tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79413738551170316752024-03-19T10:34:51.786+01:00Jim HaberkornJim Haberkorn's author blog
Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-13895391188149839012013-04-25T07:41:00.000+02:002013-04-25T07:42:51.627+02:00Popular Book Reviewer discusses reviewing books, plus Jim is now on TwitterCheck out how popular book blogger Shauna Wheelwright discusses her process for reviewing books: http://www.jimhaberkorn.com/?p=575
Shortly Shauna will be posting a book review of <i>A Thousand Suns </i>on her website here: http://ilovetoreadandreviewbooks.blogspot.ch/
Also, I've recently joined Twitter thanks to the encourement of my work colleague Ashwin Kumar Shetty from Bangalore, India and fellow author Terri Lynn Adams from Utah who together are slowing bringing me kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Follow my exploits on twitter here: https://twitter.com/JimHaberkornJim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-75687206622872705052013-04-05T09:03:00.003+02:002013-04-05T09:03:35.439+02:00'A Thousand Suns' giveaway has its winner!Yes, we have a giveaway winner! Jeana R. Kovac won the free copy of 'A Thousand Suns.' Congratulations Jeana. The book will be winging its way towards Jeana shortly. Thanks to everyone who participated.
Best regards,
Jim
ZurichJim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-54022329467930823472013-03-26T16:44:00.001+01:002013-03-26T16:44:34.366+01:00A Horse Doctor's Guide to Literature As a general rule I avoid books that are labeled ‘literary.’ By so doing, I have no doubt deprived myself of some excellent reading. My problem is that I’ve read – or rather, have started to read – too many literary novels that yearned to be admired for their ‘profoundness’ rather than for being a good story well told. One literary book I have read is Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and I found it to be extremely profound in its observations about love, courage, friendship, betrayal, war, life, and death. But it never shined a light on itself to announce its profoundness. There was never a sense of Hemingway doing anything more than telling an emotionally honest love story based on his deep observations of life.
Further, I find too many ‘literary’ books taking the horse doctor approach to their main character’s primary problem. Here’s what I mean. There was once a Far Side cartoon where a character was studying a book on horse medicine. Down one column on every page was listed a variety of horse afflictions and in the second column were the remedies: Broken leg – shoot the horse. Mangy tail – shoot the horse. Droopy ears – shoot the horse. Milky eye – shoot the horse. Etc.
In my limited experience, too many literary novels take the same approach. No matter what the hero or heroine’s complaint, just like Far Side’s horse doctor, there is always the same remedy. Here is how Far Side would portray it. Workaholic husband – illicit sex. A wife who doesn’t understand – illicit sex. Ungrateful children – illicit sex. Bored housewife – illicit sex. Sacrificed career to have children – illicit sex. Etc.
But maybe it’s the genre that is the problem. If a book is literary, then the characters, gosh dang it, better darn well have a more emotionally tangled, angst filled literary way of solving problems than pulling out an automatic and blowing a hole through somebody you could paddle a canoe through. Otherwise, the book might slip into the thriller category. My category. And serious writers don’t write thrillers. Or do they?
Three words: John le Carre’. Enough said. Also, three more words: Martin Cruz Smith. I just reread Smith’s Gorky Park – the first in his series of thrillers based on Moscow police detective Arkady Renko – a book that, in my opinion, is truly ‘literary’ in all the good sense of the word. Also, Olen Steinhauer – a masterful writer of literary thrillers, particularly his ‘Tourist’ series. Barry Eisler and his John Rain series are also particularly well written. Are they literary? Not as much as le Carre’ or Smith, but then, who is? But read Mr. Eislers first few books and see if his character’s descriptions and emotional ties to Tokyo are not literary enough for you.
In one place in Einstein’s Trunk, while I wasn’t paying attention, my hero Rulon Hurt, slipped into profoundness. He and Yohaba were forced to share a hotel room together, and it was causing Rulon all sorts of moral anxiety. To ease the tension, Yohaba asked him to sing her to sleep, and he, without thinking, chose For My Lover by Tracy Chapman. Afterwards, Yohaba from the bed, reminded Rulon who was laying on the floor, that they weren’t lovers. Rulon replied that she had a very narrow definition of the word lover. So we see, even Idaho cowboys can be profound when there’s a pretty girl involved.
But lest readers think I’m a total Neanderthal, I’m open to the possibility that there are a lot of great ‘literary’ books out there, and I’ve been depriving myself of some great reading. So, if anyone has any literary books they think I might enjoy, I’d be happy to hear your suggestions.
Best regards,
Jim
Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-81061354696905298192013-03-20T21:27:00.001+01:002013-03-20T21:29:21.353+01:00'A Thousand Suns' Giveaway<a id="rc-fab62b0" class="rafl" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/fab62b0/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a> <script src="//d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.js"></script> Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-88841543640136831762013-03-12T23:48:00.001+01:002013-03-12T23:48:56.926+01:00Thanks for A Thousand Suns <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Today </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Thousand Suns</i> was officially published, and I wish to thank all those who read the manuscript at various stages and suggested helpful edits. In no particular order: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Grey Titmus, my long time Boise friend and resident expert on all things Idaho.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">My agent Donna Eastman whom you can thank if you liked the fight between Rulon and Boris in the Rockin’ Rooster. Originally I had planned to cut off the scene right before the fight started and leave the actual fight to everyone’s imagination. But Donna encouraged me to actually write it out, and I did. Good call, Donna! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Margaret Habelt-Pattison, my Zurich editor, who not only has an excellent eye for detail, but gives helpful suggestions on plot and characterization. She was my sounding board while writing the book. Everyone needs a Margaret when they’re writing a book – an editor who is detailed oriented and unfailingly honest in their feedback but never tries to take the book away from the author. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">John Franklin, an old high school friend with whom I’ve reconnected after many years. By the way, John has a couple of extremely talented daughters who can sing up a storm. They’re called The Franklin Girls and have just recorded their second pop album. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">John Solosabal who owns a ranch near Glen’s Ferry and John Butler who ranches several thousand acres in the Owyhees are both longtime Idaho ranchers who were immeasureably patient in answering all my cowboy related questions. Having been born in Brooklyn, New York, all I knew about ranching before I talked to them, was, well, actually, I didn’t know anything. And certainly nothing about the vagaries of Idaho ranching. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Melissa Caldwell, my editor at Cedar Fort, who did her job professionally and made the editing process so very, very easy. Also, she did a great job of laying out and setting up the book for publication. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Martin Bingisser, American hammer thrower, now living in Zurich, who I once plied with Mexican food at Tres Kilos, Rulon’s favorite Zurich restaurant, and who suppled all the hammer throwing details in my books. Over that meal and in subsequent communications, Martin taught me lots about hammer throwing including the fact that world class hammer throwers don’t ‘pull’ the 16-pound ball through their spins as one might expect but rather ‘push’ it. That little fact pops up in ATS out of Rulon’s dad’s mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Google and my laptop’s backspace key, without which I would still be working on the first chapter of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Einstein’s Trunk</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">And finally, last but not least, Kimmy, my loving wife, who reads my chapters, always gives honest feedback, listens to me working out scenes while on our walks to the gym, hands out my bookmarks to all her business acquaintences, and keeps my feet planted firmly on the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">My most heartfelt thanks to all of them, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Jim </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Boston, Mass. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-45877593813324147512013-02-25T09:57:00.002+01:002013-02-25T09:57:56.175+01:00How Does an Elephant Talk to a Crocodile? <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> CAN an elephant talk to a crocodile? The answer is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yes</i>, as I discovered one day while sitting on the patio of our family ‘donor’ home in Kruger Park, South Africa. Previous to that day, I had spent many hours on that patio, under the shade of its huge spreading tree, reading books, watching the wide languid Sabie river flow past, and listening to the sounds of Africa. Crocodiles basked on the opposite shore and elephants and grunting hippos abounded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normally, I was out there with my step-son Henry who has since passed away. He and I would talk for hours about every subject under the sun. His curiosity was constant and so was his sense of humor. Invariably, as we sat together overlooking the slow moving Sabie, and I was engrossed in a book, he would break the silence by asking, “How much would I have to pay you to swim across that river?” It was a running joke between us. I would look up and scan the far bank, see a dozen large crocodiles laying like logs and say, “For a dollar I would throw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> in the river,” and then the negotiations would begin. Eventually, the negotiations would reach $10 million dollars and the use of a marksman with a high-powered rifle and Henry would question my manhood. But I always wondered how deep the river was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day as I sat on the patio, I found my answer. An elephant came close to the house and began to walk ever so slowly across the seventy-five meter wide river. To my surprise, at its deepest point, the water didn’t even reach his stomach – at most it was about four feet deep. It turned out I wouldn’t have to swim at all! But as I watched, the biggest crocodile I had ever seen surfaced slowly into view and fell in behind the elephant. The croc was a good fifteen feet long and stayed about a body-length away, his speed matching that of his enormous target. What was the croc thinking? Surely he wasn’t stupid enough to attack the elephant! I watched. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though he hadn’t turned his head, you could tell by the agitated flapping of his ears that the elephant was immediately aware of the crocodile. But the croc continued to follow. The elephant stopped. The crocodile stopped. The elephant continued. The croc followed. The elephant stopped again and let out a resounding angry trumpet. The croc stopped too but then continued when the elephant resumed his walk. After a few more steps the elephant turned and faced the crocodile. The big croc held his ground. For the next thirty seconds, the elephant proceeded to furiously beat and thrash the water in front of the crocodile with every ounce of his strength. His tusks, head, and trunk churned the water into a boiling white froth, the water leaping high into the air. I stood up and leaned over the wooden rail that separated me from the electric fence that lined our property on the river side, fascinated by this enormous display of power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the elephant was finished, he turned slowly away and continued his patient journey to the far bank. The crocodile, having gotten the message, peeled slowly off and eventually disappeared under the rippling water. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elephants can talk to crocodiles. In fact, they can be quite eloquent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Reminder: someday soon I will be moving this blog to my official website: <a href="http://www.jimhaberkorn.com/">www.jimhaberkorn.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-11190466083401802862013-02-16T16:35:00.001+01:002013-02-16T16:35:17.266+01:00Where did the title "A Thousand Suns" come from? The other night a friend asked me how I came up with the title <em>A Thousand Suns</em>. Here’s the background: The title is not taken from the Linkin Park album ‘A Thousand Suns.’ And it’s not from the Iron Maiden song ‘Brighter than a Thousand Suns.’ Both of those musical creations got the phrase from a statement by Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan project, who, after seeing the first atom bomb go off at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 15, 1945, said that it reminded him of these words from the Bhagavad-Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty one…”<br />
And then a minute later when he saw the mushroom cloud rise high above the earth, he said it made him think of the rest of that poem: ”Now I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds.”<br />
But this is how it came to be in my book. Just as they were ready to fall asleep, Yohaba asked Rulon how much did his enemies hate him. This is the rest of the scene:<br />
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Half asleep, without opening his eyes, Rulon mumbled, “Oh…I’d say with the heat of a thousand suns. Yeah, that sounds about right…”<br />
After a few minutes, Yohaba propped herself up on one elbow and looked at Rulon sleeping like a baby. Moonlight breaking through the clouds streamed in the window and made moving shadows on Rulon’s face. Her love for him stirred and her heart gave a leap. She looked around the room and up at the ceiling trying to focus on something, anything, to keep from crying. She managed all right except for a single tear that ran down her face into the corner of her mouth.<br />
The salty tear mixed with the lingering feel of Rulon’s lips acted like an Oracle’s potion. It set her mind to racing and conjuring up memories of their life together, the love and violence they had shared so far in equal doses, as if a cosmic scale needed to stay in balance. Yohaba gasped, suddenly overwhelmed with a portent of the future – this will not end well. She knew it without a doubt: There will be blood.<br />
The moment of realization quickly passed and was replaced with a terrible calm. Looking down at Rulon’s kindly face, she whispered into his ear, “What a coincidence. A thousand suns. That’s exactly how much I love you, Cowboy.” She rolled over onto her side away from Rulon and now the moon shadows spilled across her face. “But mine burn hotter,” she said into the night.<br />
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Blog Alert!! Someday soon I'm going to stop posting on this blog and post only on my author's website at <a href="http://www.jimhaberkorn.com/">www.jimhaberkorn.com</a> In fact, I've already started posting there. The post below is an exact copy of the post on my new blog.<br />
<br />
Jim<br />
Zurich Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-12011924809369207032013-02-12T21:40:00.000+01:002013-02-13T07:12:50.786+01:00Getting published Occasionally I'm contacted by aspiring authors asking what it takes to get published and how the publishing business works. The short answer is that writing a book is an enjoyable exercise if you love to write, but that getting published and successfully selling a book can be pretty painful even under the best of circumstances. Though, I suppose, selling 50,000 copies would dull the ache!<br />
The rules of the publishing game have changed thanks to Amazon. I recently read that no one really knows how to sell books anymore. For example, when Borders, the second largest book store chain in the U.S., went out of business, normally Barnes and Noble, the largest chain, would have benefitted. But it didn't. Amazon did. Nowadays, the strategy seems to be for publishers to mainly focus on the potential 'mega block busters' hoping for a million-book bestseller. Most of the rest of the books are left to scramble for themselves and authors must do a lot of their own promoting. Thankfully there is Facebook and internet websites! <br />
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Exactly one month from today <em>A Thousand Suns</em> hits the bookshelves and approximately 100 internet web sites around the world - including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. <br />
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Best regards, <br />
<br />
Jim <br />
ZurichJim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-32740615711082323772013-02-09T09:47:00.002+01:002013-02-09T09:48:27.850+01:00Can a thriller be humorous?<div class="entry-content">
Can a thriller be humorous? This question came up because of the trouble I have whenever I see a short description of <em>A Thousand Suns</em>. If the description doesn’t mention the humor, I’m bothered that they missed something unique about the book. If it does mention the humor, then I’m worried people wil think the book is funny, light, and not a real thriller. So, with this post, I’d like to set the record straight about humor in my thrillers.<br />
My books are not humorous, but they have characters who have a well-developed sense of humor and who tend to see the humorous side of most situations. For my characters, particularly Rulon, humor is a safety value and a way of dealing with unpleasant outcomes. In fact, this humor is part of what makes ‘A Thousand Suns’ a realistic book.<br />
In researching <em>A Thousand Suns</em>, I read the book<em> On Combat</em> by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former army Ranger and West Point psychology professor. In it he talks about how men and women in life and death situations use humor to, in a sense, escape from reality.<br />
<em> A Thousand Suns</em> is a thriller. But it’s not a downer. It has a few laughs, thanks to my characters innate natures, but it also has scenes of courage, loyalty, love, hate, violence, disillusionment, and revenge. I don’t want readers to be crying at the end of it or laughing. I’d like them to put the book down when they are done and simply sigh, “Good story.” <br />
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On a different note: I have a new website design at: <a href="http://www.jimhaberkorn.com/">www.jimhaberkorn.com</a> I've also started using Facebook to publicize my upcoming book <em>A Thousand Suns</em>. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Thousand-Suns/433298710075276?cropsuccess&success=1">http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Thousand-Suns/433298710075276?cropsuccess&success=1</a><br />
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Please free to visit those sites, and, if you feel so moved, let me know what you think. This blog post is also found on my website. I'll be making a decision within a few days about whether to keep this blog or to simply transfer the activity to my website. <br />
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Best regards, <br />
<br />
Jim - from Zurich</div>
Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-69677985767322838212012-12-17T11:07:00.001+01:002012-12-17T11:18:35.849+01:00A Cover for a "A Thousand Suns" <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Below</span> is the cover for <em>A Thousand Suns -</em> the latest Rulon Hurt thriller, due out in March 2013. I think ATS was a tough book to design a cover for, just as it is a tough book to describe in a few sentences. How do you capture Idaho, Zurich, Nazis, cowboys, Russians, germ warfare, asteroids, and the book’s ironic humor in a cover? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Still, thanks to James Bond, any picture of a European city on the cover of a book suggests INTERNATIONAL THRILLER with some serious action, heroic heroes, villainous villains, beautiful girls – well, actually only Yohaba in this one, but she is enough! – and an impending calamity. Forty percent of the book takes place in Idaho and sixty percent in the environs around Zurich. I suppose if you live in Zurich then to you Idaho is an international setting! As it is, though, I really like the cover. The picture of Zurich captures the international thriller side, and the tagline brings in Rulon Hurt, our easy-to-underestimate cowboy, and also gives a hint of the book's offbeatness:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Don’t let your cowboys grow up to be spies</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was important to me that readers looking at the cover not be fooled about what was inside. Yes, it is a thriller and yes there is some humor. But the well-developed sense of irony and humor is woven into the dialogue of the characters. In the end, <em>A Thousand Suns</em> is a serious thriller. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycSkbhpu1UCuIv7xW4BUerVOYKPrKte8kWD381CeLk5OqupULptWTaruZVIOMKVmxQlgFzcVb7QFKo-djlRi8X610nNPIoMWgtSjx9jOyeGJ7rKqXCFlF-82AJKs93lFBYl1s5tePFOQ4/s1600/ATS_final+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycSkbhpu1UCuIv7xW4BUerVOYKPrKte8kWD381CeLk5OqupULptWTaruZVIOMKVmxQlgFzcVb7QFKo-djlRi8X610nNPIoMWgtSjx9jOyeGJ7rKqXCFlF-82AJKs93lFBYl1s5tePFOQ4/s320/ATS_final+(2).jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
Best regards, <br />
<br />
Jim <br />
Umhlanga, South AfricaJim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-3306241840933840242012-09-29T11:52:00.001+02:002012-10-06T07:41:20.808+02:00Things I wish one of the candidates would say<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> As the presidential election lumbers to its conclusion in November, I have decided that the only certainty in politics is that a country always gets the government it deserves - which is both a curse and a blessing. In the case of the United States, as I listen to what each party says about the other candidate, I am reminded of the old Woody Allen quote – </span><span style="color: #282828; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly</span><span style="color: #282828;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.” </span></span><span style="color: #282828; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Which leads me to the subject of this posting: Things I wish one of the candidates would say:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Leave well enough alone. Since the 1970’s the U.S. middle class has shrunk due to the influence of lobbyists working on behalf of the rich and multi-national corporations to change laws that were working quite well up until then. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Neither a borrower not a lender be. The U.S. has a massive debt because even though we were already the richest country in the world, we still felt the need to borrow money to fund our extravagances. All of us are to blame. The legislators were cravenly buying our votes in return for promises we couldn’t afford, but we the people accepted their bribes in return for our votes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Don't let the fox into the hen house. The 2008 economic meltdown was caused by the economic policies of both parties. A poorly regulated housing market, two unfunded wars, and a poorly regulated financial industry were the cause. Thank you Democrats and Republicans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love of money is the root of all evil. The U.S. election process is broken. The supremely near-sighted U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling allowing the creation of Super PACs has given the rich undue influence over elections and candidates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The hand cannot say to the eye I have no need of thee. The country needs the entrepreneurs and the job creators, but the job creators also need the worker bees to bring their dreams to life and to buy the products and services that make the job creators rich. If you kill the middle class, you’ll still have your rich, but you’ll have fewer of them and the pie will be smaller for everyone. Note: If you doubt this, consider the economic history of the U.S. in the de-regulated 1800s as opposed to the regulated post-depression 1900s</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">.</span><br />
6. Every abortion is a tragedy. While it is necessary in some rare cases, it shouldn't be used as a form of birth control. No one really knows when the spirit enters the body, so, for that reason, if for no other, we should err on the side of caution when it comes to abortion. And late-term, partial-birth abortions where the child is delivered live and then put to death afterwards is legalized murder. Virtually all of us fervently cling to life even if our circumstances aren't the best. If all those silenced male and female babies had a voice, they would plead eloquently for their lives.<br />
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Best regards, <br />
<br />
Jim <br />
Zurich</div>
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Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-54101440658700430222012-09-12T22:38:00.000+02:002012-09-12T22:38:39.054+02:00The Golden Goose Drives a Model T<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone knows Aesop’s story of the goose that laid the golden eggs. Eventually, assuming that the goose must have a stomach filled with gold, the owners killed the goose to get all the gold at once. As one writer put it, “Greed loses all by striving all to gain.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came across a wonderful article a few weeks ago in the New York Times titled, “When Capitalists Cared.” You can find it here: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/opinion/henry-ford-when-capitalists-cared.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/opinion/henry-ford-when-capitalists-cared.html</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The article talks a lot about Henry Ford and how, in 1914, shortly after he began producing the Model T, he raised the salaries of his workers to the unheard of amount of $5 per day. The article doesn’t mention it, but $5 was double the previous daily rate, and at the same time Ford also lowered the daily working hours from 9 to 8. Was he mad? Surely, his company would go broke from such generosity. Or stockholders would flee. Or workers would be spoiled and start feeling entitled and work less. I’m sure at $2.50 per nine hour day he was paying a fair and just wage by prevailing standards. Nevertheless, he doubled his workers’ wages and shortened their work hours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I ask, was he mad? Apparently not. Confirmed capitalist though he was, he improved the life of his workers for three reasons. First, the Model T assembly line jobs were so boring that Ford couldn’t hang onto his workers – they were constantly quitting. When he raised the salary to $5 per day, the story goes, the wives pressured their husbands into staying. Second, by shortening the workday to 8 hours, he could run three shifts a day and increase production. But third, he reasoned that if workers were paid enough, they could own a Model T themselves, and his business would grow and all would prosper. And he was right. If he had crushed his workers under his heel, he might have made stronger short-term profits but surely his company, and probably the entire industry, never would have seen the dramatic growth it eventually achieved. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe the stories of the goose and the Model T are related. Capitalism unregulated can be a most vicious enterprise and quite capable of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, i.e., crushing the middle class that it needs to buy its goods and services. Think of the industrial age in Britain and America, the stories of Charles Dickens, the sweatshops, the workers tossed out when injured, the child labor – all justified under the banner of freedom, capitalism, and the law of supply and demand. And it never would have changed if the progressive Teddy Roosevelt hadn’t been vice-president when William McKinley was assassinated. Roosevelt promised Americans a ‘square deal.’ He regulated businesses and busted the trusts. One of his first speeches to congress after becoming president was to ask their help in limiting the power of large corporations. He also proposed common sense regulations for the food industry. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A healthy society can only occur when the symbiotic relationship between capitalists, stockholders, employees, and customers is clearly understood. There was a time when I thought that capitalists could be trusted to maintain that balance, trusted not to kill the golden goose. Certainly, capitalists like Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard who founded computer company HP, were men who understood their responsibility to society. They built a company that built an industry that built a powerful middle class – who then bought HP products and other companies’ products and cars, and homes, and appliances, and sent their children to colleges and trade schools, and so the next generation prospered too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now, I sense the capitalists of old are returning and for massive, obscene personal profits would risk destabilizing society, heartlessly driving up unemployment, and squeezing the very middle class that would buy its products. Aesop’s fables have stood the test of time because they’ve never stopped being relevant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Best regards, </span></span></div>
