … and that’s all because one state is doing one type of Uniform Time Act exception.

If states could switch to year-round DST…

If California were allowed to switch to year-round DST, of course that would set precedent for other states to do the same. Suppose New Mexico copied Arizona and stopped observing DST, while Colorado stayed as-is, and then Wyoming went to year-round DST to be like the cool kids in California. Clocks in this case would cease to reliably align with geography. The weekly call for the Mountain/Desert Sales Region that covers these states would get unbelievably screwed up twice a year when the time changed, as you shall see.

Let’s say the calendar event was created by the Regional Director who works in Colorado. And let’s say it’s a 2:00 p.m. call: on November 1, this would be 2:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), which equates to 1:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (MST) in New Mexico (due south of Colorado, in case your sense of geography is worse than The Donald’s) and 2:00 p.m. MDT in Wyoming (due north). So that’s your status quo. But a week later, on November 8 when CO falls back, all hell breaks loose. For the CO folks, nothing changes except the call goes from 2:00 p.m. MDT to 2:00 p.m. MST; their calendars aren’t really affected. But the call moves from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. for the NM folks (because NM is now synced with CO) so the NM folks would have to reschedule their other 2:00 calls. On top of that, this same call would become a 3:00 p.m. Wyoming call (because they’d still be on MDT, so they’re now an hour ahead of CA). So Wyoming would also have to move their other calls to accommodate this!

How is this simpler than everybody changing their clocks twice a year? It’s a complete debacle! You’ve got a call that, depending on the state and the time of year, can take place at 1 p.m., 2 p.m., or 3 p.m., despite all these states being at basically the same longitude!

And that’s just one state opting out of DST and one state going to year-round DST. Imagine if even just a handful of other states started exercising their freedom to deviate from the Uniform Time Act in this way. Electronic calendars notwithstanding, millions of Americans would be totally confused. Time zones would become so variable, and so disconnected from geography, people would go nuts.

Slippery slope?

Now, you might accuse me of a slippery slope fallacy—that is, of overstating the downstream consequences of California getting its way. But if you think about it, it’s highly likely other states would adopt year-round DST if California was doing it. Imagine Washington state, with all the tech companies headquartered there (e.g., Microsoft, Amazon, SAP Concur). Surely they’re on conference calls with Silicon Valley companies all the time, and would get tired of the rigmarole every time the clocks changed. Supposing Washington state followed California’s lead, what do you think Oregon would do, sandwiched as it is between the two? It would probably fall in line and adopt year-round DST. With the entire west coast on year-round DST, other states with west coast vendors, customers, and partners—like New York and Virginia—might be tempted, too.

Many states wouldn’t, though. Montana isn’t exactly a hive of interstate corporate activity, and if they went to year-round DST, the sun wouldn’t rise in their northernmost city until 9:21 a.m. at the end of December. It could be that northern states in general would tend to frown on year-round DST due to such impractically late mornings. Southern states would probably stay away from year-round DST too, because they have such hot weather. (Arizona’s earlier sunrise gives its denizens a chance to exercise before it gets hotter than balls out, and their earlier sunset means they don’t have to run their air conditioning so late.) If anything, with this new shift away from the Uniform Time Act, southern states might take the opportunity to copy Arizona and give up DST completely.

With all this in mind it’s not hard to imagine a hopelessly unmanageable situation with mass confusion every March and November, if Congress decided to allow states to observe year-round DST. I highly doubt the authors of CA Prop 7 ever considered any of this. Hopefully Congress has, and will hold their ground when California comes around asking to do their own thing.

Who cares?

If you’re still reading this, I’d guess you’re in the minority of people who will bother to ponder such stuff. As I was trying to discuss this with my wife (and already approaching the outer limits of her attention), our daughter chimed in, “Why do we have to change the clocks at all?!” I replied, “Well, if that’s not just a rhetorical question, I’m happy to answer it.” Before she could even reply, my wife cut in: “No, no, she didn’t mean it!” My wife might as well have added, “For God’s sake spare her … she’s just a child!” My daughter was quick to pile on: “Please don’t explain. I really don’t want to know.” (If you do want to know, click here and search the page for “Should we have DST?”)

Prop 7, especially given that it passed, is a great example of the limitations of democracy. Most voters don’t want to wade very deep into complicated matters of policy, but they still want to have their say. They demand simple answers, but sometimes simple answers just don’t exist.

