a placeless world

I fancy myself a jack of most trades.

Most, I say, because I can't really play basketball or crochet. But I'm generally good at most things I try.

A few months back I changed out the alternator in my car. I was really proud that I got the damned thing out and a new one in all by my lonesome, even though it later turned out that it wasn't the reason my car wouldn't start after all.

Rather than a confidence boosted, that really should have been a hint. But I suppose that, as a consequence of being generally good at most things I try, I'm slow to figure out that which I'm not good at. (Through college, I fancied myself a pretty solid basketball player even as I was picked last every time I played — in co-ed games, no less.)

I wish — oh how I wish — I'd realized just a bit earlier that I'm simply not a car guy.

No need to make this a long tale, it's simply not one.

My wife's car leaks oil. Not a lot, but enough that our mechanic said we should keep an eye on it. So when the oil lamp went on a few weeks ago, I filled 'er up. And when my parents were in town last week and we were all going to go to the mountains, I put in a little extra for comfort.

We hadn't made it five blocks when the car started clunking and smoking.

Turns out that there is an internationally recognized best practice for putting oil in your engine: You check the dipstick, add a quart, then check again. Everybody at my work knew this.

But somehow, I never learned this trick. I thought that you were supposed to fill up the tank until you could see the oil by looking down into the filler hole. Yes, I've put 8 quarts of oil in my wife's car in two weeks.

Yes, the damage was extensive. Yes, I'm simply a jack of some trades.

Good news is, she's not too angry. In fact, she really likes her brand new Honda Civic.

August 2, 2005

Brad Anderson
President, Best Buy Inc.
7601 Penn Avenue South
Richfield, Minnesota 55423

Dear Mr. Anderson:

I’m writing to let you know that my family won’t be shopping at Best Buy anymore.

It’s not the prices — you folks are quite competitive. Your selection remains the best we can find, and the staff has always been kind, knowledgeable and helpful. But we’re done spending our money at your stores — and all it took was 15 minutes, a salesman’s misunderstanding and a manager mired by inflexible “policy.”

Here’s the skinny: I was taking down the prices on a few different television sets at your Salt Lake City store when Josh, an energetic salesman with a toothy grin, walked up and stuck out his hand.

“Checking prices?” he asked. “That’s great! Check around at the different stores in the area. I doubt you’ll find the same item for cheaper, but if you do, come back and tell me and we’ll beat it by 10 percent.”

I thought it was a lovely idea — and I had some time on my hands. So I ran down the road to a few other stores to price the 27-inch Philips flat screen that I’d found at your store for $289. Most places didn’t have it stocked. A few did and were more expensive. But Wal-Mart had it: For $247.

I did the calculation in my head: Going back to Best Buy meant I’d save $24.70 off Wal-Mart’s price. Certainly not a king’s ransom — but not bad for my efforts, to be sure. I drove to my friend’s home to borrow his truck and headed for your store.

Josh wasn’t there when I arrived, but the man at the front of the store told me all I had to do was go to the customer service desk and they would arrange the discount. When I did, however, I was told that the discount I had been promised was only given to people who had already bought the product at a different store.

“That’s not what Josh told me,” I noted.

“Sorry,” the woman behind the counter said. “He must have misunderstood the policy.”

I asked for a manager. And Grace Gregson soon arrived. Very polite. Very calm. But very disinterested in taking responsibility for her store’s mistake. And moreover, she appeared to believe that I would be satisfied to know that Josh “who is new,” “will be dealt with.”

Dealt with? For making me a happy customer? For convincing me to return and spend my money at Best Buy rather than Wal-Mart?

No, for making a mistake that would cost your store a whopping $67 — if your manager did the right thing and honored her salesman’s promise, which, of course, she didn’t.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “But I’m not authorized to give you the discount.”

“It’s not the money,” I told her. “It’s the principle. Your store made me a promise. I spent my evening driving around town to take advantage of the deal you offered. And now you’re telling me that you’re going to let a few bucks get in the way of your customer’s relationship with this store?”

“Yes,” Grace answered. “I’m sorry but I don’t have the authority to give you the deal.”

And because she was the highest ranking manager at the store at the time, Grace said, there was no one else who could help me, either.

That Josh was not better informed of the store’s pricing policies before being sent out to sell television sets was not his fault. The store and it’s managers are to blame. Sadly, I fear Grace will tell him it is his fault that the store has lost a customer — and that is not true.

Frankly, it does not appear to be Grace’s fault either. As a senior manager at the store, she should be empowered to make a decision that — though costing the company $67 in profit — would honor a promise, make a sale and ensure a customer’s satisfaction.