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Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-33770707044898425502012-09-08T12:04:00.000+02:002012-09-08T12:04:47.159+02:00What Tiger Hunting and Ceramic Guns Have in Common<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the sequel to <em>Einstein’s Trunk</em> – titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Thousand Suns</i> –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scheduled to be published by Cedar Fort next March, I’m now working slowly away on the third and final book of the trilogy titled: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A World of Hurt</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I’m writing, I’m becoming ever more convinced that I’m doing myself and my readers a service when I weave interesting facts and details into the plots of my books. In ET, there were true but little known details about Einstein’s life, nuclear weapons, asteroids, and CERN. For the sequel, I’ve thrown in some interesting details on tiger hunting in Siberia, Aryan Nation rhetoric, biological weapons, and illegal ceramic gun technology that can evade airport security scanners. Note: I hope I’ve peaked your interest in the 2<sup>nd</sup> book just a little.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ATS, my second book, was fun to write. I really had a good time developing Yohaba’s character. While Rulon plays a major role in the first 40% of the book, Yohaba takes over for the rest of it. Without giving away the plot, let me just say that she has a deep well of character and determination that I never fully understood – though Rulon obviously appreciated those traits and her charms right from the start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the third book, Rulon and Yohaba get dragged into the swirling complex world of Russian oligarchs, macro-economics, and multi-national corporations vying for profits. Oh, and the odd asteroid coming to destroy the earth. Weird, isn’t it? Yohaba says that all these weird things happen because Rulon is a whacko magnet, but we know it’s really because of Einstein’s trunk and the events it set in motion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Now that the Repubs and Dems have both had their conventions, I feel a surge of political insight coming on. Perhaps my next blog. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Jim </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Zurich </span></span></div>
Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-86894070700083391812012-08-30T21:57:00.000+02:002012-08-30T21:57:34.875+02:00Back in Zurich<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m back in Zurich now after working from South Africa for six weeks. We landed at the Zurich Flughafen about six in the morning after an eleven hour flight where we’d been unexpectedly upgraded by Swiss airlines to Business Class. I do believe the sweetest words in any language are, “Excuse me, sir, you’ve been upgraded” just as you are about to board an airplane for a long flight. After we landed, we left the plane briskly, walked along the moving walkways, took one minute to clear customs, and arrived at baggage claim to find our luggage had already beaten us there. Zurich and Swiss efficiency – you gotta love it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I must say that Johannesburg and the new Durban International airport gave Zurich a run for its money in the speedy luggage department this trip. We hardly had to wait at all in either place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speaking of South Africa: in my last post, I mentioned the shooting of the striking miners at the Lonmin platinum mine north of Johannesburg. Here’s the rest of the story. Things settled down after forty-four people had been killed, and now the miners have tossed out their unions and are negotiating directly with the mine owners. The miners are striking for more pay. They want an increase from 5,500 rand per month to 12,500. Well, it turns out they already are making 11,000 rand per month, but didn’t realize it. Somehow it never registered that money was taken out of their monthly paychecks for taxes, medical insurance, pension, and room and board (apparently they live in dormitories). Sad. Maybe the average miner didn’t realize what their true salaries were, but their leaders certainly did, and now the South African authorities are charging hundreds of the strikers with murder – presumably the leaders – for inciting the miners to attack the police. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Final note: South Africa has an unofficial unemployment rate of over 40%. You can’t really see it where we are in the beach community of Umhlanga, but in Durban, or if you move inland into the townships of Ndlovu and Kwamashu, crime is very high and things are very desperate. Young men without jobs have nothing to lose. Without a job they have no prospects of getting married or having a life. In South Africa there is an ironclad tradition among the Zulus of grooms paying a ‘lobola’ to the father of the bride – usually about 11 cows at 4,000 rand per cow – an impossible sum for a man without a job. Hence, crime and desperation are high.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-46312130690766873002012-08-17T20:44:00.000+02:002012-08-17T20:44:45.418+02:00The Price of Corruption<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m in South Africa right now and am very worried about the violence at the platinum mines northwest of Johannesburg. You might have read about it in the papers. It looks like the police were attacked by armed, striking miners and then in self-defense fired into the crowd killing thirty people. The miners are striking for higher pay but also there is friction between two unions. There is a new union stealing members from the older union by promising to triple their salary. To make matters worse, the older union is accused of being in collusion with the mining company and deliberately negotiating for lower wages. But perhaps fueling the flames the worst is the growing sense in the country that people are sick and tired of the broken promises and the rich fat cats flaunting their corruptly obtained wealth while the average person continues to live in poverty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I was here, I took the opportunity to visit an American multi-national company in Johannesburg and found out a little tidbit that relates indirectly to the violence at the mines. Back in the late ‘90s, when Thabo Mbeki was the president of South Africa, the government pushed through a law under the banner of Black Economic Empowerment that required every white company to give 20% of its wealth to black shareholders. Originally, when the powers that be came to this American company, worth about $100 billion at the time, they expected it to turn over $20 billion to people in the South African government. Notice I said ‘turn over to people’ not ‘turn over to the government’. Obviously, this company refused but then negotiated instead to put $millions into a job training program for disadvantaged black people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> But, for the privilege of continuing to operate in South Africa, many companies did simply hand over stock to ‘people’ in the South African government, and those people and their friends became instant millionaires and in some cases billionaires. They didn’t use the money for job training or low-cost housing. They used the money for huge homes and BMWs for themselves and lavish shopping sprees for their wives in Zurich and London. In the meantime, the average South African black person continued on with 40% unemployment, very high crime, poor housing, and other social inequalities. Oh, and promises, lots of promises from the ANC, the black political party that spearheaded the struggle against the apartheid government. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so now the ANC-led government is shooting strikers, reminiscent of the days when the apartheid government shot down demonstrators during the decades before it turned over power to Nelson Mandela. Will this miners’ strike be the spark that sets the country afire? I sincerely hope not; South Africa is a jewel of a country. But this much inequality is a powder keg waiting to explode. