In the wake of the much watched and discussed Republican debate – and the impending political battles and coverage that we will soon be bombarded with – I decided that now is a great time to share this really cool, interactive chart. The chart shows many different occupational categories and shows the breakdown of Democrat / Republican within each category. The top half of the chart shows opposing party association within similar fields (e.g. “Flight Attendant” leans Democrat while “Pilot” leans Republican). And if you scroll down about halfway, then it will get a bit more specific, and you are able to break out categories into several sub-categories (e.g. “sales” breaks out into “car sales”, “pharm sales”, “retail sales”, “software sales” etc.).
Here are a couple of examples:
Again, it’s a pretty neat chart, and one that certainly seems pretty timely at this point. The chart is based off campaign contributions; not a perfect measure, but this does seem to have some good face validity just looking through – the occupations seem about what I would have expected. Will this explain what went on this past week at the Repulican debate? No, but I don’t think anything can quite explain what went on. But the chart is still definitely worth a look and worth keeping in mind as we begin to get bombarded with political coverage – polls, pundits, debates, and the entire circus. Again HERE is the link to the interactive chart.
One of the more interesting things about my job is that I get to look at appraisals of homes from all over the country. For those who do not know, an appraisal is an official report giving a valuation of a home. Appraisers usually go to home in question and take measurements and pictures, sketch out the layout of the house, look for any updates or deficiencies, and look at the overall condition. [Note: They are NOT inspectors, and are not looking at things like electric work or structural issues unless clearly visible.] They then do some research on the home and the local housing market. They look for comparables, or “comps,” of other homes that have sold in the same area in the recent past (they usually try to find homes that have sold within a mile of the property within the past 6 months).
Comps will be similar in size and features – number of bedrooms and bathrooms, square footage, lot size, porches, garages, etc. Of course, comps will not always be perfect, but it is the appraiser’s job to use his/her best judgment to make slight adjustments for differences in size and features, and then use the sale price of those comps to triangulate a value for the home in question.
The old adage in real estate is that it’s all about “location, location, location!” This is certainly true, as the comps being used to triangulate a value are indeed located in the same local market. And local markets can vary vastly; some homes that may have similar features, square footage, and bed/bath counts could have vastly different values based on which area of the country you are located in. Below are a few homes homes illustrating this; these homes are based on true appraisals. [Note: I have changed cities and excluded anything identifying, but I tried to substitute similar cities/areas. The point stands, showing the difference between some West Coast homes and Midwest homes, and a bonus South Florida home thrown in there for me!]
The differences are stark. Go out to California, and in many cities, you may not get much bang for your buck in terms of home value. Stay around the Midwest or rural areas, and you will probably get a lot more house for your money. Go to Texas and you can get a very nice home for a very reasonable price. And I will add that you don’t have to go across the country to see differences either. My parents’ home in small town east central Indiana would be worth substantially more money if it were moved 30 miles to a suburb of Indianapolis. Sometimes even a few blocks can be a difference in thousands of dollars for home values. For example, if we moved a couple of blocks east, our same house would be worth much more (potentially 50-100 thousand dollars more!). Certain markets and cities have always been – and will continue to be – more expensive than others in terms of home values and overall cost of living. That’s not new and it won’t change. However, every now and then it kind of hits me how vast some of these differences are…whether it’s because we ourselves are new homeowners, or I get to check out appraisals from all over the country…it’s interesting to see!
I really find the placebo effect pretty fascinating. I mean, it’s pretty amazing what we as humans do when our bodies and minds are tricked. Let me slow down and give a brief explanation of the placebo effect…
A placebo is a “fake drug” (read no active ingredient, often a sugar pill) given to a control group in medical trials to see if a real drug (with active ingredient) has any real effect. The people in the experiment don’t know whether they have received the real drug with active ingredient or the placebo drug with no active ingredient. This way, researchers can see if there is any marked improvement for those individuals who receive the actual drug versus those who received the placebo. What often happens is that even those who receive the placebo drug (remember, NO active ingredient) do show real improvement in whatever condition they are testing. This is called the “placebo effect” – people have real responses (physiologically, emotionally, etc.) to a fake/non treatment. This is largely based on the expectation that they should be feeling these changes/responses. [Side note: This does not mean that active ingredients never work; what researchers/doctors are often looking for in these kinds of clinical studies is that the individuals receiving the real drug (active ingredient) get better relative to the placebo group (even though the placebo group may also experience improvements in condition).]
