Saturday, January 29, 2005

NO PENSIONS FOR LEGISLATORS

just saw this at Weintraub's blog . . .

"I don't know if it's an organized letter-writing campaign or just political amnesia, but I've received a dozen or more emails suggesting I advocate repeal of legislators' pensions before we touch the retirement benefits of state workers. Most of you know this, but for those who don't: California legislators lost their pensions in 1990, when voters approved term limits. Prop. 140, in addition to capping service in the Assembly at three terms and in the Senate at two terms, cut the Legislature's budget and banned lawmakers from receiving pensions."

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

$ 5 Billion !!!

Yes, that's what the Bush administration says it needs to build a new embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. $5 billion to build an embassy. That's amazing.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Prison Industry Authority of California

PIA is one of my customers. This is a nice profile of the new guy in charge . . . from the Sac Bee

Prison factory chief plans a turnaround


Matt Powers could be comfortably retired, making fishing trips to his family's cabin in Alaska and collecting his deputy police chief pension from the city of Sacramento. But that would be out of character for the man close friends endearingly call "Don Quixote." Instead, Powers is standing amid the din of a dozen license-plate stamping machines at Folsom State Prison's factory, straining to carry on a conversation with two inmates.

The enigmatic former cop is so passionate about his belief in the value of good vocational training for inmates that he's throwing his considerable energy into reforming an icon of California's troubled prison system - its Prison Industry Authority.

As the prison authority's general manager since last summer, Powers inherited a $162 million industrial venture that employs more than 5,700 inmates in 22 California prisons. "Matt is energetic and committed," said Department of Corrections Director Jeanne Woodford. "(He) understands public safety must include an opportunity for offenders to change."

His challenge will be to turn around an agency that for more than a decade has been criticized for overpricing its goods and being unresponsive to customers.

The Prison Industry Authority was created in 1982 by legislators who gave it the dual goals of preparing inmates for the work force in hopes of reducing recidivism and helping cut down prison costs.

The PIA also has a list of state agencies that are required to buy its products unless they can demonstrate why they must buy from the private sector.

Initially, the prison authority was hailed as a national model. But by the following decade, it had fallen from glory and since has been the subject of criticism by various oversight agencies.

A 1993 Little Hoover Commission report charged that the PIA was "holding state departments hostage to high prices and delayed deliveries."

Three years later, the Legislative Analyst's Office reported that while the PIA had improved its troubled financial status, it did so "at the expense of other legislative purposes." It urged PIA to set goals of becoming financially self-sufficient and improving inmate employability.

A 1996 state auditor's report said more than half the PIA's goods cost more than they would in the private sector and took too long to make and deliver.

Since 2000, the agency has labored under a series of interim managers who have tried to satisfy the dual - and conflicting - requirements of running a competitive business while churning as many inmates as possible through job training.

The criticisms have continued. In August, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his California Performance Review, he featured a single $1,620 desk made by PIA prisoners alongside a full set of similarly priced office furniture.

Last month, the state auditor released a new report on the PIA, crediting it with some minor reforms and competitive prices, but faulting it for having no way to measure its own successes and no clear mission.

If anyone can turn the troubled agency around, Powers' supporters say he's the man for the job. "Matt really has a passion for seeing people who end up in jail or prison as having a lot of human potential," said Tim Brown, executive director of Loaves and Fishes and a former collaborator with Powers on the city-county board on homelessness. "When I heard he was taking on PIA, I thought, 'That's a really great fit.' ... He really sees the capacity for rehabilitation." Powers is a study in contrasts.

"He wears Birkenstocks and drives a Volvo and he's a cop," said Undersheriff John McGinness, a longtime colleague. "He's not the stereotypical anything."

The grandson of a San Quentin inmate, Powers grew up in a tough, poor San Francisco neighborhood. He talks admiringly of a hand-carved stagecoach model that his grandmother bought from the prison inmates' shop. But he was determined not to follow the same path. During his 23 years at the Police Department, he was a Special Weapons and Tactics team sergeant and among the first local police officers to earn a master's degree in science in management. Colleagues teased him for being such a straight arrow.

"He looks like he should be a college professor," said Sacramento Police Chief Albert Nájera, who was one of Powers' first training officers and remains a friend. "But appearances belie Matt; he is one tough individual."