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-88662938513569400982012-08-07T21:52:00.000+02:002012-08-07T21:55:59.196+02:00An Olympic Story<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Around the world, we’re all watching the Olympics and marveling at what a show it has become. I’m in South Africa right now down near Durban and am not seeing the NBC coverage, but rather what sounds like coverage coming out of the BBC – still it’s a show. And I mean that in both a good sense and a bad sense. Truth is, athletics has many wonderful stories of human triumph and tears - with a little larceny and controversy occasionally thrown in. Right now the larceny is over the few drug cheats plus the badminton players who deliberately lost their matches so as to play in a weaker pool. The controversy seems to be over NBC’s decision to tape delay the major events instead of showing them live. Here in South Africa we see everything live so I’m not bothered by NBC’s corporate decision, and neither am I surprised. Corporations are in business to make a profit, not to win accolades from the purists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speaking of purists – I suppose I’m one of them when it comes to track and field. Since the first Olympics in 765 BC, athletics has stayed true to its roots. It's still about who can run the fastest, jump the furthest, and throw the best. But because people are involved, it's always been about more than just the numbers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite event so far has been the men’s 10,000 meter final won by Mo Farah of Great Britain with the silver medal going to 26 year old Galen Rupp of the U.S. As a long time subscriber to Track and Field News and a former distance runner myself, I have followed Galen’s career with great interest. He’s steadily progressed over the years while nevertheless getting regularly thrashed by the east African runners who have dominated world distance running for the last three decades. But then last year a breakthrough – Galen became only the second non-African to ever break 27 minutes in his signature event – the 10,000 meters. Since then he’s added a superlative last lap kick and now suddenly he is the Olympic silver medalist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here’s the story. Though from different countries and of different skin color, Mo Farah and Galen are close friends and teammates. They train together. They encourage each other. The other night, mid-way through the six and a quarter mile race, Mo, the more experienced runner of the two and the Olympic favorite, noticing Galen getting anxious as several runners started to pull away, tapped his friend on the shoulder and confidently told him to relax, that those runners would be coming back. And they did. Then later as Mo crossed the finish line he immediately looked back for Galen who was less than half a second behind, sprinting for all he was worth, having followed Mo through the tangle of runners, now mouth and eyes wide in realization that he’d secured a medal behind his friend. As Galen crossed the line, the two teammates found each other and hugged. Ahh…what a race and what an example of all that is right and good in these Olympic Games. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Umhlanga, South Africa<o:p></o:p></span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-77699167692206044272012-07-05T11:34:00.001+02:002012-07-05T11:39:03.362+02:00My Wife's Expressions<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this weekend in Strasbourg, France in the oft-disputed Alsace region on the German border. You could tell the area had been owned over the years by both the Germans and French – many streets signs were in German, the language was French, the cathedral architecture and much of the food was German, but the palace, pastries and chocolates were French. It was a nice combination: German rigor and order coupled with French warmth and chocolates! But I digress. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> My wife is South African British and I am American. In the early months of our marriage she surprised me almost every day with some new idiomatic British expression, to the point where I was soon able to understand the humor in Rowan Atkinson’s riotously funny <i>Black Adder</i> series. For example, when Hugh Laurie talked about discussing ‘LBW rules’ with his date, I was able, after only a few months of blissful matrimony, to laugh along with everyone else. By the way, LBW stands for ‘Leg Before Wicket’ – a cricket expression. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Now, after nine years of marriage I know just when to say ‘Bob’s your uncle’ and in exactly what kind of rainstorm to exclaim ‘it’s a regular monkey’s wedding out there, darling!’ But two of her expressions in particular have become favorites of mine: the first is, ‘there’s a lid for every pot’ and the second is ‘you must cut your cloth accordingly.’ Both have resulted in long philosophical discussions between us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> The first expression is usually said when discussing someone’s marriage prospects – the point being that the world is full of God’s children, each unique and amazing in their own right. For everyone who tries to live a basically good life, there is surely someone of the opposite sex who would appreciate him or her for their innate qualities – there is a lid for every pot. The second expression <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">is very apropos to this age of the world because it speaks to living within your budget – to cut your cloth according to how much cloth you have. Don’t spend above your means. Don’t put on airs. You have to make lifestyle choices in line with the reality of your situation. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Finally, my wife has taught me many things about life and love, and in so doing has caused me to appreciate stories in ways I never have before. For example, there are scenes in Ernest Hemingway’s <i>Farewell to Arms</i> that when I was younger, I wondered why they were in there. They were boring. Frederick and Catherine going for a walk in the snow and sitting on a bench, talking about nothing, then going back to their apartment. Why did Hemingway waste pen and paper to write that scene? It did nothing. Said nothing. But later I recognized that that scene accurately captured many of my wife’s and my favorite times together. Not doing anything exciting. Not saying anything profound. Just being together, sharing the mundanities of life, feeling peaceful in the quiet of a softly falling snow. A somewhat timeless feeling. What could be better? Oh, except on the way back to our apartment maybe stopping off at a local café to have a hot chocolate – one of those hot 4-blend chocolates so thick it could float a horseshoe, with a little wafer and a chocolate square on the side. With Kimmy, of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Zurich, July 5th 2012</span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-76553707081736360982012-06-28T09:07:00.001+02:002012-07-05T11:40:40.466+02:00Remembering<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> I’ve taken a rather long sabbatical from blog writing – mainly due to my father’s passing. He lived in a clean and comfortable veteran’s home in Florence, Colorado, about an hour south of Colorado Springs. We all ask ourselves sometimes how effectively our tax dollars are being spent. I must say whenever I visited my father in the rest home, it made me very proud of his service to our country during World War Two, but also proud that our country took such good care of its veterans. The rest home was extremely well run and the staff were friendly and kind to the residents. Also, the medical care was top notch. If my father had any medical issues, they were immediately taken care of even if the tests or treatments were expensive. Further, the home’s policy was to respect the agency of the residents. The veterans were well treated, and I'm especially grateful to my country for that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my father’s case, the rest home was a blessing. He’d been in other rest homes that cost $thousands per month where the service wasn’t half as good as he had in the Veteran’s Home. The price for admission into the home was to turn over his social security and pension checks – about $1500 per month. I’ve done a little checking and I’m convinced that in the free market, the price for the services he received would have been $6-8,000 per month. Who could afford that except the rich? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father was born in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1924. His father had served in World War One, suffering permanent injuries as a result of being gassed during a battle in France. Nevertheless, my father’s father was a steady worker at Con Edison even during the Depression, until one day he and 5,000 other men were laid off. For my dad’s family, the Depression began then. My father enlisted during World War Two and fought in the Pacific as a U.S. Navy SeaBee – the Navy’s construction battalion. He saw plenty of action, including surviving 3 banzai charges one night on a small island named Los Negros. He later also saw action on Saipan when Japanese soldiers overran an airstrip he was working on. He told the story of how, prior to that fight, General MacArthur came to inspect the airstrip and though there were Japanese in the jungle all around, when MacArthur walked the length and breadth of the strip not a single shot was fired. He said that even the Japanese recognized MacArthur’s special aura. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father worked hard all his life. If he ever missed a day of work, I’m not aware of it. We used to live in Brooklyn, New York back in the ‘60s and during the occasional transit strike there, he would walk the 90 minutes each way to his job at the New York Journal American – the Hearst newspaper that folded in 1966. He worked in the Reference Room, where he was one of half a dozen people who every day read every major magazine and newspaper in the country. The newsworthy articles were then cut out and filed in uncounted numbers of cabinets that filled the floor of his office. Needless to say my father was the best Trivial Pursuit player I ever knew. He loved his job at the newspaper. Because he sometimes used the reference room for research, Hemingway used to come by at Christmas and leave a bottle for the boys. Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe came by several times, and Mickey Mantle once slept off a night of heavy drinking on one of the office cots. My father carried these memories with him all his life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1966, after the Journal American went out of business after a pointless 140 day strike, my father took his severance pay (I believe around $2,000 after almost 20 years of working at the paper) and the family moved to San Francisco. Moving there changed my life and I’ll always be grateful to my parents for making what must have been at the time a terrifying move. My father didn’t have a job to go to. Eventually he found one and we settled down. However, my father always thought of himself as a New Yorker. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father died peacefully and without pain on May 31<sup>st</sup>. My mother passed away in 2001. They are both greatly missed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-77013607319776007772012-05-12T18:04:00.002+02:002012-05-12T18:06:23.660+02:00Pet Peeves About American Business<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the best things about having your own blog is that you can indulge your pet peeves. One of mine is news articles that attempt to excuse bad behavior in the rich and powerful. Recently passed away Steve Jobs of Apple was a great visionary leader, but, based solely on the articles I’ve read, I’m glad I never worked for him. Call me picky, but I don’t like being yelled at or publicly humiliated. And I don’t like arrogant people – don’t even like being in the same room with them even if they are geniuses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> The reason I bring this up is that there have been a few articles written lately about Steve Jobs’s ‘management style’, and I’m worried that too many managers in the tech world will get the wrong message and think that his somewhat abusive style was the key to his success. Trust me. It wasn’t. The reason I’m worried, though, is that I’ve seen a trend in the IT world over the past ten years away from the benevolent, consultative, respectful management practices of the late 20<sup>th</sup> century towards a more dictatorial, tops-down, and largely ineffective style. It seems that all the findings about human motivation and proper boss-employee relationships developed in the post World War Two era are being discarded at an even faster rate than American manufacturing jobs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> So let me state this unequivocally: No matter how successful Steve Jobs or any other CEO was or is, leaders who listen to, trust their employees, and treat them with respect will have far greater success in the long run. Arrogance is a negative character trait. It turns people off and de-motivates employees. No one except a cringing sycophant works harder for an arrogant manager.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is another particularly galling negative management trait besides arrogance – and that is incompetence. And in my experience the two are frequently found together. Along with the growing arrogance of many overpaid CEOs today, there is a growing trend towards incompetence – and the way the deck is stacked these days, it’s ultimately the workers who pay the price for that all too common coupling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me illustrate this with two stories. First story: I was in California last week and took the opportunity to walk across the now almost deserted campus of a once thriving electronics company. It was still a wonderful site with large impressive buildings and magnificent trees, a campus originally intended for the thousands of highly paid, highly motivated workers who built one of the world’s great businesses. But today it is all but deserted. So, I asked myself: Who were the giants? - the men who created and grew the business that needed this campus, or the current crop of managers who have efficiently and cost-effectively overseen its shrinkage and sent thousands of jobs overseas? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s the second example: This story was reported in the press as part of a commentary on why so many manufacturing jobs have left America. The story goes that after a few weeks of carrying a prototype iPhone around in his pocket, Steve Jobs noticed the plastic screen was getting scratched and decided, just weeks before the product launch, to switch to a glass screen. To accomplish this, the Chinese manufacturing company where Apple had outsourced the assembly, roused employees at midnight from their slumber in the company dormitories, to immediately begin making the new phones as soon as the glass screens arrived. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> According to the article, it was necessary for Jobs to move manufacturing jobs to China – because American workers weren’t flexible enough – they were too pampered to sleep in dorms or to come back to work at midnight after an all-day shift. The article also saw this situation as a positive commentary on Steve Jobs’s management style. He was decisive. Able to make the tough decisions. Would accept nothing less than perfect quality. A man who bent others to his will regardless of the consequences. And powerful. Say what?? Excuse me! A clear-eyed look at this story reveals an entirely different conclusion. And certainly nothing in the story should be taken as a justification for moving jobs overseas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a 34 year veteran of the IT industry, let me say that the Jobs story was a perfect example of bad management and the waste of company resources to placate an oversized ego. With better planning, the issue with the plastic screen would have been detected long before the product ship-date, thereby saving Apple $millions in panic buying and overtime pay – not to mention the disruption to his employee’s work schedules and to the other projects they no doubt were working on. To me it was a great lesson in how poor planning leads to wasted money. But in the case of Apple, Jobs had the $millions to placate his ego and insulate himself from his lack of proper oversight of a critical project. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Further, if this is the reason American companies have moved manufacturing jobs to China – to make up for bad planning on the part of their managers – then shame on them. Germany has managed to keep its manufacturing jobs, but only because German workers’ councils forced their country’s CEOs to put their thinking caps on to solve the problem rather than to take the easy way out and simply ship German jobs overseas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t decided what my next post will be on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zurich</span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-89451485045963682702012-04-23T09:08:00.000+02:002012-04-23T18:28:49.683+02:00Sitcoms That Have Survived the Test of Time<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 22pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Which is the best sitcom ever made? I suppose the answer depends on which generation you’re from. </span>But what do you think? Will earthlings still be watching reruns of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seinfeld</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Friends</i> in fifty years? Perhaps not, and that is why I find it so remarkable that you can still find <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Andy Griffith Show</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leave it to Beaver</i> – two sitcoms from the sixties – on the rerun circuit. And why are they still around? Because they were both amazingly, wonderfully written, funny, real, and filled with great, enduring characters. Of such are great stories made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A traveling salesman once told me of an experience he had stopping at a rough bar/restaurant in Montana. It was lunchtime and the place was packed and noisy. Above the din, Jerry Springer blared from a wall-mounted TV, but no one was paying attention. The salesman asked the bartender if he could change the channel and at first the bartender refused. Eventually though he relented and happened to turn to the Andy Griffith show with good old Andy, Opie (who grew up to be director Ron Howard), Aunt Bea, Gomer Pyle, and one of the most enduring characters in sitcom history – Don Knotts as Barney Fife. Within five minutes the restaurant was quiet as everyone focused on the TV and watched this G-rated comedy weave its story of characters interacting in a small town in North Carolina. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leave it to Beaver</i> has had a similar universal appeal over the years. Back in 1979, I was working full-time and attending Foothill Junior College in Los Altos Hills, California about 35 miles south of San Francisco. I was taking a class in Radio and TV broadcasting towards a two-year degree in Social Science. The class was loaded with twenty to thirty year-olds, most of whom had ambitions of being disk jockeys on a rock-and-roll station. Usually classes were quiet affairs, the professor lecturing and most of the class seemingly bored, stoned, and staring out the window or fighting to stay awake. However, one day the professor made the mistake of making an off-hand slightly derogatory remark about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leave it to Beaver</i> – some reference to it being an unrealistic show that could appeal only to straight-laced Americans. I’m sure to the professor, it seemed like a safe comment to make to the mostly long-haired, alternative students in his class. But to his and my surprise, suddenly the class came to life. Eyes opened. Students sat up. Chins lifted from palms. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Excuse me,” said one long-haired, red-eyed student. “I rush home from school every day at 4:30 to catch the reruns.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“C’mon,” said the teacher. “June Cleaver (the mother) wearing pearls while she vacuums. Ward, her husband, wearing a suit to dinner every night. How ridiculous!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A half-stoned student roused himself and said aggressively, “Every show is like me and my little brother when we were growing up.