Consider this: seven out of ten Americans want to stop changing their clocks, according to an Associated Press poll, as described here. The problem is, four in ten want to get rid of DST, and three in ten want to adopt it year-round. Factoring in the three out of ten who are fine with the status quo (i.e., changing the clocks twice a year), putting this matter to a simple vote creates, essentially, a three-way tie. (Handing victory to the slightly larger group, the four in ten who oppose DST completely, would disappoint six in ten Americans … hardly a good solution.)

In the case of Prop 7, the Federal government needs to ignore the California voters and do what’s right for the country. I know that sounds brash, but I’m serious. Imagine if our government decided that states should decide everything for themselves. Texas, for example, could decide airport security was a pain in the ass, and that they didn’t need metal detectors. I can envision a Texan politician arguing, “Why shouldn’t an American carry a gun on a plane? How better to stop terrorists?!” Voters in Texas would love this because they’re tired of standing in lines at airports, taking off their wristwatches and belts and shoes and so forth, and might vote for the change as breezily as Californians voted for Prop 7. If Congress honored the wishes of these voters, you’d have armed Texans flying everywhere, and the burden of disarming them would fall to airports around the world, who would need metal detectors at the egress points of each terminal. Why doesn’t this happen? Because, so far, the lawmakers in Washington have the good sense to maintain the FAA as a nationwide body applying the same rules in every state (and Texas hasn’t thought to propose such a thing … that I’m aware of, anyway).

I’m optimistic, then, that Congress is thinking harder about DST (or will, when the time comes) than the voters in California did, and the simple-minded knobs that introduced Prop 7. If Americans across all fifty states were to agree that changing the clocks twice a year wasn’t worth doing, then Congress could come to some consensus about the best way forward: we could all either abandon DST nationwide, or all adopt it year-round. Until and unless that happens, I sincerely hope Washington tells California, “Go away, kid … ya bother me.”

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Election Follies II - California Prop 7, One Year Later

Introduction

Well, yesterday’s election was sure dull. My city and county didn’t have anything on the ballot so it was a non-event. But that’s how I like it … I detest politics. I’m not one to discuss such matters, nor—usually—to write about them. But I did take an interest, a year ago, in California’s Proposition 7, which was titled “CONFORMS CALIFORNIA DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME TO FEDERAL LAW. ALLOWS LEGISLATURE TO CHANGE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME PERIOD.”

All the summary stuff in that proposal suggested only that we wouldn’t have to change the clocks twice a year, and the brief summary was really vague about exactly what was being proposed. You have to be one of those really punctilious  readers, who go to the actual text of the proposition, to discover the real purpose, which was “to provide for the year-round application of daylight saving time” (with an important caveat, “if federal law authorizes the state”—a very big “if”). You can read the full text here.

My take on Prop 7

In my previous Prop 7 blog post, I thoroughly dismantled every argument in support of this proposal; considered one legitimate argument for permanent DST that the Prop 7 proponents didn’t mention; explained what’s wrong with permanent DST; pondered how Prop 7 managed to pass (my best guess being that it’s related to Prop 64 from the previous election, which legalized marijuana in California); and explained why this absurd and delusional bit of legislation cannot possibly ever affect anything in the real world.

So Prop 7 passed … now what?

Well, a year has passed, and all of us Californians just turned back the clocks, as usual. So far, Prop 7 hasn’t done a thing—just like I predicted. The only forward motion, as detailed here, is that a California Representative now promises that in January, 2020 he “will introduce an Assembly Joint Resolution urging Congress to authorize states to practice permanent daylight saving time.” Um … that’s 15 months after Prop 7 passed. What the hell has this guy been doing for the past year? Preparing his case? I’ll concede it will be an uphill battle, especially if it’s just this one guy as opposed to a giant task force.

I decided to survey my bike team friends about this (via our group email list). I wanted to see whether they remember this proposition at all; what they remembered; whether they remember the outcome (i.e., passed or not); and what they would expect to have happened by now. Finally, I’ve asked them if they were aware of what this California Representative was looking to do, and how they felt about that. Not surprisingly, the results were interesting, and the (often cheeky) comments amusing.

Who remembers Prop 7?

Of 19 respondents, five had no recollection of Prop 7. Ten recalled that it dealt with California’s approach to Daylight Saving Time (though the title of my survey must’ve given them a good hint). Four respondents (including myself)  “remember perfectly well exactly what it was all about.”