Again, I’ve always been fascinated by this whole phenomenon…instances of people taking a placebo for hair growth products such as Rogaine, and they’ve experienced hair growth. (Remember, there was no active ingredient, yet their bodies had an actual physiological outcome!) Or cases, where people were rubbed with leaves they were told was poison ivy (even though it really wasn’t), yet they still broke out in rashes. Or medicine for migraines. I think it’s pretty wild, and it says a heck of a lot about our own expectations of what should happen, and how those expectations really do, in fact, shape what happens. In this way it’s very similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that our expectations or beliefs end up shaping the reality itself.
I clearly remember one evening spent with a close friend and having a discussion with him about the placebo effect. He suggested that we take 5 hour energy drinks before heading out for a night at the bars, saying that he had done it before and had a great time. I simply told him that it was probably a placebo effect that he had experienced, and that if I gave him a shot of flavored water but told him it was the 5 hour energy drink, he would go out and have a great time as well, because he would be primed and expecting that to happen, and thus it would end up happening. Now my friend is a medical doctor, and he started going back and forth with me about the active ingredients in the energy drinks and how those had real effects. And my response to him was that I certainly did not deny that these ingredients have real effects, but that if given a placebo, he would experience many of the same effects without the 5 hour energy. It was a fun debate to have, especially with a doctor. [Side note: He had a 5 hour energy, I didn’t. We both had a great time.]
So having this debate with a doctor also brought up some interesting, and larger, more important (perhaps) questions. If the placebo effect exists, what are the role of drugs and medications, and different treatments? Now remember, I’m not arguing that drugs or medical treatments have no effect; just that our own expectations have a lot to do with the actual effect that they do have. (And the research is pretty clear and backs me up on this one!) The placebo effect is real and it does cause real improvements and outcomes when given to people. Individuals’ expectations that they have received a treatment and should be getting better has a lot to do with that person actually getting better (even when the placebo has no active ingredient!). A few weeks ago, NPR talked about a medical study showing exactly this, but with an interesting twist. They gave some people with Parkinson’s a placebo drug (no active ingredient) and told them it cost $100, and they gave another group with Parkinson’s a placebo drug (still no active ingredient) and told them it cost $1500. Both groups were told the drugs should have the same effect, but those with the more expensive dose had better improvements with respect to stiffness and muscle tremor. (Remember, neither group received anything with any actual active ingredients, yet both groups showed improvement, and the pricier drug showed even more improvement than the cheaper one!) Or this similar study involving the price of pain pills.
So, what does all of this mean? I will point to a few things…. First, it’s really interesting in general, and I enjoy hearing and reading stories about the placebo effect. Second, it certainly means that our mindset and expectations have a lot to do with our reality, including how we improve medically. To add some nuance, this particular study also shows that our expectations can be influenced by factors such as price, where people tend to believe that the more expensive pill/treatment must be better (and simply from this expectation, it does create better outcomes).
Last but not least, the placebo effect can also be pretty entertaining when pulling pranks on people…. Check out Jimmy Kimmel getting people to “taste” the expensive coffee, and the video below that showing people tasting delicious water (from a hose)…
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all those celebrating….including the many who are probably going a little overboard. A few thoughts on this day that so many Americans like to use as an excuse to over-indulge and claim Irish heritage.
First, it does seem that there are many who do over-indulge. Chicago is a prime example, as it seems like St. Patty’s might be the most important day of the year. I am from the Midwest and have many friends and acquaintances in Chicago, and my social media was full of shenanigans going on there. Then I saw this article on just some of the crime and arrests – a funny read, but rather unfortunate really – and I kind of paused.
In light of many recent events that have taken place across the country, why are we okay with fist fighting, domestic disturbances, public drunkenness, and small scale rioting in one of America’s largest cities. And I guess I would have to say that it is because it’s largely white, largely middle class people who have co-opted a holiday and used that as an excuse to get belligerently drunk for a day. I can’t help but think that other groups would be characterized differently – as violent, or dangerous, or menaces if they engaged in the same behavior.
