The Pachyderm Post

For those who care about sport, and American football in particular, this coming Sunday is a big day.

A black coach will win the Super Bowl.

So what?

This article, by Phil Taylor in Sports Illustrated, will explain the importance of the resolution of this decades old Pachyderm Problem:

——————————————————————-

Maybe you’re one of those people who are already sick and tired of hearing that Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are the first two African-Americans to coach in the Super Bowl. You think it’s just a non-issue created by a media desperate for pre-Super Bowl story lines. You don’t care about race; in fact, if not for the constant stories reminding you of it, you might not even have thought about the fact that Dungy and Smith are black men.

If that’s how you feel, you’re not alone. For every story on the racial significance of this Super Bowl, there has been another one suggesting that we’re making too much of it. But in this case, race matters. It is not the only story of this Super Bowl, but it is one of the most important. This is a milestone for the NFL, a league with a horrible history of discriminatory hiring that it has only recently begun to rectify. It is a milestone for America, a country that still has a few issues left when it comes to placing minority members in positions of power.

On Sunday night, Dungy or Smith will hold the Super Bowl trophy over his head in triumph, an image that will be replayed again and again as part of NFL history. Every time it is shown, it’s unspoken message will be repeated — that yes, a black coach can achieve the ultimate, that he can lead a team to the top of the NFL. Until now, there has been no proof of that. Most of us surely knew it, but we couldn’t point to an example.

And let’s not be naïve, there are still some people — not as many as there were 10, 20, 30 years ago, thankfully, but some — who doubted that fact, who couldn’t quite envision a black coach being that kind of leader. To those folks, the ones who might have thought people like Smith or Dungy got hired out of political correctness and not because of their ability, Sunday night will be the ultimate proof that they were wrong.

Smith has said that he would not have been hired by the Bears if not for the Rooney Rule, which requires teams with head coaching vacancies to interview at least one minority member for the position. Let’s not forget that that’s how discriminatory the league had been for decades — so much so that owners had to be forced, under threat of fines, to even interview minority candidates.

Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers, one of the greatest players in Bears’ history, told the Bloomberg News Service this week that in 1983, 11 years after his playing career ended, he wrote to every one of the 28 teams in the NFL at the time inquiring about a coaching job. According to Sayers, 27 of the teams didn’t bother to reply. The 28th, the Raiders, wrote him a rejection letter.

Might Sayers have led the Bears to a Super Bowl long before Lovie Smith if given a chance? How about the dozens of other African-American men who never got the chance to do what Smith and Dungy have done? Those who never advanced past assistant coaching positions, who had the misfortune of living in a time when NFL owners just couldn’t envision someone with their skin color as a leader of men?

Sunday night is for them, too. Dungy and Smith have seemed a bit uncomfortable when asked about the racial significance of the game, and that’s a shame. It would be much more satisfying to hear them dedicate their Super Bowl appearances to all those coaches who never were given the opportunity to do what they’ve done. It’s true that they are football coaches first, but they are black football coaches, and in the NFL, that is still a small category.

Maybe it feels tiresome to hear repeatedly about Smith and Dungy breaking through a racial barrier, but it’s also right and necessary. It’s a time to reflect on how unfair the NFL once was and a time to celebrate how far it has come. Let the stories continue, and let the broadcasters on Sunday night repeat the news as often as they like. A blow will be struck for fairness, for equality on Super Bowl Sunday. How could anyone get tired of hearing about that?

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.

This is John Thompson. He may be one of the most important people you don’t know.

He’s not a professional athlete, though I know from personal experience that he’s got a good jump shot.

He’s not an actor, though he’s completely at home on stage.

He’s not a politician, though many think he should be, and many of those in political power would do well to emulate his candor and style.

He is a businessman, a CEO, actually. He’s the head of Symantec, of which – odds are – you are already, directly or indirectly, a customer and beneficiary.

Symantec is a computer software security company, whose best known products are the Norton line of products.

They, and a small list of other companies, are in the business of protecting computers like the ones you and I are on right now, from viruses, worms, trojan horses, spam and other scourges of the on-line world, the on-line world without which we would be plunged into a kind of technological Pre-History.

You know…before “the Google”, and “laptops”, and “mice”…but also possibly before “the police”, and “transportation”, and “food.”
When former U.S. cyber-terror czar Richard Clarke turned his hand to fiction recently, his book, Breakpoint, chronicles the disaster that a cyber-meltdown would certainly be, and not only to readers of blogs.

We in general have not the foggiest idea how profoundly disruptive a broad-scale attack on our cyber-infrastructure would be, and we do not grasp that the expertise to mount such an attack is improving and proliferating daily.