I guess I’m not surprised to be in the minority of people who have kept tabs on this. My wife and teenaged kids profess to be totally bored by any topic related to Daylight Saving Time. I can’t understand this … after all, how our society observes DST affects our daily lives. It determines whether I’m trying to sneak in a bike ride before the workday starts, or eke one out with my remaining energy at the end of the day. It determines whether or not our morning commute, or our children’s, takes place in the dark. Beyond these quotidian matters, I find DST intrinsically fascinating (as I detailed in a non-Prop-7 DST post many years ago). But then, as my kids are fond of pointing out, I’m obviously a crazy mutant from another planet.

I guess I also shouldn’t be surprised that half my respondents had no recollection of whether or not Prop 7 passed. Maybe some of them didn’t pay attention because that outcome is irrelevant, given California’s inability to tell Congress what to do.

Who accurately recalls what Prop 7 aimed for?

Of my 19 respondents, none took the bait on the first multiple-choice response, “Brings CA back into compliance with federal law around DST” even though this bears striking resemblance to the title of the proposition. Well done, friends! I also didn’t fool anybody with “Rolls back the DST extension created during the second Bush administration,” a false response contrived based on what I heard from a couple of confused voters a year ago. However, no fewer than nine respondents thought that Prop 7 sought to allow California to consider opting out of DST entirely. That’s kind of almost the opposite of its real purpose, which only six respondents correctly recalled. (Only one major nation has tried year-round DST: Russia. After four years they admitted their mistake and went back to normal.)

Bringing up the rear, four respondents chose “None of the above,” and unfortunately I forgot to provide a comment section for them to write in what they thought Prop 7 was trying to do. That’s a shame, though I expect at least one comment would have been something like “Hell if I know!”

Given that Prop 7 did pass, what do folks expect to happen?

Nobody clicked on my first multiple-choice response, “I'm wondering why I just changed the clocks back ... wasn't Prop 7 supposed to make this unnecessary?” I think this outcome nicely showcases the widespread cynicism we all have about whether voting really matters and/or whether our governments can actually bring about change.

Four respondents chose “I'm wondering whether anything has happened in terms of pushing legislation through Congress to deliver the promise of Prop 7.” That’s a fair question and I’m surprised more people didn’t choose this response.

Nobody chose “I'm wondering why there is nothing on the ballot today to take the next step and vote on exactly what California will ask Congress to do.” I’m a bit surprised by this. The original proposition, if you didn’t read it carefully, insinuated that all we were doing with Prop 7 was abolishing the clock-changing nonsense, and we’d worry about the fine details later.

Six respondents (including me) chose “I grasped immediately, a year ago, that Prop 7 could never actually deliver any change, because Congress has no incentive to let California be out of whack with the rest of the country for four months a year.” Yeah, exactly. It’s one thing to be a leader in something like a smoking ban, a soft drink tax, or mandatory composting—these are laws California can enforce within our own borders without anyone else having a say. But pretending we can just overturn the federal law around DST makes barely more sense than passing a law declaring, “Disadvantaged Californians may now steal one car or truck apiece from our neighbors in Nevada, Oregon, or Arizona with impunity.”

Disappointingly, not a single respondent chose “Oh, crap, I assumed Prop 7 was in full effect, and I didn't roll my clocks back last weekend!”

That leaves nine more responses. One survey recipient declined to answer this one. (Probably he or she had fallen asleep, as a consequence of a totally befouled circadian rhythm due to the time change.) Two respondents declined to select any of my responses because they didn’t remember Prop 7 that well … fair enough. One respondent apparently thought this test was open-book and wrote, “I realized after reading a short article on the subject that it will take additional action through the state legislature to put it into effect.” That’s cheating! I was trying to get a read on what people felt would be appropriate. I guess with Google, nobody bothers to ponder anything anymore—they just go straight for the answer.

One respondent wrote, “Hawaii and Arizona don't observe daylight savings time, so I didn't think Congress would care if California opted out of it.” Ah, this is a confused voter (or abstainer). Prop 7 isn’t about staying on standard time—it’s about staying on DST. That’s what’s so annoying to me: the way it was written was very confusing (probably deliberately so) which is why I suspect so many Californians didn’t realize what they were actually voting on.

