Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 02 April 2011

Cats are a lot like people. You never know what they’re going to do next. And like people, they come in all shapes and sizes, varied personalities, and capacities for mischief.

A cat can be lying perfectly still and with a shocking suddenness bolt with lightning speed to another part of the house. Just like that, faster than a speeding bullet. How do they do that?

But this trick is not the cat specie’s most impressive. No way. Cats are at their finest when they demonstrate their talent for indifference. Cats can sleep, lounge, or practice the art of snootiness in a room stuffed with 25 people. You can stand on your head, whistle, or recite the Gettysburg Address in front of a cat, and if it’s so inclined, the cat will ignore you with an insouciance James Bond couldn’t match. Yes, cats “do apathy” with enthusiasm—ah, an oxymoron, enthusiastic apathy. But that’s cat behavior.

I had a relative—won’t tell you what kind for the relative was a good person—who didn’t like cats. Fair enough. It’s a free country. But the relative periodically told tales of men or boys in the relative’s childhood hometown who liked to kill cats. I don’t know whether the relative ever did this, but even as a wee lad, these stories didn’t engage me.

I, thankfully, had a father who grew up on the farm. And the farm was still five minutes away throughout my childhood. So not only did my father love and respect animals of all kinds, so did I. Even cats like the ones on the farm that would sit patiently near my grandmother as she hand-milked a cow, waiting for her to aim a part of the cow’s anatomy at them and squirt milk into their eager mouths. If you’ve never seen or participated in this trick you haven’t lived.

I remember, I don’t know why, Dad holding kittens once. I think we were somewhere other than home. But the point is I remember him intervening to protect these kittens from I can’t remember what and then gently petting and talking kindly to them. It’s just a blip from childhood, but it is a powerful memory, one that helped form my love for animals and later interest in wildlife preservation and “the outdoors,” what we now call the environment. I'm glad for Dad's example.

I admit cats are not my favorite domestic animal. Dogs hold that position. But cats are endlessly creative, energetic, and interesting animals. To me they’re fun to watch while dogs are fun to physically enjoy, i.e. wrestle and roughhouse.

I know all the arguments about feral cats and too many cats and why do we need cats and cats kill small game animals. But those are people issues, not cat issues. If people took proper care of cats we wouldn’t have cat problems.

So here’s to cats: one minute calm the next minute over the moon. Cats are a lot like people.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 01 April 2011

Who doesn’t think the Japanese are an amazing people and culture? You have to hand it to them. Here’s a people whose history includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki and now Sendai and Fukushima—earthquake, tsunami. And with it has come missing persons, nuclear radiation, food and housing shortages, economic upheaval, not to mention destruction, devastation, disease, and death. Still, the Japanese soldier on.

“Ganbarimasu”—in Japanese it means “We must give it our best,” or something close to that. This word has become their quiet and dignified mantra. They work, they reach out, they don’t complain, and they don’t loot. They don’t loot? Amazing. Nuclear power plant workers have rightly become international heroes, a new set of first responders who are continuing to respond with long hours in what are likely suicidal conditions. These men do their duty, but they will not reach old age. Ganbarimasu.

The Japanese have always been known for the strength of their kinship culture. They are about community much more than the highly individualized and individualistic West. Sure, their culture isn’t perfect. There are some genuine concerns: issues like women’s place in family and society, underground sexuality, religious fatalism.

But the West has its problems too. Negatives shouldn’t cause us not to appreciate or admire positives. The Japanese are an industrious, frugal, incredibly hard working, educated, and honorable people. They’re proving it time and again in the face of crisis.

Ganbarimasu is something the West could stand to rediscover. Ours is a culture often captured by materialism, relativism, and narcissism. These aren’t good "Isms.” They weaken us individually and collectively. Certainly “The Greatest Generation,” ironically a generation that met the Japanese in World War, understood how to give it their best. But I don’t think subsequent generations, including the Baby Boomers to which I belong, can claim we’ve always given our best.

I wish the Japanese well. I pray for their culture, country, and individual characters. I hope they can cap the Fukushima nuclear radiation threat soon, and I hope they can rebuild with strength and optimism.

I wish and pray the same for the West in general and America specifically. I hope we learn by watching the Japanese. I hope we experience a resurrection of Ganbarimasu.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 31 March 2011

When I see an especially large person I feel for them. I can’t help but think there’s a thin person inside wanting to get out.

I know this admission opens me to charges that I’m prejudiced or biased or immature or discriminatory or worse. But I honestly don’t look upon large people in a negative way. As I said, I feel for them. I wonder sometimes what they’d do differently or how they’d act differently if they could regain their thinner person of yesteryear. This is one reason I like NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” This program doesn’t make fun of people like other reality shows. It helps people.

Obesity is now rivaling tobacco, we’re told, as the number one preventable health problem facing Americans. Obesity, not just the clinical definition thereof, but people whose weight problem goes way past that the percentage of body fat considered mismatched with ones age and height. Americans have a problem, a big one. No pun intended.

