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Sam Zell, Corporate Raider & Certified Asshole

October 2, 2012 /2 Comments/in /by

In case you’re unfamiliar with businessman Sam Zell, he’s the billionaire who a few years ago managed to acquire the Tribune media empire (which at the time included the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun, and Hartford Courant). While the newspapers were already losing money, the advent of Zell’s ownership and the ways he leveraged his acquisition of the media company saddled it with additional enormous debt, whereupon he began downsizing newsrooms, laying off journalists and gutting the papers. At the same time, he fashioned himself a media critic, supposedly knowledgable about what news organizations must do to survive amid a transformed media landscape.

By now, several years after his Tribune purchase, the company is embroiled in a number of lawsuits over Zell’s attempt to walk away from various pension obligations. Zell has remained what he was at the outset–a foul-tempered, profane, corporate raider who routinely exhibits contempt for news and media professionals. By the standards of Geoffrey Nunberg’s provocative new book, Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years, Sam Zell is a certifiable “asshole.”

This all brings us to today, where I see on ThinkProgress.org in a story by Pat Garofalo that Zell’s done an interview on CNBC TV’s “Squawk Box” program, during which he offered these observations, complaining:

ZELL: The reality is as follows: the whole focus has been on how the, quote, one percenters, the 10 percenters, whatever these top earners have moved ahead of everybody. I wonder if there’s any correlation between while they were moving ahead, the rest of the government was subsidizing, subsidizing more and more people and disincentivizing them. Why is it always assumed that somebody doesn’t succeed because he can’t, as opposed to he doesn’t want to, or isn’t incentivized to. […]
SORKIN: There’s no suggestion, at least that I’ve heard, that the reason why people have had a harder time rising through the ranks today is a function of the fact that they’re disincentivized to rise through the ranks.
ZELL: Wait a minute. I think that they are disincentivized by, in effect, if you don’t have to pay for your health care, that’s another thing you don’t have to worry about…For every step contributing to the progress at the top, there’s an additional step on the bottom to increase the earned income [tax credit], to extend unemployment insurance for 28 years.

This guy doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. My wife and I damn well pay for our expensive healthcare, and hope each year to get the benefit of a tax deduction for having obtained coverage through the small business we operate. And, “unemployment insurance for 28 years”? What rank hyperbole! Ninety weeks is the absolute limit, as I recall, and mine in NY State didn’t even last that long after I was laid off from Sterling Publishing in 2009, an experience I’ve recounted in a personal blog essay, Three Years Ago Today.

So, let’s get this straight–a man who used Bain-like tactics to strip money out of a company he acquired, laid off hundreds of experienced professionals, and ignored his obligations to their pensions, is now lecturing the rest of us on why many Americans lack full-time employment–it’s because we’ve been conditioned to be lazy by government policies that “disincentivize” us. This guy would fit in perfectly in Mitt Romney’s 47% video reel. What an asshole.

Did You Hear the One about a Bigoted Christian Who Walks into a Synagogue on Yom Kippur?

October 1, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

I thought this was a parody or an Onion story, but evidently it’s not.

Word comes via the Chicago Tribune that congregants of Anshe Emet Synagogue in Lakeville, IL, were upset by the unexpected appearance in their sanctuary of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann during Kol Nidrei, the service that began the solemn Yom Kippur holiday last Tuesday. According to reporter Manya A. Brachear’s story, there is “No word on why Bachmann was in Chicago or why she chose to attend the Jewish service. Calls and emails to her campaign and congressional office were not returned.”

Rabbi Michael Siegel, following his congregation’s practice of acknowledging the presence of public officials as guests in their sanctuary, welcomed the conservative congresswoman from the pulpit. But according to Brachear,

“The formality enraged more than a few congregants, prompting some to walk out and one to start a campaign of his own in support of Bachmann’s opponent in the race for her congressional seat, Jim Graves. ‘The holiness of the room and the holiness of the evening was greatly diminished for me, if not completely destroyed,’ said Gary Sircus, who stormed out of the synagogue where he has observed the High Holidays for 25 years. ‘Our congregation values and embodies tolerance, compassion, respect for individual rights, intelligence, science—all of the things that I think Michele Bachmann stands against.’ 