Other responses were pretty funny:

• “I am totally out of it, I go where I’m told, tell me when to wake up and I will.”
•  “I’m so glad I moved to a state that doesn’t have a gazillion silly measures on every ballot.” I believe this would have come from either an Oregonian or a Texan (based on where my post-California friends live). So, fair point—but  Oregon and Texas have their own sillinesses, eh?
• “I advocate eliminating all DST & all time zones globally & using GMT everywhere & 24 hr clocks. Here in CA we’d arise at 2200 and retire at 1300.” Yeah, that would be pretty cool, and would completely eliminate the problem of jet lag!
• “Every season should be, ‘Fall Back’. I love ‘Fall Back’. I hate ‘Spring Forward’. I’m in favor of having ‘Fall Back’ every six months or so.” Great idea! We’d just slip further and further out of whack with the rest of the world. Just think … eight years in, we’d be on the same time as England, and the sun would rise at like 3pm. Daylight would cease to have any meaning in our lives. Tourists here would be so disoriented, our tourism industry could fleece them more efficiently than ever!

Did people realize California would now pursue year-round DST?

I would love to know what all the California voters, particularly the majority of voters who supported Prop 7, expected to happen. Possibly like half of them thought we’d go to Standard time year-round. We’ll have to settle for what my survey respondents had to say.

Two of them were both aware that a lawmaker would use Prop 7 to push for year-round DST and were glad that California voters are having their wishes carried out. Three respondents weren’t aware of this outcome but are glad to hear voters are being served. This attitude presupposes that these voters actually knew what they were voting for. I guess these five are less cynical than I.

One respondent was aware that Prop 7’s passage would lead to the year-round DST effort and doubts this is what California voters wanted. Hear, hear.

Five respondents (including me) chose “No, and frankly I couldn't care less because obviously Congress will nix this with a quickness.”

Again, the most interesting responses were “Other” with a comment:

• “No, and I have no idea what ‘most California voters want.’” Great point. Hell, probably a lot of California voters don’t know what California voters (i.e., they themselves) want.
• “Not interested, other than wondering what the promoters of this prop think they stand to gain. What’s their angle?” Great question! I have puzzled over this myself. They can’t actually believe that changing the clocks is life-threatening, can they?
• “Just be sure to put signs up on your northern border to remind people crossing over that you all are out of whack. Of course, you already were whacky, just more so if this happens.” I would love to design this sign. I’m guessing this is the Oregonian, because—what about our eastern borders? Or are Nevadans and Arizonians just as wacky as us? (Now, if you take me to task for “as us” vs. “as we,” I’m going to nitpick about “whacky” vs. “wacky.” Let’s jest be mellow and colloquial, okay?)
• “Huh?” Yeah, no kidding.
• “No they won’t take my suggestion either.” Um … what exactly is your suggestion? I’d love to hear it.
• “I have no idea. This seems like a trivial matter compared with the problem of humans paving over the planet.” Wow … great point. And I’d say it applies to the majority of ballot measures, innit?

To be continued…

Check back every few years … I’ll continue to monitor the slow, wasting death of this totally pointless and doomed legislation. 

But wait, there’s more!

If you just can’t get enough of this topic, click here.

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Stage Play - Lance's Defense

Introduction

As I’ve mentioned before, I sincerely hope that Lance Armstrong is being honest about never doping. But given the tide of recent confessions among his former teammates, things aren’t looking good.

If I allowed myself to become more cynical, perhaps I wouldn’t be so surprised by the aggressive stance Lance’s attorneys have taken. Instead of being taken aback by Tyler Hamilton’s recent testimony, they quickly developed a nice, pat story to tell. They responded with pure speculation about Hamilton’s motives: “Tyler Hamilton just duped the CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes and Scott Pelley all in one fell swoop. Hamilton is actively seeking to make money by writing a book, and now he has completely changed the story he has always told before so that he could get himself on 60 Minutes and increase his chances with publishers.” Lance’s attorneys’ latest stunt is to demand an apology from “60 Minutes” and CBS.

But what if Lance’s defense team decided the situation was hopeless, and their best bet would be to cut their losses and confess? How would they convince Lance to go along? To explore that scenario, I wrote this play.

Note: what follows is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of its characters to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

LANCE’S DEFENSE

A Play in One Act

Dramatis Personae:

NELSON, a member of Lance’s defense team

BRAD, another member of Lance’s defense team

CLINT, third member of Lance’s defense team

STENOGRAPHER

Scene:

A conference room

[Enter NELSON, BRAD, CLINT, STENOGRAPHER. STENOGRAPHER sets up equipment and waits for meeting to convene.]