Some 64% of Americans adults are considered overweight, 33% of those in the obese category. If that’s not enough, about 15% of kids 6-19 years are overweight. This puts us at much higher risk of cancer. Yet health professionals tell us we could cut our cancer risks in half simply be avoiding smoking, eating plenty of fruits and veggies with a lower fat diet, and—wait for it—exercising regularly. Not rocket science but equally powerful.

I know not everyone who is large or even obese is in this condition because of poor lifestyle choices. Some people indeed have medical problems that result in weight gain.

But for most of us, this is not the case. For most of us our weight is what we choose it to be. Or at least it’s a result of our choices—what we eat too much and how we exercise or otherwise remain active too little.

It’s also a product of our values, which for many people seem absorbed uncritically from surrounding culture. I travel a great deal, so I see substantial differences in people and restaurant portions by region or country. Travel in my home area of the American Midwest and you’ll see greater numbers of large or obese people than anywhere else in the country.

Go to most American restaurants and you’ll be served platters and drinks so large that by comparison what you purchase in Europe or the Middle East seem dinky rip-offs. But they’re really not. Portion size elsewhere matches what ours used to be. We’re into Super Sizing and Big Gulps about anywhere we go—portion distortion. Even “nicer” restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory are noted for their large servings. It’s great. I like it too, but that’s the point, it’s all too easy to like and like often.

Regular exercise is probably more difficult for some of us than eating right. I don’t know, depends upon the personality involved. I frankly catch it in binges, which isn’t good. I’ll exercise regularly, eat right, drop weight, then a few weeks or months later, especially in winter, put the weight back on.

I’ve dieted and lost 30 pounds or more about 5 maybe 6 times in the last 15 years back into my 40s. I’m glad I’ve been able to do this, in part to set an example for three sons who one day will face the same challenge, but this yoyo isn’t the best way to go.

Some of this exercise thing gets back to how the economy and professions have changed. We’re no longer a nation of farmers, woodsmen, and trappers. We’re not what we used to be as a nation of factory workers laboring daily and vigorously in manufacturing plants. We’re mostly office workers, desk jockeys. More of us use minds rather than muscles to earn a living and we’re sedentary while we do it. So work isn’t as calorie-eating as it once was.

Not to get too philosophical about it, but I do think American obesity is tied in with the current cultural zeitgeist, i.e. “spirit of the times.” Americans are into “excess.” We eat more than is healthy, pursue habits that are not good for us, and spend way more than our means. The budgets of every level of American government are also obese. We want more so we spend more. We want to eat so we eat. We try to eat and buy our way to happiness. But it doesn’t work.

So, I’m back on a diet. Don’t like it, but I’m working so it’s working. Pounds are disappearing. This is good, but here’s to committing to sustaining a proper weight and leaving the yoyo behind.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 27 March 2011

March Madness is a basketball fan’s fantasy: 68 of the best intercollegiate teams battling for supremacy. What more could a fan want?

Apparently for some it’s a chance to win money by gambling on the games. Sports betting is now a $100 billion per year “business,” and it’s getting bigger. March Madness offers the perfect opportunity, game after game, points and point spreads, quick results—some $12 billion bet in a matter of three weeks. It’s a multiple betting paradise, except for one thing: it’s mostly illegal, due to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.

Meanwhile, casinos offering legalized sports betting take in about $30 billion per year. But there’s pressure from legislatures and much of the public to legalize sports betting and tap its revenues for public coffers.

The problem, though, is that sports betting represents a significant threat to the integrity of sport. Reason being is that it’s not difficult to imagine people approaching players, coaches, and officials with monetary incentives to throw games. Think the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series scandal, Pete Rose accused of betting on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds, and most recently in 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy serving time for betting on games he officiated. Intercollegiate sports associations the NCAA and NAIA both oppose legalized sports betting, as do all the professional leagues, NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, etc.

Yet sports betting via local, noncommercial office bracket “pools” is increasing geometrically. College students are particularly susceptible, and golfers of all ages are by far the most inclined to gamble. With more than 2,000 gambling websites available and smart phone mobile gambling apps around the corner, gambling is a now pervasive opportunity of postmodern life.

Gambling seems harmless, a victimless crime if crime at all. But gambling’s history is replete with emotionally devastated individuals and bankrupt families. Sports betting is no different.

Because of its penchant for luring cheaters, legalized sports betting would do little but destroy the competitive purity of athletics. Eventually, sports betting would ruin the fun and fandom that makes athletics so enjoyable in the first place. Given that sports is already beset by drug challenges, legislators and the general public would do well to look for revenues somewhere other than sports.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 19 March 2011

A Nation in Crisis: The Meltdown of Money, Government, and Religion (2010) is about economics, politics, and religion, or primarily about economics. Dr. Larry Bates and his son Chuck Bates are both economists with long experience in business, political office, and Christian leadership.

Their book is a clarion call for common sense values, certainly ones borrowed from the Christian faith yet ones that used to be embraced by anyone who watched how the world operated. Bates and Bates are concerned, to say the least, about the debt-oriented, live-beyond-our-means culture that’s driven politics at the state and federal level the past few decades. Now we find ourselves with record national debt, huge budgetary deficits, a struggling economy, and mountains of personal debt.