“Later that night, [Sircus] composed an email to Graves’ campaign and sent it to others, urging them to donate. His words have since gone viral. ‘I felt that the best way to ‘honor’ Ms. Bachmann’s visit was to make a contribution to your campaign,’ Sircus wrote [to Graves]. ‘Even though I do not vote in Minnesota, please do everything in your power to take away this evil woman’s soapbox.'”

I’ve seen reports that Bachman is in the closest race of her congressional career, and really may be ousted on November 6. Also reportedly in very close races are Bachmann’s fellow right-wing extremists Joe Walsh of Illinois, the deadbeat who failed to pay his wife her child support; Steve King of Iowa, as demeaning a congressman as there is toward new Americans and immigrants looking to catch a foothold our country; and Alan West of Florida who routinely demeans female politicians.

 

 

 

Big Poll Margin Growing for PBO in NH?

October 1, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

This could be an outlier poll, but wow: President Obama is up 52-37 in New Hampshire–according to the latest survey from WMUR, the most widely viewed TV station in the Granite State. Even if 15% makes it an outlier, they’re must be something working very well for the president there right now. I suspect it’s the recent ads the Obama campaign has fashioned from Mitt’s disastrous 47% remarks, like this spot, for which all the words are supplied by Mitt, against the moneyed sound of cutlery colliding with crockery during the meal eaten by the Repub candidates’ wealthy donors. In counterpoint to the aural part of the ad, all the graphics and visuals are skillfully supplied by the president’s ad-makers.

Neil Young, K’Naan in Central Park for the Global Citizen Festival

September 29, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

Hadn’t realized until today that a big benefit concert’s going on today in Central Park. K’Naan, Band of Horses, Foo Fighters, Black Keys, and Neil Young with Crazy Horse are all playing on the Great Lawn. Might’ve tried to go, but I have other plans for the rest of the day. Some free tickets were drawn by lottery at teh site of the worthy organization coordinating this push to end “extreme poverty” worldwide. Many organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Earth Institute are coordinating to pull it all together, under the rubric of GlobalCitizen.org. So far, K’Naan has played, brilliantly. Also, Band of Horses, who were good too. It’s all being livestreamed at this link, and maybe cached there later, too. I hope so, because I’m going out in a few minutes, and would really love to see Neil and Crazy Horse. Meantime, here’s a photo I took of K’Naan in the livestream. He only played three songs, but he absolutely killed with those three, including with a rousing finale of his global hit, “Wavin’ Flag,’ telling the crowd he was at last reclaiming the song as his own, after seeing it used in so many different situations, like at the World Cup. He sang the personal passages in the lyrics, about leaving Somalia as a youngster, very quietly and intimately. He is a very inspirational figure.
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Got home just in time to hear Neil and Crazy Horse’s two closing songs, “Fucking Up” and “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World,” on which the bands from earlier in the concert joined in. It’s been a Neil Young kind-of-weekend, with his new book, Waging Heavy Peace, one of my #FridayReads for this weekend.

Paul Ryan–Mending Fences, Planting Seeds

September 29, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

According to a brief item by Robert Costa in the National Review, Paul Ryan has recently

” . . . called several conservative commentators. In those conversations, he has expressed confidence about the Republican ticket’s chances, fielded questions, and asked for frank assessments. Ryan has made the calls one by one from the trail. The private press talks, which are ongoing, have often been lengthy and candid. Sources close to the Romney campaign tell National Review Online that Ryan has reached out to George F. Will, the Washington Post columnist; Paul Gigot, the editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page; and CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, among others. A source close to the Romney campaign says the calls simply reflect Ryan’s warm relationships with many conservative media figures.”