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The class buzzed angrily. Voices of agreement peppered the room while the teacher looked bewildered and tried arguing back. A vigorous five minute discussion ensued at the end of which the teacher had to back-pedal on his comments to prevent a riot from breaking out (okay, slight exaggeration). </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leave it to Beaver</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> ran from 1957 to 1963 and was created by former <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amos ‘n’ Andy writers</i> Bob Mosher and Joe Connolly who also wrote all 234 episodes. The stories were simple and timeless. Beaver and his older brother Wally deliver newspapers to earn money for a bicycle. Aunt Martha buys Beaver short pants to wear to school. Ward loans Beaver a dollar. Wally’s smarmy friend Edie Haskell, another all-time great sitcom character, gives Beaver a lesson on girls. Simple, gentle stories that nevertheless touched something real and good and timeless in many people. And in its own way, it was much more realistic in its portrayal of children and adolescents than many of the shows I see on TV today. Today, children in sitcoms are given dialogue by the adult writers that all too often portray them as little adults, smarter and more worldly-wise than their parents, and more hip about sex. Now that is what I call unrealistic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">My next post will be something political or perhaps a commentary on the evolution of corporate culture. Or maybe not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zurich <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-73152123331824147672012-04-18T10:00:00.002+02:002012-04-19T15:34:50.696+02:00A Powerful Writing Technique and One Element of a Realistic Thriller<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came across a wonderful article on writing in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> written by Constance Hale, a San Francisco journalist. <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/make-or-break-verbs/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120417">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/make-or-break-verbs/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120417</a> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The article talked about the power of verbs and other action words and how important they are in giving power, clarity, and action to sentences, even to descriptions. The points made in that article were also made in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keys to Great Writing</i> by Stephen Wilbers where he cited an excellent example of using action words in descriptions, taken from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Gatsby</i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>“The lawn <u>started</u> at the beach and <u>ran</u> toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> <u>jumping</u> over sun-dials and brick walls, and <u>burning</u> gardens – </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">finally when it <u>reached</u> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> the house, <u>drifting</u> up the side in bright vines as though from the <u>momentum</u> of its <u>run</u>.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: -7.5pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So there it is, a simple yet powerful writing technique. I have also noticed that one of my favorite thriller writers, Olen Steinhauer, takes this technique a step further by linking many of his descriptions to the actions of his characters thereby killing two birds with one stone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s an example from the first page of Steinhauer’s latest thriller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Spy</i>: “She’d been sitting, uncharacteristically, with a salad on her desk, staring out the window where, just over the trees, she could see distant storm clouds.” Notice how the description of the environment is not treated as a separate subject but is tied into the actions of the main character. We know in that single sentence that she is sitting in her office, has a desk, is eating a salad, that the office has a window that she’s been staring through, and that outside a storm was brewing. Really, an amazing amount of information communicated in a single sentence. A less skillful writer would have taken an entire paragraph or two to accomplish the same thing: first describing the room and a bunch of useless details, then talking about the person inside it and what she was doing. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BTW, my second book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Thousand Suns</i> has received some positive comments from publishers, including one acceptance. Publishers like the main character and find the book entertaining and well written, but competition is fierce in the industry and the book is not standard thriller fare – it’s not as grim as most thrillers tend to be. There is some humor mixed in with the action. And I do that by conscious choice. I find too many thrillers take themselves way too seriously. They want to be angry, realistic thrillers snarling their way into readers’ hearts. In fact, they’re rarely as realistic as the authors think they are. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> There is more to writing a realistic thriller than just knowing the name of some obscure clandestine department in the U.S. government and the kinds of eavesdropping equipment they use. It is far more important to be emotionally realistic, i.e., having your characters express the correct emotions in various situations. For example, I don’t care for thrillers that treat death and killing lightly. In real life, normal people who kill another human being, even when it is justifiable, pay a terrible price psychologically. If you don’t believe that, I suggest reading, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On Combat – the psychology and physiology of deadly conflict in war and peace</i> by Lt. Co. Dave Grossman and Loren W.Christensen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My next post will be on a possible change in the economic winds. Is it my imagination or are manufacturing jobs starting to leave China and come back to the West? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zurich </span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-67276623740894195702012-04-09T09:26:00.001+02:002012-04-10T07:02:03.812+02:00New Zealand and the Hobsonville 7/8th grade class<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">New Zealand reminds me of California, and Auckland reminds me a bit of San Francisco – both places that I love. It’s something about the freshness of the air, the richness of the blue sky, the emerald green grass, and strangely, the trees, many of which species I thought I recognized from my teenage days running through SF’s Golden Gate park. In any case, NZ is a beautiful place, and though we had been told constantly by our daughter that it rains a lot, we had nothing but good weather during the two weeks we were there. A highlight was driving three hours north of Auckland to the Bay of Islands, taking a ferry to the town of Russell, eating at some great restaurants, and para-sailing a thousand feet in the air on a spectacularly clear and beautiful morning. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another highlight was Brad, my son-in-law, inviting me to teach two creative writing classes to his 7/8<sup>th</sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>grade students at Hobsonville Grammar school in West Harbor just across the bay from Auckland. What a great experience! I don’t normally get to talk to kids that age, and I was blown away by their eagerness to learn, their respectfulness, and their degree of participation. I wish everyone could meet Brad’s class. If they did, they’d come away with a renewed confidence in the future. These kids were bright, fun, and highly imaginative. We did some writing exercises, including a fun one where they got to write a paragraph using only single syllable words. Try it sometime and you’ll learn a lot about the power and versatility of small words! I also left two copies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Einstein’s Trunk</i> – autographed, of course – as a prize for a writing contest they’ll be having once they are back from vacation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While on holiday, I also had a chance to read several thrillers including an early one by Martin Cruz Smith called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stallion Gate</i>, and two by Olen Steinhauer: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liberation Movements</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bridge of Sighs</i>. Let me preface my remarks by saying that both men are exceptionally gifted writers. The problem is that both have written masterpieces and by that standard, for me at least, none of these books was quite up to their best work. However, all were still a quantum leap better written than the average thriller you’d pull off a book shelf. For example, as soon as I finished <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liberation Movement</i>, I picked up a thriller that came highly recommended on the Amazon Kindle book site. Compared to Smith and Steinhauer the writing quality was sophomoric. I read ten pages and put it down. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next posting, perhaps an update on the battle to publish <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Thousand Suns</i> and the necessity to be true to yourself as a writer. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Auckland, New Zealand</span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-45995454425659393572012-03-28T21:14:00.000+02:002012-03-28T21:14:34.751+02:00Viva Stockholm!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been a busy month at work and home lately, hence, it’s been four weeks since my last posting. However, despite my neglect, my blog did hit a milestone last week, having reached its 2000<sup>th</sup> hit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been flying around a bit including visiting Stockholm, one of my most favorite cities and Las Vegas one of my least. What I like most about Stockholm are the Swedish people: direct but friendly, outspoken but honest. And a bit of a puzzle as well. Here they are, the poster child for European socialism and yet their economy is booming along just fine. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While at dinner a few nights ago a native Swede explained to me how their safety net worked. If a woman has a baby, she and the father get a total 500 or 600 days paid leave. To encourage fatherly involvement, a minimum 50 of those days has to be used by the man. Since there are only 5 working days in a week, 500 days paid leave would amount to 100 weeks paid vacation. The man and woman could split the days equally if they wanted. On top of that all education is free up through college. Also, there is universal medical coverage for everyone in the country, not just citizens. What else? Unemployment benefits aren’t a lot, maybe $2,000 per month. But it lasts until you find a job. The Swedish people sustain all this through pretty heavy taxation – perhaps over 50% for most taxpayers. The people I learned this from all agreed that the system works because Swedish people are socialists at heart. They don’t believe individuals should be able to amass great wealth, plus they work hard and have a culture that discourages welfare fraud. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Las Vegas, on the other hand, is the city I joke is dedicated to people who flunked math in high school. The morning I left the Aria, a magnificent 4000 room hotel, I had to walk through a bustling casino at 6:30 a.m. Yes, that’s right, roulette wheels spinning, black jack tables and craps tables full. The party never ends. I guess the economy must be picking up. The one positive thing I can say is that Las Vegas can teach the world a thing or two about customer service. The hotel staff was impeccably trained. Also, saw a few shows, including David Copperfield, who, I am convinced, would have been burned at the stake if he’d been born 400 years earlier. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During my travels, I found time to read a few books including two by Olen Steinhauer, i.e., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">36 Yalta Boulevard </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Olen’s latest, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Spy</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Wow</span>, that man can write. Just like fellow thriller writer Martin Cruz Smith, Olen manages to weave an extremely complex and rich story, seemingly effortlessly, slipping in details and descriptions as part of the plot and action. This is a gift and extremely difficult to master. Most writers stop the action in the book to describe the scene or a person. Steinhauer keeps pushing the action and dialogue while weaving his clear, vivid descriptions. For example, rather than pausing to describe a person directly by saying something like, “the man had a double chin,’ he will instead write, “The man pulled at his double-chin,” or “the shattered window reminded Milo of the pieces of his life he’d left behind.” This sounds easy to do when it’s only for a sentence or two, but try doing it for an entire book and for practically every description. It’s an art, and the effect is to keep the plot moving relentlessly. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> My next posting will be from New Zealand as my wife and I are traveling there to visit my beloved step-daughter and her husband. It will be our first visit there. Should be an experience. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">All the best, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="" name="_MailAutoSig"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Jim</span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _MailAutoSig;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-no-proof: yes;">Zurich, Switzerland</span></span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-89235777217930045772012-02-20T20:13:00.000+01:002012-02-20T20:13:02.649+01:00A Lovely Day in Zurich and a Disappointing Movie<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> It’s been a month since my last posting. I plead post-vacation email catch-up as an excuse. Like so many people these days, I tried to keep up on my work-email while on vacation but all I managed to do was stem the tide. I’ve decided that for every week you take off, it takes an additional week of working extra hard to catch up. In my case, I took a month off. So it goes…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife was traveling on business on Valentine’s Day so we didn’t celebrate it until the following Saturday. We then went to our favorite Zurich restaurant Tres Kilos (Rulon’s second favorite after <em>The</em> <em>Desperado</em>),– a wonderful, yes, Mexican restaurant only a few blocks away from the American consulate in Zurich. Those of you who read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Einstein’s Trunk</i> will remember that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tres Kilos</i> is where Rulon took Yohaba after the killing in the Honggerberg forest. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before dinner we did a walking/window shopping tour of Zurich, stopped at the Storchen hotel for the best hot chocolate in the world (and at $9.50 for a somewhat small by American standards cup, maybe one of the most expensive) and then had some glazed, chocolate covered orange slices from a nearby Springli chocolate store.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After dinner, as an extra treat, we saw a movie we’d been chomping at the bit to see ever since we heard about it: The remake of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tinker, Tailor</i>… starring Gary Oldham as George Smiley, the aged, bespeckled, overweight spy, based on the novel by John LeCarre. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alas, the movie was a disappointment. I’m sure the producers, actors, and directors did what they thought was best, but the 1979 BBC Alec Guinness mini-series, I’m afraid, has set a very, very high bar. It was so unbelievably good. There were so many scenes in the six-hour BBC version that were so well constructed, that maybe this new two-hour movie never stood a chance. In any case, there wasn’t a single scene in the new movie that was as powerful as the comparable scene in the original. Also, while it must have been a real challenge for the movie to condense the book to only two hours, I felt they had superfluous scenes, that if they had not been there, they could have had more time for LeCarre’s priceless dialogue. The book was not about men staring silently while they tracked down the mole in British Intelligence. The book was about Smiley’s relentless interrogations of his co-workers to finally arrive at the truth. Again, we see that making good movies is extremely difficult. There are so many mistakes that can be made. When a team gets it right, they should be applauded. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Next week: for my birthday, my wife bought me an Apple Macbook Air. I will talk about my experience and wax lyrical on changes in the IT industry. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zurich</span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7941373855117031675.post-8451057052621462002012-01-27T19:33:00.001+01:002012-01-27T19:38:46.274+01:00The Men Who Would be President<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An acquaintance in Europe once made an offhand remark to me that America doesn’t have freedom of the press. I looked at him strangely, thinking he was making a joke, but he was dead serious. And dead wrong. America has the freest press in the world. The problem is there’s too much of it, and we are swamped under a daily blizzard of truth and lies. The truth is out there on any subject you care to name – even the Kennedy assassination. The problem is knowing how to find it when deluged by a flood of papers, books, blogs, opinions, interviews, twitters, articles, billboards, and PAC ads all seeming to contradict each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nowhere is this more evident than now during the U.S. presidential primaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> To paraphrase an old joke, the process for becoming president is so painful and embarrassing that any man who willingly runs for the office should be considered too dumb to handle the job. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> With all that said, h</span>ere is an article by Anne Coulter, a conservative spokesperson and wit comparing Mitt Romney with Newt Gingrich. She does a great job of sifting through the nonsense. I’m not always in agreement with Ms. Coulter's opinion pieces. She’s too unflinchingly conservative for my taste. I like my columnists to fool me sometimes and agree with the opposition once in a while – after all, no one can be wrong on every issue 100% of the time. In any case, I feel that in this article she gave an honest and accurate appraisal of the two leading candidates for the Republican nomimation: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-01-25.html">http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-01-25.html</a> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> In my next post, I will discuss one of my proudest moments – I recently set up my new cable converter box and WLAN all in the same day, and they worked. Or maybe I’ll discuss two young adult books I recently read, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hunger Games</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ender’s Game</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Best regards, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Jim </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Zurich</span></div>Jim Haberkornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10237898555289333046noreply@blogger.com0