Author Archive for David Henderson

When it comes to hyping an honest-to-goodness fabulous new product, no one is better than Apple. The company’s newest iPhone - the iPhone 3G - is being released this Friday, and people are already camping out at Apple stores to be first in line to buy one. While the iPhone 3G is front-page news, more details are coming out about the cost of the faster 3G service … that is, if it is available where you live.

Here’s the story - the price of the entry level iPhone 3G is $200, one-half the price of the original iPhone that debuted a year ago. Why the lower price? Because AT&T Wireless, the service provider in the U.S. is subsidizing each iPhone. But you, the user, will ultimately pay the difference, and then some.

For the iPhone 3G, the data plan costs $10 more each month than the data plan for the original iPhone, and that does not include any text messages.  Texting will cost another $5 a month. My six-month-old iPhone has 200 text messages included. So, right off the bat, you will be paying an additional $360 for the joy of playing with an iPhone 3G over the term of a 24 month AT&T contract.  

But then, is it worth it?  Absolutely if you are someone who needs to stay connected and informed.

I was watching CBS Face the Nation this morning and veteran newsman Bob Schieffer who kept using the phrase, “flip-flop,” to describe a politician who seems to change his mind.  Schieffer should know better than to repeatedly pick up on such simple-minded politicking jargon.  Heck, everyone changes his or her mind.

The origins of the current usage of the phrase came out of the 2004 presidential race when it was hung on John Kerry, and he fell for the ruse. The media picked it up and has run with it ever since, certainly in a “copy-cat” style.

My point is that today’s media gets caught up in these astonishingly stupid catch-phrases and jargon, which are designed to manipulate and distract them from real issues … and the media falls for it, again and again, as if they have a microphone but not a brain.  But, then, many in the media today are more focused on their own fame and fortune than ferreting out news, and that includes being cozy with power brokers at the detriment of objectivity.

I highly recommend reading today’s column by John Rich of The New York Times.  If the media and many of the rest of us cannot focus on real issues, then let’s elect Wall-E president.

Each year on the eve of the 4th of July, the waterfront community of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, has a terrific fireworks show.  Last night was no exception.

Click here for video of the show: Chesapeake Beach, MD, annual fireworks

As someone who advises organizations on image, crisis and reputation management issues, I have been continually distressed at witnessing the reputation of our great nation be reduced to shambles on the world stage.  And, it would seem all self-inflicted by people in leadership who don’t know any better, I’m afraid.

So, it was in that context that I saw this troublesome story in today’s New York Times under the headline, “U.S. Is in No Shape to Give Advice, Medvedev Says.”  Regardless of what you or I might think of him, Russia’s new president, Dmitri Medvedev, pulled no punches when he told reporters, “that an America in ‘essentially a depression’ was in no position to lecture other countries.”

His comments were made on the same day that our President told the American people that if they had a problem with the price of gasoline, write their congressmen to open up new oil exploration … a suggestion that would take years before the first drop of oil was produced.

There is growing talk here in Washington, too, about the “D” word that no one wants to say aloud.

Last week, almost 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the American newspaper industry, perhaps the bloodiest week yet for media job cuts in a year that saw many papers fighting for their lives. This week, the Baltimore Sun lopped off more than 100 newsroom jobs and shut the paper’s Business news section.

“You read about the great names — the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News — as if reading the obituary page,” wrote columnist Timothy Egan for The New York Times.

For anyone who uses .Mac email, as I do, Apple’s newest offering is now automatically available - @me.com. In other words, if your .Mac email has been (yourname)@mac.com, it’s now also (yourname)@me.com.

While I have read Apple’s announcements about MobileMe, of which @me.com is a part, I am not sure how I feel about having a “me” email address. Have we really entered the “me” time in our society when so many people feel, “all about me,” (see previous post) that we need such an email address?  What impression does that give?

Naw, maybe I’m too old as a baby boomer that @me.com doesn’t feel good.  I’m from a long-lost generation when it was all about - all of us.  I’ll stick with .mac.com. I think that’s cool.

While I don’t write about politics - largely because I believe the ability to govern, inspire and lead America in today’s world by politics is broken beyond repair - living in the Washington, DC, area, I cannot help to escape the ubiquitous everyday signs of political arrogance.

Yesterday, for example, while picking up dry cleaning from the shop we use in McLean, Virginia, the shop owner, her employees, people outside on the sidewalk and I were interrupted by a man with an extremely loud voice who had parked his enormous black SUV not in a normal parking space but in the middle of the parking lot, to bring in his laundry. The fact that he apparently felt he was so self-important and hence, could park anywhere he pleased, blocking other cars, didn’t seem to bother him. Heck, he was Terry McAuliffe, who until recently was chief campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.  He’s a guy who has gotten rich from raising money for political campaigns.  I got the impression that he was loud because he wanted everyone to look him, the self-perceived center of importance … part of his mojo. Reminded me of a kid I knew in high school.

You see that sort of hubris a lot in Washington.  None of it is focused on how to make America better, safer or aimed on critically needed nation-building, as Tom Friedman wrote about in today’s New York Times.

The little display by McAuliffe, whose deafening speaking tone I believe is normal, is indicative of the blind arrogance that has infected our nation’s capital, fed by money, greed and power.  Multiply that many times over, and I believe it’s one of the reasons that nothing really gets accomplished in Washington, except to make the players richer.  But what really is happening is that it is ultimately making the United States less than respected and less influential on the world stage.