Another interesting read came from Nate Silver’s blog, fivethirtyeight.com, where they tackle the question of just how Irish are people who claim to be Irish. Walt Hickey, the author of this piece, relies on some assumptions and a relatively small sample size, but his end conclusion seems to have some legitimate face value. He ends up sayin that the general rule of thumb that he finds is that 25% seems to be the tipping point for those who claim an Irish American identity. Fifty-five percent of those with a quarter or more Irish heritage claimed that as a part of their identity, and 78% of those who were half Irish claimed an Irish American identity.
What’s important to note (and he does briefly mention this) is that when it comes to who is out celebrating, it’s not just those who are claiming to have a link to Irish heritage…it’s anyone looking for an excuse to get blitzed.
The only heritage claimed more is German. And I guess we have Oktoberfest for that. And we have Cinco de Mayo. Maybe we in America have just gotten really good at co-opting other countries’ occasions and turning them into binge drinking events.
I myself am half Irish, although that’s not an identity I normally claim – certainly not an important one for myself – and I probably only think about it this time each year. (No, I did not go out and celebrate my heritage this evening, although we did make a spin off of shephard’s pie, a traditional Irish meal.) In any event, I hope everyone had a lovely day, whether you celebrated (responsibly I hope!) or not, and Irish heritage or not.
They are, of course, very subjective. And obviously some of these jobs will be very appealing to some individuals while not at all to others. But, in an effort to create some objective measures to rank different jobs, they use a weighted scale across seven different metrics to get an overall score for each occupation. See the ranking metrics below:
The overall score is calculated from seven component measures, and for each measure, jobs receive a score between 0 and 10. Here are the component measures and their weights in computing the overall score:
● 10-Year Growth Volume (10 percent)
● 10-Year Growth Percentage (10 percent)
● Median Salary (30 percent)
● Job Prospects (20 percent)
● Employment Rate (20 percent)
● Stress Level (5 percent)
● Work-Life Balance (5 percent)
So they do give their metrics, some of which are more objective than others. For example, stress level and work-life balance seem to be pretty subjective, though they are gIven less weight in the rankings. Median salary and employment rate, on the other hand, are pretty objective measures and make up a large percentage of the rankings.
What immediately jumps out to me on this list is the overwhelming dominance of healthcare professions. Of the top 10 ranked jobs above, 7 are in the field of healthcare. And it’s not top heavy just in those first ten… 13 (possibly 15-16 depending on what you include) of the top 30 ranked jobs are in the healthcare field.
So healthcare may be a good field to get into when thinking about jobs.
However, it’s also good to take a close look at the metrics they are using to rank these best jobs. Looking at their measures above, 60% of the score each job receives seems to be closely associated to the job growth and employment rate. I’m wondering if they are, in a sense, “double counting” jobs that are growing. That is, it seems very likely to me that a job with a high growth rate will also have a low unemployment rate and also have high job prospects. If you are a growing profession, you essentially win their ranking war. If you couple that growth with a good salary, then you really win their ranking war, as that those two measures account for 90% of your ranking score.
Even if the measures above are “double counted” in some way, I would still make the argument that those two measures are good to use. Can I get a job? How much will I make? Those are two very important questions to consider when thinking about jobs. Of course, people will – and should! – consider and weigh their own interests in the equation, but that is something specific to the individual and thus too subjective to try and fit into a list such as this.
I was recently on linkedin and read through an article titled “5 Things On Your Resume That Make You Look Old,” warning people that age discrimination is real and that individuals should be cognizant of how their resumes portray them (in this case, in terms of age). After reading through it, I decided to to take a look at my own most recent resume to see how I stacked up.
Here are the 5 things to leave off your resume:
Damn. I’m starting off 0 for 1. Right at the top of my resume, just beneath my name (in what I think is a reasonably nice header), I have my home address listed. I agree that people nearly always send things electronically, but I still think that if you’re applying (especially locally) it probably doesn’t hurt to have the employer know that you are a local, and potentially a more serious candidate. I tend to disagree, and I think it’s still reasonable to keep it on there.
Ouch. 0 for 2. I still have a hotmail account, and I still use it. I even have it listed on my resume. I do have a (joint) gmail account that Em and I use together, but I don’t have that one listed on my resume. I will admit that I have thought about this on multiple occasions previously to the point of almost being self-conscious about still using a (perfectly good) hotmail address. All the cool kids are on the gmail these days…perhaps it’s time to upgrade.
