Vantage Point

However tragic, the recent deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown have given some insight to the way people interpret information.

In the Brown case, we have a young black male who committed larceny, was insubordinate to a police officer, then attacked the police officer. Or, we have a black man who was profiled by a white cop who shot the black man even though he was clearly unarmed.

With Garner, we have a man with a criminal record who resisted arrest and required extra force to subdue because of his size. The officer applied a legal "hold" and Garner died because of a pre-existing condition. Or we have a man who was being hassled by cops, passively resisted, and was strangled to death even though he was unarmed and non threatening.

Cherry Picking

The more intriguing aspect comes when people identify different stories to support their view. I saw a conservative friend on Facebook post a Washington Times story about a black cop who shot an unarmed white teen. Instead of mourning the tragedy, he complained that the liberal media wasn't covering this because it didn't "fit their agenda."

People will choose to pay attention to whichever details complete their narrative and assign no value to contradictory elements. They will never be persuaded. The world is one big choose-your-own-adventure story.

A Humane Approach

I read about a white man in Florida who shot and stabbed his mother. Then he went Norman Reedus and fired an arrow into her ahead, apparently in case she "turned." The man was armed with a knife and resisting arrest when the police arrived, yet they managed to subdue him by using a stun gun. Why can't we, as a society, be looking for ways to make this type of arrest the norm rather than gun shots and choke holds?

The weakest argument is the "he was asking for it" narrative. It's the same argument that shifts blame to the rape victim for being flirty and dressing too promiscuously. Certainly, if Garner and Brown had been compliant it is very likely they would both be alive now. But if we can agree that rape is categorically wrong, why can't we agree the killing an unarmed, non-threatening man is categorically wrong (I realize the term "non threatening" may or may not apply to Brown based on whose testimony you read. But the passive Garner was evident to anyone with a YouTube account)?

Effective Change

If we want change, the worst thing we can do is make this about race. We have effectively turned racism into a dirty word. It still exits, but at the subconscious level. Most people do not consider themselves racists, even if their actions say otherwise. So to accuse someone of racism puts them on the defensive, turning the ordeal into an argument that will never settle.

We're more likely to see change if we address issues like the police union protecting bad cops, who are a small minority of the entire force. Or fixing the legislative system that treats cops differently than the rest of us. There are good cops out there and it's not fair to lump them in with those who abuse power.

I once read about the folly of the term "black-on-black crime." It's just crime. Likewise, we need the conversation to be about the lives of the innocent. Were Garner and Brown guilty of misdemeanors? Yes, but did they deserve to die?

Ice Bucket Challenges and the Jackass Complex

At the end of every episode of Jackass, there was a message requesting viewers not "send us videos of you being jackasses." It was clearly a retroactive request, since the show prompted America's youth to find other clever ways to hurt and humiliate themselves on camera and somehow thought Johnny Knoxville wanted to see them. Jackass wanted none of the responsibility for the injuries and deaths that would ensue, so the disclaimer went up.

I think about this phenomenon of physical abuse going viral because that is what has made the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge so successful. Facebook is the perfect platform for sharing jackassery. A bucket of ice has nothing to do with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. But it doesn't matter. If you tell someone to film themselves being a jackass, then dare their friends to match them, you have yourself a viral campaign.

When Murphy's Law is updated to the twenty-first century, it will include the maxim: when anything on the internet becomes too popular, too fast, it will receive harsh backlash. We've already seen the Huffington Post criticize those who participate without donating and even a satirical column about California fining residents for wasting water. Not to mention deaths linked to the challenge.

The fact that the connection between ice and ALS was almost non existent doesn't matter. The campaign worked. Not only with money but with awareness. Everyone with a Facebook account has at least heard of ALS. And it never seemed to get old watching a different friend dump freezing water on themselves so it never got too repetitive hearing about it.