Your company’s policies, it would appear, are to blame. And that is why my family won’t be returning to Best Buy. You can also be certain that I will advise my friends and coworkers to stay away from your stores. And just for kicks, in this age of worldwide personal publishing power, I’ll probably put a copy of this letter on my blog (where, I’ll admit, it won’t be read by many.)

And perhaps none of that really matters. What does one dissatisfied customer mean against $4 billion in annual sales?

Well, it means Wal-Mart is $247 richer. And if that’s all, so be it.

For several millennia, we’ve all assumed communities were based upon principles of safety, survival, belonging and identification.

Maybe that’s true. But yesterday, scores of emailers learned of another, perhaps paramount, factor: Accident.

It started with a simple mistake: Casey Journalism Center conference coordinator Carrie Rowell sent an email, intended for a few select individuals, to the center’s listserv — a list primarily comprised of journalists from across the country interested in issues relevant to child and family development.

“We would like to cordially invite you to our annual board meeting and Casey Medals awards luncheon in Washington, D.C. Please RSVP by Aug. 8...” Rowell wrote.

Moments later, Rowell sent an apologetic email to the same group, noting there had been a mistake.

But it was too late.

“Yes, I would love to attend. Please reserve a table for me and 100 of my
closest friends. Side note to closest friends: Please RSVP (regrets only) by using the ‘reply to all’ function. (That way, somebody who cares is sure to receive the response.) See you there! — Doug”

That’s Doug “Pandora” Fox, of Utah’s own Provo Daily Herald.

And away it went...

Tom Gorman, of the Los Angeles Times, offered to accept all the Casey medals. He then observed that, despite the fact that everyone’s collective inboxes were filling up faster than a NASCAR pack leader on a pit stop, a sudden community had been formed. “Pass the S’mores” he begged.

And with that, folks started introducing themselves, making small talk and mulling about, “like we all got momentarily stuck in a digital elevator, looked from side to side and started speaking to one another,” noted Larry Oakes, Northern Minnesota Correspondent for the Star Tribune.

Like any community, this one had share of dissidents... “I'm going to put every one of you on my junk mail senders list!” threatened Marcos Martinez, Program Director for Albuquerque’s KUNM-FM.

And profiteers... “I’m a freelance journalist who recently moved to London,” Laura Roe Stevens wrote. “Feel free to get in touch if you need any coverage from the UK.”

And conspiracy theorists... “Mercury retrograde rides again,” postured Christiane Schull of LA’s Benevolent Witness Productions.

Ultimately, like Rome, Atlantis and Harappa before it, the society crumbled — shortly after InventorEd.org publisher Ronald Riley sent out an email entitled “CJC list setup incorrectly - How to fix it.”

In a few fleeting hours, a community was born, thrived and died -- without so much as a war, economic depression or plague.

Not bad for a bunch of journalists.

The first time I realized that thought could transcend time, I was hovering over my grandmother's swimming pool on a hot July day.

I was seven, suspended mid-jump over the cold water, and certain I had changed my mind about the whole ordeal. The intervening years have clouded my recollection of how the water felt when I ultimately broke the pool's surface, but I can still remember, vividly, the realization that this was the first time in life I was conscious of having done something I couldn't take back.

I often return to that moment. And I try to remind myself that, in those few split seconds, I learned so much about the mind's wonderful capacity for contemplative thought in small increments of time.

I also learned that there are consequences to every one of our actions. Some come quickly. Some take more time. But in between, there are always those moments above the pool.

Today I am hovering over the pool.

The tickets came in two FedEx envelopes. Paper proof that I was, indeed, heading to the Middle East. The first set will take me to Istanbul. The second to Kuwait. From there, I cross the border into Iraq and head north.

I had to ask my employer to raise the limit on my credit card so that I could buy the tickets and everything else I would need for this trip. The boss complied. And since the money has now been spent, I am obligated to follow through.

I am not having second thoughts. But I am aware that there is a long time — eight weeks — between now and the time I depart. A long time to be hovering over the pool.

In the meantime, there are flak vests to buy, maps to study, military units to contact. Away from work there are carrots to pull, a basement to finish, a lawn to mow.

And a woman to love.

On most occassions, when I take to the air, it is only I who must wait above the pool for splashdown. But this is not most occassions. My wife is deeply upset about my decision. She is scared and sad and lonely.

She cried, the other night, when I played my guitar for her.

"Let it Be," I played as she sobbed.

"Who will sing to me when you are gone?" she asked.