Here’s Thompson on this point:

“Once upon a time, the typical attacker was a young man or woman between 13 and 22 years old whose sole goal in life was to get some notoriety.

From 2002 to 2004, there were almost 100 high-profile virus attacks. In 2005, we had six.

But the rise in identity theft, the rise in online fraud, the rise in the criminal element’s involvement in attacks on consumers has gone exponentially up, from almost nothing to probably 25 percent to 30 percent of all the activity that occurs online.”

It is this rise in the serious criminal element’s role in cyber-crime which is ominous, because it provides the fertile ground for the proliferation and sophistication of cyber-terror technique.

Remember the movie “Swordfish, with John Travolta (the criminal bankroller) and Hugh Jackman (the cyber-genius).

The more “Travoltas” there are, the more “Jackmans” there will be, and the more “Jackmans” there are, the more opportunities for the bankrollers of terror to recruit experts in the disruption of commerce and society.

By the way, for “bankrollers of terror”, don’t even think Osama bin Laden. Think Hezbollah; think Iran; think North Korea.

The Terror of the Moment is rogue state nuclear proliferation, because it is, after all, serious, but also because it sells politically. People still remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the potential impact of broad-gauge cyber terror dwarfs that of the odd nuclear device detonation, as awful as that would be, in fact and to our collective psyche.

Think H5N1 (the best known bird flu virus) meets an “enter” key on a terrorist’s keyboard in a secure bunker in northern Iran.

This is terror meeting horror.

And the nuclear dimension of this crisis is not terrorist possession of nukes, but rather U.S. tactical nuclear retaliation on that Iranian bunker.

And I haven’t even read Clarke’s book. Mine are the musings of a relative amateur.

Back to the professionals…

The key intersection of Thompson’s and Clarke’s roles and messages is that cyber-security must become a way of life, in a way that security in general has not yet done.

Security must be baked into the fabric of our lives – computer and otherwise.

This, by the way, is both the deep wisdom and the Achilles Heel of the Symantec/Veritas merger, brokered by Thompson.

Veritas specialized in data availability and validity, the fundamental point of cyber-systems.

This connection of security and fundamental operational infrastructure is a metaphor for what we must do in the larger society.

This is the wisdom.

Most folks have no idea or understanding of what I just wrote.

This is the Achilles Heel.

And Symantec’s Pachyderm Problem.

vb

As we sit now, we are less than eighteen months away from an election which could install a woman as President of the United States.

The year is 2007. Not 1927…or 1907.

And we are seriously wondering: “Is the U.S. ready for a woman President?”

“Ready?”

As in: “Might we explode?”

“Might the Union dissolve in a puff of reactionary smoke?”

“Might she do something really stupid and awful?”

Might she, for instance, entangle us in a bloody, irrelevant war, which results in over 3,000 needlessly dead Americans; more than 200,000 (conservative estimate) other needless dead; hundreds of thousands of wounded; wrecked relations with countries around the globe, including many who were – and still should be – closer bound to the U.S. because of our terrorist tragedy; and oh yes, a foreign civil war bloodbath that could make the Partition of India and Pakistan look like March Madness?

“Are we ready for a woman President?”

We might more rationally ask: “Are we ready for another man?”

But we won’t.

Meanwhile, the French seem on the verge of empowering a woman, Segolene Royal (pictured), as its Head of State.

The alternative to her is another man whose resume and attitudes all too fully qualify him for a domestic record comparable to the foreign one outlined above.

“Are we ready for a woman?”

Whether she – Hillary or Segolene – wins or not…

We better be.

vb

Sometimes, the funniest things are the most profound, and sometimes the other way around.

This cute little video will help you to remember that the most sincere efforts to communicate can have the most disastrous unintended results.

The Pachyderm Problem here is that it happens all the time, without our realizing it.
This example is uncharacteristically obvious…at least to us.

Watch this commercial for Berlitz Language Training, about the “German Coast Guard.”

I am delighted to announce the pending publication of a new series of books on generating change.

Change Generation – the first in the series – is the distillation of over thirty years of working with individuals and organizations to help them make change happen.

The book is a workshop manual for those who want to lead others in a change effort, whether it be in your company, church, synagogue or mosque, non-profit organization or government agency, or even your family.

It will be available in a normally-bound Executive Edition, and a spiral-bound Facilitator’s Edition.

We are less and less willing and able to make our lives happen for our true selves, and more and more willing to abdicate our right and power to make for ourselves the lives we deserve.

It is regularly said that one of the core competencies of living effectively in the twenty first century is the ability to cope with change.

This is true and good to a point, but it is self-destructive when coping becomes an end in itself.