While these calls are depicted here as all about the current campaign, I think the real subtext here is 2016, with Ryan probably eager to run on his own, without what he may perceive as the stultifying dullness of the Romney campaign weighing him down.

Wendy Weil, Book Agent Extraordinaire, RIP

September 29, 2012 /5 Comments/in , /by

Very sad to read about the passing of longtime book business friend, literary agent Wendy Weil. During my days as a bookseller with Undercover Books in Cleveland, from 1978-85, we had hosted a couple of big launch parties that were very successful for one of her author clients. Then, when I moved to NYC in 1985 to work in publishing she was very kind to me and I got to know her even better. Just saw Wendy recently when she told me of her delight at placing a new novel by this same client, who had left her agency for several years, but then had returned to her fold. She told me how good this had made her feel. She was very happy that day and seemed very well. I was startled to read this death notice in today’s NY Times. Wendy Weil was 72. She died last Saturday, on what happens to have been my birthday. My heartfelt condolences to her family and many friends in the book world. She was a tall, willowy woman, a dear person with a warm sense of humor. I will miss her, as will many others, I’m sure.

#FridayReads, Sept. 28–Chris Bohjalian’s,”The Night Stranger” & Neil Young’s “Waging Heavy Peace”

September 28, 2012 /0 Comments/in , /by

#FridayReads, Sept. 28–The Night Stranger, Chris Bohjalian’s unusual haunted house novel, set in a town much like Franconia, New Hampshire, where I went to college. What does it mean that the number of passengers who died in a crashed airliner–thirty-nine–is the same as the number of bolts in a mysterious basement door? Though about mortality and  hidden things, the novel is told with an oddly calm narration that is all the more unsettling for it.

Also, just picking up Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young’s long look back on nearly seven decades of living and music-making, a rock memoir written in a calm tone of voice and in a pensive and thoughtful frame of mind. With Neil so much a part of my life and musical DNA, I’d really been looking forward to this book, especially after hearing him in conversation with Patti Smith at BEA last June, and now that’s in my hands, I couldn’t be happier to be reading it, with the voice of Neil coming through on every page.

Repub Commentator: Todd Akin’s Situation=David Koresh’s Situation

September 28, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

Unreal–a Repub consultant, Kellyanne Conway, thinks she’s doing a Todd Akin a favor by likening his resolve to stay in the Missouri senate race to the determination shown by David Koresh–the late apoca-death wish zealot–who refused to exit the Branch Davidian compound. Koresh’s megalomanical obstinacy led to the death of his whole flock in 1993. This is what Conway said:

“The first day or two [after Akin’s widely condemned legitimate rape comment] where it was like the Waco with the David Koresh situation where they’re trying to smoke him out with the SWAT teams and the helicopters and the bad Nancy Sinatra records. Then here comes day two and you realize the guy’s not coming out of the bunker. Listen, Todd has shown his principle to the voters.”

Yep, Kellyanne, that should do Todd a world of good! Via TPM’s Igor Bobic, here’s the story, with a link to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch source. This is on top of Akin’s own recent comments, complaining about Claire McCaskill’s demeanor in their debate this week, as “unladylike” and like a “wild cat.” This man is so weird!
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Note: After an Akin spox took issue with Conway’s comment, she contacted the St. Louis reporter, Kevin McDermott, supposedly to clarify herself, but her revision doesn’t change anything:

UPDATE 1:48 p.m.: Akin spokesman Ryan Hite has responded with a one-line written statement: “It was a stupid comment to make.”

UPDATE 2 p.m.: Conway just called to clarify that she was not comparing Akin to Koresh, but rather was comparing the GOP leaders who were trying to dislodge Akin to the federal agents in the standoff with Koresh. “It was about how overbearing the Republicans had been. It was about the tactics being used to force (Akin) out,” Conway said. “I wasn’t comparing the (two) men. . . . I don’t consider David Koresh a man of fortitude. Todd Akin is a man of fortitude.”