Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized a long delayed rule that will force all publicly traded companies to publish a ratio between the amount it pays its CEO and its median salary. 
The rule was included in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, but is only now (finally) gaining traction. Companies will have to start revealing this information by 2017 (seven years after it was proposed). 
Elizabeth Warren also took the SEC’s Chairwoman (Mary Jo White) to task by calling her leadership of the SEC over the last two years “extremely disappointing”. Ouch. 

In thinking about how different people approach their problems, large and small, several thoughts and images came to mind. 

Some people are fearful of, and even fall in love with, their problems. They put them on a pedestal and build a shrine to them. They stare at them, think about them, getting smaller relative to them all the while. They sing praises to them in the form of complaint, not even realizing that no one else appreciates their tune. In idolatrous fashion, they sacrifice all manner of things to them, even sacrificing themselves. This is not what problems are for. 

Problems should be appropriately studied, not obsessively, but to extract learnings and to determine solutions. To solve them they must be dimensioned. After they have served this purpose, they should be strung up nice and tall, and then beat to pieces like a piñata. Something sweet will hopefully come out of it. 

On the train a few minutes ago, some guy running to get inside the train got caught in the door. The door jammed his elbows, such that his full coffee with milk popped out of his hand, flew across the width of the car, and smashed right at the feet of a guy standing at the other door. That guy, dressed in business casual attire suffers his shoes and the bottom of his pants being drenched with milky coffee. If he’s lucky, it was hopefully not too sweet. 

I was only three feet away as I too had just made it onto the train before its departure, and was the last person on without a coffee in hand. Fortunately, I had found a spot to tuck myself into under an air conditioning vent. Given the events of Monday, where the train on which I had ridden was packed, delayed, and without AC, I’ve been counting my blessings – and looking for vents with more than usual resolve. 
The drencher looked on with was likely to be a combination of shock, disappointment, and embarrassment. His look seemed to try to convey that he was also a victim of cruel circumstance. In typical subway culture, people looked on with varying degrees of engagement, amusement, and dismissiveness. Most probably anticipated some sort of exclamation, if not an eruption proper. 

The drenchee said not a single word though as he assessed the situation. He was obviously unhappy, but I think he handled it very well and with grace. I stopped short of telling him so given that I didn’t want to disrupt the fragile balance of silence, or be seen to be implying (or really, reiterating) blame. 

Commuters are advised to avoid bringing food and drink on the trains for this very reason. There were multiple lessons here of varying degrees, but I extract and carry forward the one on grace – “forgive those who trespass against us”.

The sequel to “To Kill A Mockingbird” will be released on July 14. Interestingly, it was written prior to To Kill, but when the editor of the first asked her to emphasize Scout’s childhood, it morphed into the literary titan we’ve come to know. I find it interesting that so much time has passed in the interim without much fanfare or recognition of the original script. A means to an end it would seem, has been recast. 

On recasting: the new book portrays Atticus Finch in a less glorified light, less a bastion and champion of equal rights. Perhaps I’ll reread the original in the coming days in preparations for “Go Set A Watchman”. If any of you read the new one or have read the former, feel free to share your thoughts. 

It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted – the longest stretch that I’ve gone since starting this blog in two years. It’s been busy. 

I started a new job, one that is hectic in a hectic high profile group of a hectic high profile place. It’s exciting, but busy. My last job afforded longer, but more leisurely commutes on which I wrote many posts and often. Now, my commute is shorter, but more crammed most days and seating is often scarce or tight. 

I went to San Fran the week before starting where I got a reasonable amount of rest. Much needed in fact. I also began watching Game of Thrones in earnest. I’ve just about completed the first four seasons. This week I’ve discovered (reiterated) why watching episodes just before bed is bad. Screens just before bed is bad and disrupts sleep. Yet, I continue. 

This year the 4th is on a Saturday and I don’t get Friday off, though I get a floating day. I’ll take it later. Apparently, I’m going to a party in the Hamptons which should be fun, especially if I am able and willing to cooperate with myself in suspending judgement of the those who have lost touch with reality, and those who are far to eager to. It will be “epic”, yet I’m sure that I’ll discover some (truly) inside jokes along the way. 

I’ve been reading a book on big data. It’s an interesting enough topic and will have greater relevance to me professionally as I take on a new project in the coming months. 

The 4th was pretty fun. I went to a party in the Hamptons which was fine, but we also had a big group of friends which probably made it a lot more fun. Ja Rule performed some old hits from a second floor balcony while people (including me) floated in the pool or gathered all around it. The party responded well to him. Not bad. 

Fireworks on the East River was phenomenal and our vantage point from a friend’s apartment on the water was excellent. Overall a great, but long day. 

I’ll write more soon. Thanks for continuing to support my blog 😉

In my galaxy of thoughts, I just had one shoot by that caught my eye. For now, the others are blurry and distant, which is fine: Do you believe in fate? I do not. 

Historically, I have not believed in fate because I think that we are all free agents. We can think and choose enough around us so as to not be especially constrained or forced down a particular path, as if strapped to a rocket that’s been pointed and positioned to go in one of a number of directions for one of a number of times. Not everything is in our control, but certainly more than fate would seem to suggest. My thought about ten minutes ago was additive. 