The chaos of our personal and professional lives is so great that we generally cope by withdrawing, in one way or another.

Though this withdrawal may keep us from “coming unglued”, it is, beyond a certain point, no way to live.

The “glue” that keeps us together through crisis after crisis can accumulate with day after day of “coping.”

It can eventually gum up our emotional mechanism, making it difficult for us to respond to and engage with the world around us.

The same thing happens in organizations, making them progressively less responsive to the world around them, and less flexible in the face of new challenges and opportunities.

This is why I wrote Change Generation, to empower those of us who realize the perils of only “coping with change.”

I’ll let you know when it is available…

vb

Three events of enormous significance and meaning have taken place in the last two months. They were each important in their own right.

In combination and in timing though, they ring with thunderous resonance as we look forward to the next two years.
1) The Democrats regained control of Congress in the mid-term elections. A consequence of this control is their regained power and latitude in investigation of and action toward the executive branch, from non-binding resolutions, to censure, to impeachment.

2) Widely respected attorney and former John Dean deputy Fred Fielding was tapped by The White House to replace the hapless Harriett Myers as White House Counsel.

3) Recently – the day before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is slated to testify before the newly Democratic-controlled Intelligence Committee – the Bush Administration pulled a surprising about-face and agreed to submit their highly controversial and much-decried National Security Agency (NSA) domestic surveillance program to the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Also, according to Gonzales: “The President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires.”

What do these things mean?

I cannot read the minds of Bush Administration officials, and I certainly cannot “get a sense of [George Bush's] soul”, as Bush himself felt he had with Vladimir Putin in 2001.

Nor do I know what advice Fred Fielding might give Mr. Bush and others in the Administration.

I do know, however, that Mr. Fielding was almost certainly hired because of his skills and experience as a strategist and litigator in an environment of scandal and constitutional conflict. This was certainly the situation in which he found himself as John Dean ’s deputy in the Nixon White House.

And his experience with the Nixon White House, in struggle with Congress and the courts, was certainly the driving motivation for his replacement of failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers. He is considered by most to be the “wartime consigliere” that the Bush White House will surely need over the next two years.

This requirement is daily becoming more urgent as events unfold this month. These include Congressional and Republican revolt over the Iraq “Surge”; the “Scooter” Libby trial revelations about the deep and active role that Vice-President Cheney played in the Valerie Plame affair and cover-up; and the New Mexico legislators’ broaching of impeachment.

It is no wonder that the White House is clearing the decks of impeachable or censurable activitiess, like violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

You would too, if you were finally getting good legal advice.

Welcome, Mr, Fielding.

vb

The race for the U.S. Presidency has begun in earnest.

Counting declared, “exploring” or soon-to-declare candidates, this will be the most crowded and contested Presidential Campaign in years.

It will also be the most controversial.

It would be this way if only because of the backdrop of the Iraq debacle.

Issues of war and peace and questions of victory or defeat are going to play out in the most dramatic fashions over the next two years, and all of the candidates, in one way or another, have a stake in the outcomes.

The spectrum of candidate positions runs from Democrat Dennis Kucinich’s call for immediate withdrawal to Republican John McCain’s insistence on even more additional troops than Bush has proposed, and for as long as necessary to assure “victory.”

But, beyond Iraq, there are many Pachyderm Problems that will bedevil this campaign’s candidate herd.

Most of these are little discussed publicly now, and the ability of each campaign to deal with them effectively will depend on how well prepared they are to address them when they break through the media chatter.

There are too many to discuss them all at length now, so here’s a short list, for expansion later:

Hilary Clinton:

1) Her emotional disengagement with the public;

2) Her husband’s emotional engagement with the public;

3) The irony that perhaps her best potential running mate – Barack Obama – raises deep and unmentionable concerns among much of the electorate…concerns about race, gender and sex, and most profoundly, the true nature of “experience.”

4) The further irony that – at a time of “war” – we may need a candidate, and eventually a President – who has the weight and credibility to support, but not become a creature of, military confrontation. Terrorism is not at root a military problem (as Iraq should make all too clear), it is a political, and intelligence and police problem. John Kerry couldn’t make this case the last election cycle. Someone needs to do so this time around. She may not be able to do this and maintain her national security bona fides.

John McCain:

1) His tenuous hold on the “straight talk” franchise, especially as events unfold in the Middle East;

2) His physical and emotional fitness, as more people become aware of the truly vicious treatment he endured as a P.O.W., and from which he still suffers;

3) The potential for erratic comments and behavior, as he is increasingly frustrated by the possibility that the times – even though they be “war” times – may be leaving him behind.