Home phone number. To this I would respond that I do have my “home phone number” listed…it just happens to be my cell phone. I don’t have it labeled specifically as home/cell/work. I just have it listed and assume that most people will understand that it is the number to reach me at, regardless of home/cell/etc. I would agree with the above and say that it’s probably easiest to just list one number (probably your cell), and there’s no need to worry about labeling it.
What have I become!?! A 60 year old man, apparently. I double space after periods. It’s a habit. I’ve done it since I’ve learned to type (on a computer – not on a typewriter!). I do it right here on this blog, I’ve done it on every paper that I can remember writing, and just about everything else. I know that the new norm is to not do this, but I do it without thinking most of the time. Are people really that adept at noticing the spacing between sentences at 1 versus 2 spaces?
Okay, I don’t think I have any of these “outdated skills” listed, although after seeing my track record from above, maybe I don’t know what is or isn’t outdated. No, I do not have MS-DOS listed, though I do have “familiar with thefacebook.com and myspace.com” listed. (I’m joking!) This one is pretty obvious I think (though again, exactly which skills are outdated maybe aren’t). My advice would be to look at the required/desired skills for whatever company or position you are interested in and try to tailor your skills to those – that will hopefully keep your skills less “outdated.”
While I don’t think the above is necessarily a perfect list, I do certainly agree that you need to be cognizant of how your resume portrays you to your potential future employer. I also learned that despite being 29 with an advanced degree and a fairly strong skill set by most standards, my resume makes me appear to be a curmudgeonly man in my 60s who may or may not still be using AOL dial-up internet or even a typewriter… Hopefully that’s not the case, but it was interesting to take a look at some of these specific pieces of information as included/not included on my resume!
If you’re on the internet much or have any access to social media, you’ve probably seen dozens of videos of people dumping buckets of icy water over themselves. This has all been a part of a campaign to raise awareness and generate donations for the ALS Association. The campaign to generate money to the cause has gone viral and has been quite successful, reportedly over $70million has been donated in just over a month’s time.
ALS is commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, as he was one of the first big-name individuals in the US to bring attention to it. Here is the blurb from the ALS website describing the condition: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.
The rules of the ice bucket challenge are fairly simple. You are challenged or nominated by a friend (usually through social media), and you have 24 hours to either donate money to the cause or record yourself dumping a bucket of ice water over yourself. [Many people, including us, have elected to do both – dump the ice water over yourself and donate to the cause.] You then are responsible for nominating/challenging a few of your friends to participate. This strategy of nominating others was obviously very successful in having the challenge spread rapidly.
It has actually been an interesting illustration of the “six degrees of separation” idea (sometimes referred to as the six degrees of Kevin Bacon). This is the idea that you can connect any two random people in the world with 6 connections or fewer (i.e. friend of a friend of a friend…6 times). This comes from experiments done by Stanley Milgram in the 1950s who sent letters to random people in the midwest asking them to get a packet to a named individual somewhere on the east coast. (See: “small world problem“) The packet contained rules that they were not to look up the individual and they were to pass the packet along to one individual who they thought would be able to get it to that person, or at least in a better position to get it to that person (e.g. “I know someone in New York, maybe they will be able to get it to that person” or “I know someone in Indianapolis who has family in Boston, maybe that will work”). They found the average number of stops for the packets that made it was between 5-6. Thus, they concluded that everyone was, on average, connected through six connections or fewer (though Milgram never referred to it at “six degrees of separation”).
In the Kevin Bacon example, it’s the idea that you can connect any random actor to Kevin Bacon using 6 or fewer films that people have worked in together. There is even a web site that will give you the shortest path possible to Kevin Bacon. Updated network theory will tell you that the magic number of connections in the US are closer to 3, in order to connect any two random people.
With widespread social media use by so many individuals, I’m not even a little surprised. And this ALS challenge that has gone viral and been completed by so many people bears that out. Here’s ours:
And how about one in slow motion just for fun:
While this movement has been wildly successful in garnering attention and raising lots of money, it has also not gone without critique. The lines of criticism that I have noticed are things like “people don’t even know what ALS really is, they are just doing this because it’s popular”, “there are worse diseases and more worthy causes to donate to right now such as ebola or poverty, people shouldn’t just care about ALS”, “people are wasting good, clean drinking water for this campaign”.