After retiring from the Police Department in 2000, he spent two years at Raley's Inc. as vice president for strategic planning and public affairs. He also teaches emergency services management courses at California State University, Long Beach.

What sets Powers apart from his colleagues most is his earnest, academic approach to solving criminal problems. In the mid-1990s, Powers led a coalition of police officers, neighborhood activists, and other officials in a concerted effort to rid Alkali Flat of its entrenched gang problem.

He began by researching successful community-oriented policing practices in Boston, a well-received halfway house in Manhattan and the history of Alkali Flat's problem before pulling together his team to make a plan of action.

"He is, in law enforcement, a Renaissance man," said Powers' longtime colleague and friend Steve Harrold, a prosecutor who oversees the career criminal unit at the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office. "He's very well-read, and a very strategic person." Over the past several months, Powers has buried himself in research about successful inmate manufacturing programs, touting successes in other states and looking for new markets. His vision of success for the PIA is to increase the number of inmates he prepares for the work force. To do that, he must grow the business. But first, he must corral his team into writing a strategic plan.

"Matt doesn't need to do this," McGinness said. "He's a pretty popular lecturer. He could make a decent living doing just that. This is a labor of love for him. He's doing it for all the right reasons."

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Inauguration Day

I was at the gym on the treadmill reading George Washington's biography this morning and looked up to see Barbara Bush on TV. What must it be like to be a woman who is married to a President and mother of one?? Amazing isn't it?

Here's a fun link to an inauguration quiz . . . http://www.trumanlibrary.org/quiz/
I think it's interesting that this quiz is coming from the Truman Library . . . whatever?

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Joining the Senior Set

My friend and co-conspirator in "Arnold's The One" had an op-ed piece published in the LA Times last Saturday . . . . .

VOICES / A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES 1/15/05
There's a Payoff in Joining the Senior Set By Denny Freidenrich

I did it. After waiting for more than a year, I finally bit the bullet. I did what millions of others nobly have done before me: I traded in my baby boomer status for a discounted ticket at the movies. Not any discount, mind you, a senior citizen discount.

You got that right. A senior citizen discount. When I actually got up the nerve to ask for one, my 10-year-old daughter said, "Dad, you really are old." Truth be known, she didn't just say it. She shouted it so everyone in line could hear.

But I didn't care. I had walked up to the line and crossed over it like a proud soldier. After years of marching, I was ready to receive my just reward. So I asked for it. I didn't really think much about it on the way to the movies — at least not consciously. Subconsciously, I suspect I'd been thinking about it for a long time. That's because my two older brothers, both of whom are in their mid-60s, have been telling me stories about their experiences for years.

Considering I'm a boomer from the "Sky King" days, it probably is fair to say that I, and my grade school classmates, have looked time straight in the eye — and have begun to blink just a bit. My first real clue came not long ago when my girlfriend from the ninth grade called to tell me she is now a grandmother. "A grandmother? How's that possible?" I asked. She laughed and told me to brace myself because it probably was going to happen to me someday.

If you really want to know, I am ready. My hair is gray around the temples; I have added a few pounds around my middle; I wear bifocals; and I fret about my retirement savings. My wife often complains that my "preoccupation" with aging is like waiting for a train wreck. That's easy for her to say. She isn't the one who drops loopy fly balls in the outfield or falls off the surfboard for no apparent reason. No, my reactions aren't what they used to be. Still, I do react to the concept of growing
o-l-d.

Not that old is bad. But old in this nation does tend to relegate one to a place called obscurity. Of all the new clothes, gizmos and gifts I recently received, the only present I really needed this year I actually gave to myself. It wasn't under the Christmas tree. I found it at the mall, or more accurately, at the movie theater box office.

It was the realization that, after all these years, I truly am comfortable with the notion that I'm not going to be forever young. I have reached a certain stage in life where it not only is OK, it actually is great to be older — and wiser.

Bad Doctors or Bad Lawyers

The debate over medical malpractice and whether or not there's a link to insurance rates continues. Today, in the Sac Bee there is an interesting letter with several links to answers . . . .

"The Dec. 26 "Doctors vs. lawyers on malpractice costs" was interesting but incomplete. Here are sources for further research. Malpractice crisis: Damage caps do not lower insurance rates. Go to www.factcheck.org, a nonpartisan organization analyzing political ads. Use "malpractice" as a search term to see why insurance really went up.