Fate is not compatible with my value system. That is a much stronger statement and thought. It occurred to me that were I to be believe in fate, I would necessarily be saying that some people are inherently better than other people – that the “universe” has chosen some people to be fabulously wealthy, healthy and respected and that there is nothing that a poor person or one with a disability can do about it. Or less dramatically, an “average” person. That we are different is not the point, those will always exist. Fate seems to say that differences that clearly denote stature and station are fixed – a sort of caste system that is universal and driven by the universe. I think that this is incorrect (and wrong) and another reason to dispute fate. 

Tonight I flipped through some new releases on Netflix and was quickly drawn to a title: Fruitvale Station. 

Having visited San Francisco for the first time only one week ago, and having passed through that station at least a half dozen times, the bulb of recognition immediately went off. I exclaimed to myself and in my dimly lit living room, “That must be in San Francisco!”. Only one week ago, the title would have meant nothing. Yet, it was familiar. 

Stories of rampant police misconduct are as familiar and fresh. Familial. I probably should not have watched that movie right before bed. I knew as much when I sat down to watch it two hours ago. Still, the hard truth is inconvenient. There is no good time for it. The truth never stops being true, just as injustice continues to be unjust, and in this case, present from start to finish. 
“Fruitvale”, even when I first heard it, struck me as quite an image rich and colorful name. Oakland, California – a place like so many others were colors matter – where blue and black seem to be a perilous combination. 

There are several layers here and a multitude of angles and directions for discussions to take. 

For example, how important is integration, and/or an explicit show of a willingness to integrate? 

Do “the blacks” feel sorry for themselves in absolute terms or no? Are they different from other groups in this regard; women, gays, etc? Perhaps there is a sliding scale.

Have other oppressed groups (Asians, Jews, etc) thrived due to more robust effort, less pride(fulness), or different and perhaps less pervasive racism? 

Irrespective of the delivery and deliverer of this article, some interesting discourse deserving of exploration has been presented here.  

Thoughts?

Here is the link, but I’ll copy the article as well just in case. 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article21174990.html

“A Duke University professor faced sharp criticism for online comments he made on The New York Times website, where he compared “the blacks” and “the Asians,” writing that Asians “didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.”

In a six-paragraph comment on the Times website, political science professor Jerry Hough wrote: “The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.”

Hough did not agree to be interviewed, but late Friday he said in an email that his comments were misunderstood. He had been prompted to write about a May 9 editorial in the New York Times on the Baltimore riots and underlying factors of segregation and poverty. He said the editorial should have called for the mayor of Baltimore to resign, instead of blaming white racism.

“I don’t know if you will find anyone to agree with me,” he said in an email to The News & Observer. “Anyone who says anything is a racist and ignorant as I was called by a colleague. The question is whether you want to get involved in the harassment and few do. I am 80 and figure I can speak the truth as I see it. Ignorant I am not.”

In his New York Times comment, Hough praised Asians. “Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration,” his online comment said. “Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existent because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.”

The comment concluded: “It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King state (sic). King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.”

Hough was swiftly blasted on Twitter and other social media sites. Duke officials decried the professor’s comments while defending his right to make them.

Mark Anthony Neal, a Duke professor of African and African American Studies, responded on his blog by pasting a screen shot of the comment, with this: “In the words of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, microagressions = micro-nooses–Mark Anthony Neal.” Bonilla-Silva is a Duke sociology professor.

In an email, Hough said he was a disciple of Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and voted for President Barack Obama. He pointed out that the first book he assigned to students in 1961 was “Black Like Me.” He further stated that one of the best students he ever taught was African American, and he had encouraged her to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship, but she pursued a career in athletics.

He said he’s working on a book on the 1960s social revolutions and that “I am very disappointed in the lack of progress” for African Americans.

“The point I was raising was why the Asians who were oppressed did so well and are integrating so well, and the blacks are not doing as well,” his email said. “The comments have convinced me to write a book which will add the Asians to all the research I did on blacks.”

He also admitted his comment in the New York Times was not expressed as well as he had intended: “There were typos in my outrage towards [the editorial] and I could have been more careful (though hard in the space limits).”

Duke reaction

Duke spokesman Michael Schoenfeld distanced the university from the professor’s New York Times comments but also pointed out academic freedom provisions in Duke’s Faculty Handbook.

“The comments were noxious, offensive and have no place in civil discourse,” Schoenfeld wrote in anemail. “Duke University has a deeply-held commitment to inclusiveness grounded in respect for all, and we encourage our community to speak out when they feel that those ideals are challenged or undermined, as they were in this case.”

He quoted from the Faculty Handbook, which says every faculty member has the right “to act and to speak in his or her capacity as a citizen without institutional censorship or discipline.”

Schoenfeld said he couldn’t comment on personnel matters, but added, “we take issues like this seriously and will use the opportunity to restate Duke’s core values of diversity and tolerance.”

According to the university’s website, Hough, the James B. Duke Professor of Political Science, has focused his research on the former Soviet Union. He has also written on the U.S. Founding Fathers. He holds three degrees from Harvard. He said in his email that he has been on leave this year and will wrap up his teaching career in 2016 after 40 years at Duke.

The situation comes a few weeks after a Duke student hung a noose from a tree, prompting outrage. The student left the campus but issued an apology and will return to Duke in the fall.