She asks me many questions these days. About what she should do if there is a leak in the kitchen faucet. About where she should take her car if it was to break down. These questions are easy to answer. In any situation in which she might need help, she is to call my friend Matt, who has volunteered to do "the man jobs" while I am gone.

But there are other questions, ones that are not so easy to answer. About wills. About last wishes. About how she will make the house payment if I am killed. About where she should live. About what she should do.

What can I say? That my employer has purchased a good insurance policy? That she will be taken care of? These are not the answers she wants.

We are hovering above the pool, waiting to hit the water, and there are no answers to her questions. Just a moment of time in which to contemplate the consequences of making decisions I cannot take back.

So Judith Miller has gone to jail. And journalists across the country are up in arms.

Bad judge. Bad prosecutor. Bad system. Bad laws. And look at this, now isn't it obvious that we need a shiled law to prevent such travesties?

No. As a matter of fact, we don't.

Some background: The hotshot New York Times reporter may be the one headed for jail, but she never actually penned the story that led up to all this silliness.

That honor goes to Robert Novak, who was the first person to publish Valerie Plame's identify as a CIA operative. In doing so, he and his "senior administration" sources committed a federal crime.

He should have known better. But he's a no-talent Cross Fire curmudgeon who sees red and blue in the way the rest of us see black and white.

The source's motives were highly questionable. Plame is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger to investigate the contention that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase "yellowcake" uranium there. Wilson came back and told his bosses — the Bush administration — that the claim was false.

Nonetheless, Bush used the allegation in numerous speeches. Proof, he said, that Saddam was seeking weapons or mass destruction. Justifiation, he said, for preemptive war.

Wilson believes Plame was outed by Novak's sources as retribution for his public denouncement of Bush's "yellowcake" claims. Bush denied that claim and appointed a special prosecutor to determine who leaked the information to Novak, promising to hold the responsible leaker accountable.

Meanwhile, at least two other journalists — Miller and Time Magazine's Matt Cooper — reported also having been approached by the Whitehouse source. Both apparently decided it would be best if they didn't commit any federal crimes. They declined to publish Plame's identity.

But, having made a promise of anonymity to their sources, they didn't squeal when the special prosecutor came asking for information.

Cooper changed his mind in the 11th hour, after his source gave him permission to speak to the Grand Jury. Miller either didn't get the same deal or knew her status as a journalist would be up there with Ernie Pyle and Walter Cronkite if she took her lumps. She remained mum.

So why hasn't Novak hasn't been hauled into the pokey?

Three possibilities:

A) He's already sung like a BeeGee
B) He's a suspect in a federal crime investigation and has pleaded the Fifth
C) Both

In any case, prosecutors like to have more witnesses than less. Keeps courtroom surprises to a minimum. So the prosecutor in the case called Cooper and Miller to testify in front of the Grand Jury.

Cooper and Miller, having done nothing criminal themselves, can't claim a right against self incrimination. And there is no federal law protecting journalists from having to testify.

Ergo, they either testify or face the consequences.

I, for one, am perfectly happy with that arrangement and blame the judge not one bit. Judges should hold all people accountable to the law. And I'm simply not comfortable with the idea of giving journalists special rights. (As soon as the government grants reporters special rights, they'll get to say who 'counts' as a journalist.)

Should prosecutors go after journalists if they can get the information elsewhere? No.

But should journalists should give up their sources and notes if compelled by a court? The answer is also no.

Rather than claim special priviledge, journalists should accept the possibiliy of being jailed for protecting a source's identity. Consider it an occupational hazard.

I don't feel bad for Miller one bit. To me, she's simply doing her job.

She'll come out of this a hero. She'll write books. Make the lecture circuit. Pull in lots of cash.

The great irony in this is that Miller helped lead this country to war by reporting false claims about Saddam's WMDs, made by a man she knew to be a close associate of Bush, a man with his eye on the Iraq throne, a man with something to gain by a preemptive war.

The stories were so poorly reported, in fact, that The New York Times issued an apology on the front page of its newspaper.

So she's going to jail for a few months. I won't shed a tear.

She's simply doing her job. For a change.

It's landed in my inbox eight or nine times.

"Don't know whether you heard about this (probably not) but..."

The story is that actor Denzel Washington visited burn victims at Brook Army
Medical Center and, so moved by the experience, "wrote a check for the
full amount" of a Fisher House hotel for the victims' families "right there on the spot."

It ends: "Why do Alec Baldwin, Madonna, Sean Penn and other Hollywood types make front page news with their anti-everything America campaign and this doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper?"

Oh, I don't know. Maybe because the Denzel email isn't accurate.