Doctors' mistakes: Doctors' mistakes may be the leading cause of death in America. Enter two phrases in any Internet search engine to find a well-researched paper on it: "Nutrition Institute of America" and "Death by Medicine."

Enforcement: Careless doctors keep practicing. Read the "Enforcement Monitor Report" at www.medbd.ca.gov. Medical associations keep the Legislature from giving the disciplinary body any teeth or resources. The result? It takes up to four years to get rid of a bad doctor.

Monopoly: Medicine is a closed shop, designed to keep the numbers of doctors low, so that a few can get wealthy. There are only 125 medical schools in America (www.aamc.org/medicalschools.htm), and few can get in. The public interest is better served by healthy competition.

Dr. Welby vs. Perry Mason? Get rid of the hype. Look at facts to fix medical care."

Monday, January 17, 2005

Vocational Education Advocate - Arnold's the One

Dan Walters writes in today's Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/columns/walters/story/12062067p-12932245c.html) . . . . " . . Not only will a relatively small percentage of today's ninth-graders graduate from college, but the needs of society would not be met if all, in fact, became college graduates. Society needs competent auto mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, electronics technicians, bookkeepers, truck drivers, retail clerks, medical technicians and other blue-collar workers to function, and in many of those vocations, there are acute shortages of trained workers, with many thousands of high-paying jobs going unfilled.

Given those immutable facts, does it make sense to gear the entire high school curriculum to the assumption that everyone should attend and graduate from college? . . .

Finally, however, somebody is paying attention, and that somebody is the state's most popular and influential political figure, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He included expansion of voc-ed in a list of education reforms he touted in his State of the State address, and his budget sets aside $20 million to improve what's now called "career technical education" at the high school and community college levels. One important aspect of the plan would boost the production of voc-ed teachers, which has been a vital element in the decline."

Friday, January 14, 2005

From Gilder

Larry Gilder puts out a great weekly report on stuff http://www.gilder.com/ here's his take on big trends for 2005
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Big trends have a way of sneaking past us. Consider the Web. In 2005 it may seem like an old story, but let's pause to remember that as a commercial product the World Wide Web is just a mere decade old. (And if you lay claim to having surfed the Web during its beta years of 1990-94, either you're an HTML geek or you're fibbing.) In just ten years the Web has altered the way we grab information, manage our firms and organize our lives. China likely will surpass the U.S. this year in the number of Web surfers, a development few saw in 1995.

This year video Weblogs are sure to be the "it" thing. The shape of the v-blog trend began to emerge late last year during the election campaign. Example: A half-million people watched CNN's Crossfire on an October night when comedian Jon Stewart happened to be a guest. Stewart played it mean and bitter, ripping apart hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. The segment made its way onto blogs, and there it was clicked by2.5 million unique visitors--five times as many as had watched it on TV. (Earlier this month CNN took Crossfire off the air.)

The Asian tsunami tragedy brought a secondary wave ofv-blogs. Sites such as the Australian Waveofdestruction.org were logging 1 million unique visitors per week at the peak.

Venture capitalist Roger McNamee in his book The New Normal (Portfolio) points out another huge trend underway. It used to be that the coolest products (i.e., the most expensive) were those sold to businesses or to rich people who could afford them.

But now the coolest products are being aimed at the masses from the get-go--iPods, DVDs and gigabyte memory sticks, not to mention terabytes of Google-accessible free content. Even software is following this trend. A generation ago the Sabre airline-seat yield management system, written for a few dozen carriers, was the neatest trick in the travel industry. Now it's Orbitz, aimed at billions of consumers.

To my eye, Google signals a new golden age of disruption and startups. The prime Google lesson is that clever use of cheap technology can trump ordinary use of pricey stuff. This isespecially true if your company has an IQ edge, as Google does, and if you're strategizing from a blank page, as startups do.

Monday, January 03, 2005

Kennedy Auction

Two small flags that were flying on the bumpers of the limousine that was carrying President John F. Kennedy when he was asassinated in Dallas were auction this week for $450,000 along with other Kennedy items. John F. Kennedy's 1951 passport sold for $54,000 and Jacqueline Kennedy's 1953 passport for $56,500 yesterday, the opening day of an auction of Kennedy memorabilia that offers a glimpse into their daily lives.

You can learn more about the auction at Kennedy Auction