Polital Books to Read

Here's my top 10 list of books both fiction and non-fiction with a political slant.  They are in no particular order just how they were lined up on my bookshelf.

1. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
2. On Liberty - John Stuart Mill
3. Rules for Radicals - Saul Alinsky
4. The Burden of Bad Ideas - Heather MacDonald
5. Animal Farm - George Orwell
6. 1984 - George Orwell
7. Understanding the Times - David Noebel
8. Grave Influence - Brannon Howse
9. The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton
10. Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg

Most Irritating Work Phrases

There is a time and place for buzz words and phrases, mostly in my opinion centered around key words for search engines.  When used in conversation, they just make people sound like they don't know what they are talking about but want to speak up.

Here is my list of "never use in conversation" phrases in no particular order.

1. Drill down
2. Low hanging fruit
3. Playground or sandbox environment
4. Think outside of the box
5. Back to the drawing board
6. C-Suite
7. Value add
8. Pick your brain
9. Cash cow
10. Give it 110%
11. Team Player
12. Cast a wide net
13. Game changer
14. Viral
15. Transparent

Controversial Books to Read

I think it is important for adults to expose themselves to other points of view for many reasons. One of which is to be able to understand and have compassion for others that do not have the same environment, experience and viewpoint.   I use the word adult, because without a strong foundation both intellectually and spiritually a child and even a young adult can be easily confused about right, wrong and intent.

Here are a few books that obviously do not line up to my world view, but I have found helpful in discussions with others in both understanding their point of view and framing intelligent rebuttal.

1. The Quran
2. The Communist Manifesto
3. The Secret
4. The Book of Mormon
5. The Golden Compass Series
6. The God Delusion
7. The Prince
8. On the Origin of Species

I realize there are many Christians who believe that the reading list is unfit for consumption and reading such books will only lead to the decay of values and is a misuse of time.  If your conviction is to not read this book list, then don't. I have found that reading them through the lens of my faith it only strengthened it and gave me a framework for conversation.

Cincinnati.com moves to Facebook comments

The Cincinnati Enquire has now made in necessary for people to have Facebook accounts to post comments on their site. For me this means the end of commenting on new stories and opinions.

 I get the point of having to create an account… I did that on the Cincinnati Enquire website. But creating a user name allowed me to speak freely on hot topics… specifically about Healthcare. I am not comfortable giving my opinion on such a public form in a field that I am professionally affiliated. I am not in a clinical position, nor am I commenting on behalf of my company.


I think the Cincinnati Enquire will lose many thoughtful posts from people who actually may have real perspective but value their professional public face more than they value a few people reading their posts.

Local Company Ranks Nationally

Kroger made the list for the most charitable companies put together by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Recently Kroger has been raked over the coals by some liberal media for closing some of their low preforming stores in low income neighborhoods. What has not been reported by most is that in 2009 they gave just over 10% of profits to charity. More than that in 2010 they upped their contributions to 13% when most companies were cutting back.

What does Occupy Wall Street have to say?

Crickets….

The federal government and tobacco

Smoking is a tough issue for me, though I am not a smoker. Close family members and friends have been smokers in the past and while I did not like that they smoked I recognized that it was their legal right to do so. I have watched people in my life quit and I have seen first-hand how difficult it was for them.

I am all for education for young people in the dangers of smoking. Much like I am in favor of teaching healthy eating habits and the dangers of heart disease and diabetes as a consequence of poor eating choices.

The federal government requires that tobacco products carry a label that warns of cancer, now they would like to require labels on all packs one of which looks like this:

The new packaging law requires that 20% of the packaging must be the new warning label. There are other requirements in the law for education, marketing and advertising. For the full MSN article on the new legislation and the lawsuit in response you can click HERE.

My problem with the whole thing is that it is still legal to purchase and use tobacco products. If this is a legal product, why isn’t the government trying to shut the entire industry down rather than tell the company how to spend advertising money?

The answer is threefold. First the tax loss is more than they can stomach at this point. The second is the guarantee of money going into advertising, marketing and packaging. The third is the amount of jobs that would be lost in a market that can take no more hits.

Until tobacco sale is no longer legal I refuse to accept the argument that the burden to the healthcare field is the driving reason for the new regulation. If that were true, tobacco sale and consumption would be illegal.

Reality TV

Reality TV or shall we say Trash TV.

Hollywood has always done a great job selling lifestyles. Sitcoms from the 50’s made us think that all moms wore heals and pearls to cook dinner and that all kids needed to do when they got in a jam was confess and the punishment was to miss dinner and all would be forgiven in the morning.

Somewhere along the way TV got “gritty”. Wholesome went off the air and teen pregnancy and drugs became the new norm. Moms were mean, thin and yelled a lot; dads were overweight, dumb and submissive.

As if this was not bad enough MTV started a show called the Real World, the premise being stick a bunch of kids in their early 20’s in a house together and start the cameras rolling. The audience was led to believe that they “forgot” about the cameras and what was on film was how these people really live.

Now we have shows about housewives, musicians, pregnant teens, polygamist, tattoo artist, restaurant owners, pawn shop owners and the list continues.

Let’s suspend reality for a moment and pretend that the people on these shows really “forget” that they are on camera, are any of these people normal everyday people? I hope not.

If Reality TV is real reality, it is no wonder test scores in our schools are dropping, jobs are being shipped overseas and people are losing their homes.

The thing is, reality TV is not real. I don’t know anyone who behaves like one of the Real Housewives or a Kardashian. Buying into the reality of these shows excuses and glorifies bad behavior. Suddenly spending thousands of dollars for toddler cloths on a shopping trip seems normal. Jumping from man to man and bed to bed seems like no big deal.