NELSON: Okay, let’s get started. First off, it’s pretty obvious, with all Lance’s buddies singing like canaries to grand juries, that he’s not going to be able to deny this stuff anymore.

BRAD: Right, that’s plain as day. And yet he’s refusing to admit anything. We’re kind of stuck.

CLINT: No, no, we’re not stuck. We just have to present this confession in a way that Lance can handle it. We have to work this out so he can still stand proud. He’s not going to do time—he’s too wealthy for that—but he has his legacy to think of. His reputation. His ego.

NELSON: Exactly. He can’t be apologizing. First thing we need to do is deflate the sense that this big lie is really that big. I’m thinking we need to frame it like, well … we need to move it into that same gray area where you lie to your kid about the Tooth Fairy. Kind of coax the peeps into the sense that they kind of knew all along and looked the other way.

CLINT: Right, and whatever he says, he can’t be looking all squirmy and weak like Tyler Hamilton. He has to be bold without seeming defensive. He has to attack!

[CLINT pounds fist on table]

BRAD: Yeah, but it can’t be a snipe-y attack like Floyd Landis and Tyler did. Lance has to rise above. They attacked him personally; he won’t be so petty. He has to attack something besides individual people.

NELSON: Hmmm. Try this on for size. Lance could attack the very notion that his doping was wrong. He has to make his doping okay. Like some kind of necessary thing. Like some kind of, I dunno, manifest destiny type of thing.

CLINT: Manifest destiny! Love it! It’s so … American. And that’s who we need to convince here—the Americans. The Europeans never liked him anyway and who cares.

NELSON: Right, this is all about winning over the American people. So. What’s important to Americans, really? What makes us tick? Power, obviously, for starts.

CLINT: Yeah, power. Winning. And money.

BRAD: But we’re not so simple as that. We also like just generally feeling superior. That’s where the bigger challenge is with Lance. Americans’ feeling of superiority can sometimes take the form of moral indignation.

[NELSON scratches his head.]

NELSON: Right. How do we tackle that?

BRAD: Well, we can try to keep the focus on the power, money, and winning, while simultaneously working to remove the moral indignation as an option. Hmmm. We have to—

CLINT: We have to make moral indignation seem silly.

NELSON: We absolutely do. And we can. It wouldn’t take much—kind of a realist approach. Play to people’s cynicism. Didn’t Lance gain power? Didn’t he win, instead of some damn Frenchman?

CLINT: Exactly. Americans respect winning and they respect money. They respect the creation of wealth. And didn’t Lance help Trek sell a bazillion bikes? Didn’t he help Oakley sell a bazillion pairs of shades? Didn’t he raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research? Was he not the consummate professional? No matter what happens now, all those companies get to keep all that money he made for them. Is that fair, that Lance goes down after these corporations milked him dry?

[BRAD drums his fingers on the table.]

BRAD: That’s a little tough to position but you’re right. The thing is, how do we get around the fact that he lied all these years? The peeps are still going to be tempted to feel morally superior.

NELSON: We have to squash the moral high ground. We have to real-world that thing to death. So here’s what we do. Lance was lying to protect his family, and his team, and even his competitors who were racing dirty. He was lying to protect cancer funding. And if you side with Floyd and Tyler, you’re siding with people who rat out their friends. We’ll spin this so that it’s all about Lance not doing that. He’s not going to rat out his team doctors, his coach, his manager, anybody. He’s not going to out any of his former teammates who managed to never have that positive test. He won’t rat people out to avoid prison, and he won’t do it to sell books.

BRAD: Yeah, okay, that’s starting to sound pretty good, but can we sell people on that? Can we really make a martyr out of this guy?

CLINT: Well, if all we had was honor, maybe not, but remember, we got the full package here. Lance is powerful, he’s a winner, he’s studly—people already like him! Give them a righteous hook of any kind, they’ll bite. And it’s a pretty good hook, I think!

NELSON: It’s not going to work for everybody, but then he’s always had haters. This is good stuff. This is solid.

BRAD: But there’s still the matter of cancer survivors, cancer victims, people who read magazines and get misty-eyed. You know, your idealists. They can make a lot of noise.