To these critiques I would say this: ALS is a good cause. It is a campaign that was fun and catchy and spread like wildfire; don’t be mad because it worked so well. Yes, there are absolutely other pressing issues and causes that deserve money and attention as well, but that doesn’t mean that ALS should feel guilty about their successful campaign. Donations and causes are not a zero-sum game where if I donate to one thing or care about one thing, then I can’t donate or care about something else too. It also should not be some sort of hierarchy where we rank causes and only the most important should receive our donations or attention. And the fact is that for many (myself included) if I wouldn’t have donated the money that I donated to ALS, I probably would not have put that money towards a different cause. It was a bit of money that would’ve gone to paying a bill, putting in savings, or maybe getting a drink at a bar. It’s better for ALS to get that money than no cause at all. And even if I didn’t know a thing about ALS, the donation was still sent and will hopefully be used effectively to advance research and treatment options. Plus, that ice cold water was actually kind of refreshing down here in South Florida after the initial shock!
We are in the midst of one of the world’s biggest sporting events – the World Cup. This is an event that only happens every four years, and it is a huge deal. Thirty-two teams from various countries are divided into eight groups of four. Each group plays all of the teams in their group, and the top two teams from each group make it into the round of sixteen which is set up as a single elimination bracket for those sixteen teams. The winner takes home the cup to their country.
It’s always a spectacular event worldwide, and this year, it has been especially huge in the US as well, as ratings seem to indicate a flash of “soccer fever.” This was partly due to Team USA’s unexpected success as they managed to win their first match against Ghana, which allowed them to move out of the “Group of Death” and into the round play with a loss and a tie against Portugal and Germany. [A point system and goal differential is often a critical factor in getting out of a group – not just wins and losses.] Regardless of the US’s 1-1-1 record, they generated interest and excitement that was unprecedented** in this country when it comes to soccer.
However, soccer in the US has not generally been viewed with much interest. Here, I offer a few reasons why soccer in the US has lagged so far behind the rest of the world in terms of popularity:
Litigious / Precision / Rules:
In the US we tend to be a very litigious people obsessed with rules (though often looking for loopholes in the rules that will give us an advantage). I often hear complaints about the running clock and stoppage time (how can you be so imprecise!?). There is only one field official and sometimes calls are missed, and there is no instant replay to resolve discrepancies (who did the ball go out on from there!?). There is a bit of leeway given and certain flow to the game that is not meant to be interrupted and challenged by the letter of the law on every play. If the ball is kicked out, throw it in from that general area…there is no need for a referee to place you in a specific spot and tell you it must be from there (unless a player is truly egregious in taking advantage – a judgment call by the referee). As Americans, I think we tend to crave a final ruling that is the “right” ruling, backed up by specific rules. We don’t like judgement calls. And we want to make sure that every play and every call is exactly right every time (thus, more and more emphasis on instant replay in most of our major sports). Sometimes soccer is too free form for this for our taste.
Flopping
This could have fallen within the first category, but since I believe it is perhaps the biggest factor, I am giving it its own space. I can’t even count the number of times or people who I have heard complain about the excessive “flopping” that goes on in a given match. This relates to above in that it’s not precise and is left up to the judgement of a particular official. A foul in soccer is often not called if a player does not go down. Therefore it becomes a catch-22 that if a player is fouled but doesn’t go down, he may not get the call. It has since turned into players falling at the slightest touch (and sometimes no touch at all) to draw fouls and free kicks.
I will give the benefit of the doubt to the players not flopping on most occasions. When you have been running several miles throughout the course of the game and get clipped on the achilles or the shin by another individual at full speed, you will probably take a tumble. But yes, flopping does happen. Yes, it is annoying if becomes excessive. It is a part of the game, and it becomes a bit easier for players to embellish with only one official on the field. And generally speaking, I think we exaggerate just how much “flopping” actually goes on during a match.
Advertising Revenue
Soccer games don’t lend themselves all that well to advertising revenue, as far as television broadcasts compared to other popular sports here. The nature of a soccer game is constant action for 45 minutes with a short halftime break followed by 45 more minutes of constant action. At any point during that action the winning play could occur – you can’t tune in for the 4th quarter or final few minutes and expect to see the most important plays. There are not team time-outs or tv time-outs or multiple breaks throughout the game where stations cut to advertising breaks. (I think this is a huge positive as a fan, though I’m not sure that those concerned about revenue see it the same.) Sure, the Europeans and South Americans have obviously gotten huge corporations to invest largely in teams and have figured out a way to make it work. We will see if think it can work here.