And maybe because Mr. Washington — who did indeed visit the center back in December and later, not "on the spot," made a donation for an undisclosed amount — doesn't feel like he needs to make a production out of every act of generosity.

Bravo to him. And shame on those who, in turn, are trying to turn his desire to do good outside of the spotlight into an issue about "the liberal press" and its purported obsession with Hollywood lefties.

What irks me most, though, is the contention that anti-war activist celebrities are somehow getting more than their fair share of press for their so-called "anti-everything America campaign."

I can't think of the last time Alec Baldwin, Madonna, Sean Penn — or any other Hollywood type, for that matter — was mentioned on any front page of any newspaper I read. Entertainment Weekly, perhaps. The supermarket tabloids, for sure. But even those fine journalistic publications spend more time ruminating over celeb romances and fashionista flubs than political ideology. Hell, Sean Penn had to buy space in the New York Times to spread his nonsesensical rantings.

The Denzel story, but the way, was reported by a number of daily newspapers. A few reporters bothered to check the facts in the email. A lot didn't.

The Fourth Estate is in dire need of criticism. For things it actually does and does not do.

Every day, the Defense Department posts on its Website the transcripts of interviews conducted with senior officials. I usually scan the posts for tidbits of information relevant to issues I am working on, but rarely read an entire transcript.

Today was different. I'm not certain what caught my attention. Perhaps it was that Donald Rumsfeld had been interviewed by a guy named Scott Hennen, host of "Hot Talk with Scott Hennen" on WDAY, 970 AM, in Fargo.

Yes, that must have been it. Fargo. As in, North Dakota.

There's certainly nothing wrong with the Secretary of Defense doing an interview with an outside-the-beltway reporter. In fact, it's a bit refreshing, don't you think? Heck, if Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo can get one of the most powerful, controversial and outspoken men in the world on his radio show, then maybe there's some home for the rest of us, too.

I think I'll leave a message on the secretary's voice mail. I'll even leave him my mobile number so he can get back to me after hours. He is a pretty darn busy guy, after all.

But I'm not too sure he'll even bother. I'm not sure I'm the kind of guy who gets an interview with the Secretary of Defense. Not these days.

The Pentagon has posted eight of Rumsfeld's interviews since June 1. Most are with guys like Hennen. Ordinary. Small town. Outside-the-beltway.

Oh yes, and they're all suck ups. Conservative suck ups.

Here's Hennen, from the end of his interview with Rumsfeld: "We're going to make you promise that you'll never resign, okay?"

And Bill Cunningham from Radio WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio: "The media doesn't like the military, the media doesn't like Republicans so they only run the negative stories."

Cunningham was just getting started there. Thanking Rumsfeld for his time at the end of the segment, the host exclaims: "Most guys your age are sipping pina coladas in Miami Beach, and you've got to listen to people like Ted Kennedy… You ought to slap him now and then, you know what I'm saying? Just let him have it."

Kennedy was on a lot of the interviewers' minds. Jerry Agar of KMBZ News Radio 980 in Kansas City suggested the liberal senator could go to Iraq, "and stay there."

Agar also took the time in his interview to tell Rumsfeld about the fine journalism being conducted in Iraq by reporters like Oliver North.

The Queen of England gets shorter and less complimentary introductions than the one David Kelso of KOKC AM in Oklahoma City gave Rumsfeld: "Sir, I have interviewed governors, senators, representatives, quite a few rock stars and even a Beatle once, but I don't believe that I've ever stood in cotton quite this tall, so let me thank you for the honor and the opportunity to interview you."

Kelso went on to ask Rumsfeld why military recruitment is down. "Do you think this has anything to do with this flow of negativity coming from CNN and Michael Moore?"

Then there are the biggies.

Tony Snow from Fox News, "interviewing" Rumsfeld on Guantanamo: "I haven't seen people demanding Freedom of Information Act requests to see the photos of the people who have been tortured by the bad guys."

Uberconservative talk show host, and author of "How to talk to a liberal, If you must" Laura Ingraham: "Meanwhile we have the mainstream media constantly fluffing up these stories about Koran mishandling."

Rumsfeld, by the way, shouldn't be criticized for avoiding the big, bad mainstream press. He does regular appearances on Larry King, Meet the Press, and so on. He rarely goes a full week without a press conference. Transcripts from those shows, for some reason, don't make it onto the Defense Department's site.

Doesn't matter. He doesn't ever really say anything on those program anyway.

And come to think of it, he doesn't really say much in the interviews with the conservative suck-ups, either.

Maybe that's why they feel they have to say it for him.