NELSON: Right, and worse—they can make a stink without even being that loud. One bald-headed cancer victim tearing up and blubbering “I believed in Lance!” could really damage the cause, if one of our enemies puts her in the limelight.

BRAD: Couldn’t we have Lance apologize to the cancer victims, and them alone? Like, everybody else was part of the sport, part of the machine, but these cancer people deserve an apology?

CLINT: Absolutely not! Listen to yourself! That could unravel the whole thing! It would be like admitting he was wrong. That can’t happen. He has to be bold. He wants to be bold.

NELSON paces back and forth.

NELSON: Right, Lance has to take the offensive line on every front. I like what we were doing earlier with him being indignant, and him being the only guy who’s not naive. People hate feeling naive. Lance’s cancer message has to be as strong and as street-smart as the rest of his platform.

CLINT: Yeah, yeah. Completely. And we can do it while staying true to what everybody already knows about this guy! Like, in his book he says that force of will doesn’t beat cancer, that some people with bad attitudes manage to survive while others with a real fighting spirit nevertheless die. Lance wasn’t smurfy about it, which is frankly one of the only things I liked about that book. So he could knock this idealist thing on its ass.

NELSON: Yes, he could. Remember, he’s an atheist! His first wife was the Christian and trying to get him to give God some credit for surviving cancer, but Lance wouldn’t do it!

BRAD: Dude, how are we going to work that in? A defense based on godlessness?

CLINT: No, no, forget the atheist part, it’s just that this guy is a realist and that can work for us if we position it carefully. Like, we’ll have him say, “Look, hope doesn’t win bike races, and hope doesn’t beat cancer. Hope is good, we need hope, but hope can’t do it all. You think I cracked my ass all those years on that bike just to raise hope? I did it to raise money, to develop drugs! Drugs that actually cure cancer and save lives!”

NELSON: Beautiful. It’s such consistent messaging. He’ll say, “I’m here to tell you that drugs fricking work. Chemo saved me from cancer, and EPO saved me from chemo. Yes, drugs helped me win bike races but drugs also keep your children from getting polio. How many of you don’t have a prescription for something? And does it work? Are you glad that it works? What would you have these cancer victims do: hope, and pray, and think about rainbows and unicorns and crap and just hope they get well? Or do you want to arm them with the best pharmaceuticals money can buy, the best new drugs we can develop? And where do you think that development money going to come from?”

CLINT: Love it. Love it. He’ll be like, “You think I care if my drug use keeps some sniveling Frenchman off the podium, who’d have spent his prize money overstuffing a goose until it explodes so he can eat its liver as pâté de foie gras? Hell no, I did what I had to do to be a financial engine for cancer research! I’m talking about real sacrifice for real money to buy real drugs, that work, that save lives!”

NELSON: Pâté de foie gras! Beautiful! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!

CLINT: “What would you all give up for a more gentlemanly sport of bike racing? How many cancer victims would you sacrifice at the altar of fair play? What do you want, Queensberry rules for every sport? Should I have fallen off the back of the pack, gasping and weaving, and let some doping Spaniard win the race so I could raise a few hundred bucks for cancer research instead of a few hundred million?”

NELSON: Perfect. Lance turns the accusations on their heads. “Am I a cheater? You’re damn right I’m a cheater! I cheated cancer! I cheated death! I cheated Floyd and Tyler and everybody else who was trying to cheat me! And I won! And I want you to win! Win with me!”

CLINT: I can see it. Posters. Giant print ads in the subway. “CHEAT DEATH. CHEAT CANCER. CHEAT WITH LANCE. CHEAT WITH BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB!”

CLINT pumps his fist.

BRAD: Whoa, slow down there. We’re getting a little giddy here, let’s not overstep.

CLINT gets up out of his chair.

CLINT: Right, of course you’re right, this is a great start but I’m starting to get a little too worked up. Let’s get this transcript printed out and take a fresh look at it tomorrow so we can fine-tune the messaging before presenting it to Lance. I’m ready for a beer or six right now.

NELSON slides back chair, stands, rolls his shoulders.

NELSON: Yeah, let’s call it a night, get some drinks. In fact, I feel like getting some whores. You guys feel like whores? Hey, steno, don’t record that part. Did you just record the whores thing? Stop typing, we’re done here. Strike that part. Hey, man, why are you packing up so fast?

STENOGRAPHER puts away his equipment, hastily exits.

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