History / Tradition / Infrastructure
We just don’t have a long standing history with soccer…we’re still getting to know one another. We don’t have a rich tradition of great (men’s) teams that we all remember fondly or players who were huge stars that we collectively idolize (or perhaps villainize). We don’t have a long standing professional league with deep roots in cities where we go spend an afternoon or an evening watching a sport that we all know and love. Nor do we tune in to the television for regular season or tournament games. There’s no emphasis to direct our finest athletes in that direction to achieve greatness. As soccer begins to grow in popularity among youth, we will begin to develop an infrastructure with more leagues and opportunities to develop players…and perhaps some of the best athletes will be enticed to stay and develop within the game of soccer instead of leaving for more valued sports. Who knows…this year’s World Cup may be a turning point; one that we look back at as a cornerstone that becomes an integral part of our collective sports history and tradition.
We Love to Win
Building on the above, we really haven’t had much success as a country when it comes to soccer. And, as a nation, we really like to win. We pride ourselves on being the best at everything (even when we are not). Soccer is perhaps one sport where we couldn’t fool ourselves into believing that we were good, probably because the gap between us and superpower teams was so obvious. There really hasn’t been a whole lot to cheer for or get interested in up until this point. Even just a little bit of success in this World Cup spiked interest pretty drastically. I imagine that if we continue to show signs of success and the capability to win (or advance with a 1-1-1 record), the love will follow.
For this World Cup, however, I’ll leave the winning up to Argentina! That is the team I am always pulling for – and it happens to be a nice bonus that we have the best player on the planet in Messi. Germany versus Argentina for the World Cup Champion should be a great match. I think that the Germans are probably a bit better overall, but with Messi on the field anything is possible. !Para adelante…Vamos ya!
with my host parents in argentina circa 2007
**It is certainly the case that in recent years, interest in soccer has been steadily growing in the US – youth leagues here, a growing MLS, and viewership of European soccer leagues. I am not trying to suggest that there was zero interest before this World Cup, but I do think this World Cup did help to generate an unprecedented interest and excitement about the sport.
Words matter. Words matter because we give them definitions and attach meanings to them and then react to those meanings that words evoke. No, meanings are not static; words can shift meaning over time as people and cultures use them and react to them differently. A Duke University movement about words – “You Don’t Say” – caught my eye a few weeks ago, and I liked it. Here are some examples from the campaign:
As you can probably gather from the above image, the idea behind the campaign is to make people think about the words that they use in their everyday language and what kinds of meanings they are attaching to those words. For example, when someone gets mad at something and says, “That’s so retarded!” or “That’s so gay!” they are associating their anger/frustration/negative emotion with that particular word.
One high profile example that got a lot of attention a couple of years ago was when Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 for calling a referee a “fucking faggot.” Think about it – when Kobe was about as mad and frustrated as you will ever see him, the phrase he used to express that intense emotion was “fucking faggot.” That says something about what those words have come to mean and how we use them.
This idea that words matter matters to me. The two that particularly bother me are “gay” and “retarded.” This is in part because they are so commonly used by so many people. Listen to people talk and listen for those words and how they are used. You will certainly never hear me use either of these words to express anger, frustration, or distaste in any way. And it bothers me when others around me use them in that way, though I will admit, I’m not good at confronting people who do choose to use them in a derogatory manner, and I should probably do more about that.
There has been some pushback about this as promoting a PC agenda designed to censor people or somehow infringe on their freedom of speech. I think that assessment is unfair. (So did others involved, in this response.) The campaign is designed to try and make people think a little bit about some of these phrases and the meanings they have taken on and how these kinds of associations matter. There are plenty of words to express all kinds of emotions, both positive and negative. Be a little more creative, and don’t use an entire group’s sexuality or mental capability as a synonym for a negative emotion or situation. They are not interchangeable.
This past Friday night, Em and I had a pretty wild night. We stayed in and watched the two hour special/tribute/interview of Barbara Walters, Her Story. Ok, so maybe that’s not really all that wild, but to be completely honest, I found it to be incredibly interesting. It was a tribute to Barbara, who at 84, just retired this week.