The book’s title uses the word “crisis” because the authors rightly believe our culture and country are standing on the edge of a cliff. It isn’t too late, from the Bateses’ point of view, but we need to act wisely and quickly. Unfortunately, most politicians, it seems, don’t have the wisdom or will or both to make necessary changes.

The authors’ prescriptions for a better way include: don’t go into debt, buy homes that cost less than banks say you can afford, take affordable vacations, invest in gold, build your family. At the government level: cut taxes, deregulate health care, reform entitlements, reinforce the family unit.

One doesn’t have to look far to discover other countries whose profligate financial practices have led them to the brink. Greece comes to mind, presently waiting for Germany and the rest of the European Union to bail them out. Meanwhile, several other countries in Europe, like Spain, for example, are also struggling with finances not simply because the economy has taken a dip but because of their own choices in the past few decades. Sounds like the United States.

Debt is a killer of initiative and vigor. It weakens a family or a nation against the inevitable day when storms come. Debtors owe lenders, which is to say, in time, debtors can be controlled by lenders. It is not wise for the United States to owe so much to nations like China.

We need more common sense economics like you find in this book and more writers and pols like Bates and Bates. Here’s to praying more leaders on both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C. and our state capitals find their way back to responsibility and accountability, which ironically, frees us all.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 17 March 2011

No leader leads forever. All leaders leave. It’s our humanity writ large.

We seize another opportunity, age, grow tired, get bored, get fired, take time out to “spend time with the family,” retire, get sick or die. But one way or another, no matter what we are leading, we eventually leave. For the President of the United States, it’s four years or eight years but no more.

So changing leaders is not the problem. It happens. But changing leaders badly can debilitate or destroy an organization. Poor leadership transition can disillusion people within and without, the organization’s personnel and public.

In my estimation this happened at the University of Michigan when men’s football coach Lloyd Carr retired and Rich Rodriquez was named his successor. Rodriquez got off a horrible start and things went downhill from there—his buy-out penalty at West Virginia University wasn’t honored and WVU had to sue to get what was rightfully owed, statements were made on all sides that later proved suspect, and so it went. Add a poor win-loss record and Rodriquez was fired three years later. The entire story is a case study for what not to do in leadership transition.

One way to attempt to avoid (no guarantees) a major hiccup in leadership transition is to plan the transition. Plan leadership succession, not necessarily anointing an heir apparent, but plan the process by which the next leader will be identified.

The responsibility for planned leadership succession resides with current leadership—the Board and the chief officers of the organization. Herein lies a sometimes problem. For a variety of reasons and motives current leaders may not want to plan transition.

Current leaders are sometimes threatened by the prospects of developing a leadership succession plan. They confuse the process with their own security and sense of longevity. Sometimes leaders push planning into the future because they’d rather deal with immediate issues; classic procrastination.

Boards make a terrible mistake when they dilly-dally with leadership succession in the warped view that doing so is a statement of confidence in the current leader. Or, directors are so enamored by the current leader they beg him/her to stay forever. But forever doesn’t happen this side of the afterlife. Consequently, something inevitably happens and suddenly the organization is facing leadership transition with no idea of how to pull it off.

Stockholders in for-profit enterprises and constituents or donors supporting nonprofit organizations have a stake in who’s leading and who will be leading. For them, leadership succession planning is good stewardship that attempts to perpetuate the wellbeing of the organization. Without this planning, the organization can get caught shooting craps with its own future. Shrewd stakeholders who see this sometimes quietly opt out when they think the risk is getting too high.

The old biblical monarchies had a kind of built-in leadership transition process. Whenever Father stepped aside, Son stepped in. It was simple. Contemporary organizations sometimes operate on that principle, but usually they face a more complex task and thus need more planning.

Boards that develop a leadership contingency and succession plan, a kind of “Leader’s Will,” greatly increase the chances of a smooth and successful leadership transition.

Leadership transition works best when leaders know when to leave. An organization’s potential for long-term viability is increased when it is affirmed that no one is irreplaceable. Lame duck leaders or “Emperors who have no clothes” are deadly to an organization’s image, effectiveness, and health. In non-profit or profit settings, Boards must take responsibility. Weak Boards produce weak organizations and nowhere is this more quickly evident than in instances of current leaders being permitted to stay too long.

Formal search processes for new leaders are virtually inevitable and almost always desirable. Organizations do not always enjoy the comfort of an in-house heir apparent, and even if they do, it’s better for both the presumed heir and the organization for him/her to win or earn the new position, not be granted it outright. A search helps validate the choice. Besides, a search may make it evident that a presumptive heir is not so logical or capable after all.

One of the best ways to prepare an organization for leadership transition is to develop potential leaders who can later be considered in the search. “Up and comers” should be targeted for mentoring, role modeling, networking, and special assignment opportunities. Failure to develop young staff can drive away a whole generation of prospective leaders, crippling the organization for years to come. Organizations are strengthened by plans that proactively identify and support leadership talent from all walks of life.

Leadership succession planning becomes logically more important for organizations with long-term and older leaders. It’s just good business. More than that, it instills confidence in all stakeholders that the organization is in good hands today and will be, to the best of our abilities, in good hands tomorrow too.

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