Barack Obama:

1) His middle name – Hussein – may give jingo-tinged white voters just that extra subjective “pause” in the voting booth;

2) His education, erudition and articulateness may so far transcend his race that he becomes not just a “well spoken” black man, but that most unfortunate of candidate personas: the intellectual. Because of this, he may in time actually suffer from Adlai Stevenson Syndrome;

3) The specter of assassination, and the morbid fascination with it that so many will have as he travels the campaign trail.

Mitt Romney:

1) Not just the doubts that some will have about his Mormon beliefs, but the discomfort that many will feel even contemplating the influence of a person’s beliefs on their conduct as President. This election cycle – especially given the roiling Middle East – may not be a good time for fervent Evangelical candidates either…like, for instance, so far…no one.

2) His so far avuncular dismissal of his apparent flipping on gay marriage and abortion may not survive Republican Primary scrutiny, especially in Iowa and South Carolina.

Dennis Kucinich:

1) His towering Amazon of a new, much younger, way more telegenic wife only makes him seem smaller and more marginal than he already is…did you see her looming over him at his announcement for President? (right)

2) His absence of a well articulated, well-known response to our dangerous world. What – after all – would he do about terrorism, with which we may not be at war, but which is seriously serious and which will get worse…far worse.

These are not nearly all the candidates that will run this election, nor are these all the Pachyderm Problems that even this small sampling of contestants will face.

We still have John Edwards of North Carolina, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Vilsack of Iowa, among the declared, and Rudy Giuliani of New York, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Joe Biden of Delaware, and Al Gore of Planet Earth, among the undeclared.

It will be truly fascinating to see how these emerging Pachyderm Problems surface among the punditry, and among the candidates themselves.

I generally bank on Chris Matthews, of MSNBC to lead the pack in this area. He seems to pride himself on speaking the politically unspoken. He has – so far – the bank of credibility and personal style to pull this kind of thing off.

Also, Keith Olbermann’s commentaries have legitimately evoked Edward R. Murrow, in style and in substance. That he can sustain this gravitas and chronicle Oddball as well is a miracle of self-presentation.

Col. Jack Jacobs, on CNN, is another apparently fearless observer of events. Being a Medal of Honor recipient doesn’t hurt his forthrightness or his credibility. He just a day or so brought forth what I called the Iraqi “Rope-a-Dope” (see below).

On FOX, Brit Hume has weight, but not the aggressive edge of his mentor, the late Jack Anderson. The Beltway Boys? Well, this kind of revelation is just not their style.

But you never know who’s going to pull a “Bupke”, and call the Fire Department (read the book).

It’ll be fun watching.

VB

One of the fundamental joys and curses of life on Planet Earth is the proliferation of languages – literal and metaphorical – in and through which we experience reality.

Language can be thought of as both window into and barrier against the understanding of others.

Whether they are the languages of “youth” or “age” ( which youth? whose age?) or the languages of religion or of nations or of cultures, languages are the manifestations of our realities through our words.

Listen, in the next weeks and months, to the language that you hear.

Sometimes, differences in language are just that, differences in expression of the same ideals, values and beliefs.

Sometimes, however, those differences reflect fundamentally different views of the world and of ourselves.

The challenge – of course – is to know the difference.

The Tower of Babel represents language as obstruction…

But language can also be revelation…of deep and true similarity and compatibility…and of basic differences, with real consequences for our futures…

Listen carefully…everything you need to know is on the lips of others.

Just listen…with your ears and with your heart.

And trust your heart.

VB

I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1951.

Until I was twelve, I went to school in Henderson, N.C.

I attended the all-black Eaton-Johnson Elementary School until I was eight or nine, then all-black Henderson Institute (the black Middle and High School) until 1963, the year of the March on Washington.

I’d had very little consciousness of Martin Luther King before the March.

The day of the March, on (appropriately) March 18, I watched it on our (also appropriately) black and white Zenith TV.

For the very first time, I was keenly aware that I had never (and actually still have not) set foot on the grounds of the all-white Henderson High School.

Henderson High was less than two miles – and more than two thousand miles – away.

It had never even occurred to me to wonder what it was like there…in the halls and classrooms where white boys and girls went to school.

For the first time, on that I day…I wondered.

For reasons that are lost to my memory now, I picked up a dime store tennis racquet that my mother had bought for me, along with my one can of white (not yellow) tennis balls, and took off for the back wall of the Eaton-Johnson School.

That wall faced (and still faces) the dusty playground on which I’d spent many recesses.

“Recess.”

That word brings back memories.

Anyway, as I batted the ball against that red brick wall, my muscles worked.

And as I thought and thought about the man whose speech I’d watched and heard less than an hour before…

My mind worked…and opened.

Thank you, Dr. King.

VB