Before seeing the show, I would have said that I didn’t have any particular opinion for or against Barbara Walters. Growing up, I remembered her most for being on 20/20, later The View, and of course, various interviews with important people. What I did not know or realize before the show, was the incredible history of her career, and also the immense breadth of individuals that she has spoken with over time. In fact, as they cut back and showed various interview clips, I became more and more convinced that there is probably no living person who has talked to as many important people from across such a broad spectrum as Barbara has. And, I’d be willing to bet that there are very few people ever who have come close to speaking with as many important people.
The two-hour special was put together as a one-on-one interview, with Barbara’s producer interviewing her. They covered a lot of topics and spliced in many clips of Barbara as both newswoman and interviewer. They discussed her story as far as getting into the business, eventually on tv, then the news, and interviews and shows. They covered some of her favorite interviews, her favorites interview questions, and even a bit of her personal life. It was a fairly long program, but I would absolutely say that I was interested from beginning to end and would recommend watching it. (Try this link, or you can just google Barbara Walters Her Story).
Some interesting things that stuck out:
Yes, Anchorman was/is real. Barbara started her career writing and doing production for news programs. (Ok, actually before that she did some commercials. And they were kind of funny.) She eventually found her way onto the screen to do “fluff” segments about women’s interest stories such as short fashion segments. She eventually found her way closer and closer to a news desk doing more “hard news” stories. However, this was not without a fight; the host at the time, Frank McGee, said that women were not fit to do “hard news” and she was never given the title of co-host while he was around. She eventually did get the title of co-host, along with a nice contract, but even then it was a constant uphill battle to be taken seriously as a woman doing hard news.
She has interviewed so many people. I know I have already mentioned this above, but it isn’t until you watch the program go through a spattering of the people that Barbara has interviewed and spoken with that you can get a true appreciation of just how many important people she has talked to over the years. This list spans leaders in the Middle East, every president and first lady since Nixon, Fidel Castro, movie stars, singers, and so many more. If an individual has done something remarkable or newsworthy, Barbara has likely interviewed him or her.
She always asked “tough questions” and got answers. I sometimes think that “tough questions” are a little hyped and sometimes aren’t all that tough. But after watching some of these interview clips, she really did. She asked Sean Connery about hitting women (which he said was ok – yikes!), she got two leaders from Israel and Egypt who were enemies to interview with her (it was the first time they had even been in the same room with one another), she asked Monica Lewinsky some of the juicy details about Clinton, she asked Putin if he had ever ordered anyone to be killed, and she asked Mike Tyson’s wife (Robin Givens) if he ever hit her (while Tyson was sitting right next to her!). These are pretty gutsy questions to be asking a person in a face to face interview. She was also known to make people cry (think emotionally tough questions here) and it became a running joke among her interviewees to try and survive an interview with Barbara without crying!
She didn’t consider herself to be a great family woman. I didn’t know that Barbara had been married, but apparently she was married four times. She said that she probably wasn’t very good at being married. This was probably due, in large part, to her commitment to her job. She also has an adopted daughter, Jackie. She talked about Jackie a bit, but it was a little unclear as to how their relationship really was, though Barbara again admitted that she probably should have been around more. She seemed to understand that Jackie didn’t want to be known as “Barbara’s daughter”, though again, it was a little unclear if that was partly resentment or some tension in the relationship from Jackie’s end.
Barbara gotpaid. In 1976, Barbara accepted an offer from ABC to be the first female co-anchor of a network evening news program. She was given a salary of one million dollars. (Part of that contract was that she was to do a series of interviews on the side with different individuals. She said that these interviews are probably what saved and then catapulted her career.) While this is a handsome amount of money, especially at that time, it didn’t come without its drawbacks as she was often challenged and even ridiculed by others for receiving such a contract. Again, it was certainly not easy to be the woman trying to blaze a trail in a news arena full of men. But she certainly did a lot of the legwork for many women to follow in all realms of business, not just the news.
I thought the program did an excellent job of highlighting Barbara’s career, through her own reflections during the interviews along with the clips that were selected. Her place in history is a fascinating one. It is an intersection of trailblazing a path for women in (and out of) news, news and television in general (other shows such as 20/20 and The View), and an individual who has arguably had more access and contact with more important individuals than anyone else has, ever! So farewell, Barbara, you’ve had a long and incredibly successful career, despite many obstacles! I’m glad that Her Story was put out there to help highlight her achievements and importance, and to educate those who were not fully aware (like myself).
trokspot 