The challenge is the ultimate humblebrag. It's both ostentatious (Look at me! I'm filming myself and helping a charity!) and self-deprecating (I'm humiliating myself by dumping ice-cold water all over me). But mostly it worked because it tapped into our frat boy/hazing nature and gave us a reason to act like jackasses.

Writing For Everyone

My creative writing professor used to say: "We don't write about ideas. We write at ideas."

It took me a while to really get what he meant. When you write at ideas, you never quite get there because the topics are ineffable. They transcend language. This is the challenge good writers take.

Although I love creative writing, I also worry that we're not doing enough to teach students hirable skills.

Doing a good job of writing at ideas earns the respect of other writers, editors and publishers. Doing a good job of writing about ideas earns you a paycheck. More people read Buzzfeed than McSweeney's. This is the sad truth.

Until recently, I thought the two styles were mutually exclusive.

I was reading ESPN the Magazine recently. Whenever I love the writing of a particular column, I flip back to see who wrote it. More often than not, it's Tim Keown. I love his writing. Not because his reporting unearths astounding facts or because he uses sabermeterics to explain the success of Mark Buerhle. He just has a great way of making me care about his subjects, which seems so rare in sports writing.

That's when I realized: Tim Keown writes about sports. He writes at humanity.

I think both are necessary even though I think most writers, even successful ones, choose only one. It should be about nourishing your mind and your soul.

Creative Tension and Jedi Mindtrickery

David Brooks wrote an interesting column about creative tension. He opens with an example of the tension between John Lennon and Paul McCartney and how it led to some of The Beatles' best work. This made my ego think: Does David Brooks read my blog. (Of course not. Right?)

Later in the column he mentions how we should strive to hold what Roger Martin calls "the opposable mind — the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time."

Everything I know about psychology tells me that the mind does not like this, it will actively work to reduce the dissonance. But I always think of it operating on the subconscious level, never at the conscious level where it will actually provide clarity. Interesting.

I was recently the victim of such dissonance when a salesman Jedi mind-tricked me. The gentleman was giving his pitch about why his windows are the greatest. Before he got to prices, he asked me to complete a brief survey just to evaluate his own performance.

I was asked to grade on a scale of one to five what I thought of the quality of the windows, what I thought of his presentation, and what I thought of him. With the exception of sociopaths, most people are generally nice to guests in their house. He spent a lot of time talking about his windows and I don't want to tell him they're not that great. (I actually still think they're great windows). I was genial and gave him good grades.

When we moved on to pricing, it was out of my range. "Do you think they're worth the money?" he asked. Subconsciously, of course I did. I had already given them a five out of five. I couldn't say I didn't want the windows and consider them great windows at the same time – those are two opposable ideas. Obi Wan Salesman had already set my mind in the path of wanting the windows without even talking about purchasing them.

I got him to come down on the price rather significantly but I still wonder what would have happened if the survey was never a part of his pitch. That one move planted the seed, predisposing me to wanting the windows before I had even made up my mind because I was unable to hold two opposable ideas at the same time: I want to be nice to you vs. I don't want to buy your high-end windows.

How to Reduce Rather than Avoid Mass Shootings

I can't make up my mind about guns. I can't even call the issue gun control or gun rights because whichever phrase you choose automatically places you in one camp.  My friend once said, "I would give up my right to own a firearm if it brought back just one of those kids from Newtown." I'll start there.

I do not own a firearm, but I am open to the possibility. Black bears have been spotted in suburban neighborhoods near my home recently. I have two dogs and a young child, I cannot think of a better way to protect my family than a firearm. I do not hunt, but my wife's family does. I will never understand how valuable hunting is to the culture of rural Pennsylvania, but I imagine that taking it away would remove a limb of their identity. There are good reasons for guns being legal. Here are some bad ones:

• The second amendment ensures my protection against a tyrannical government. (The government has bombs, flame throwers, and thousands of well-trained men and women. If they want to take your house, your assault rifle isn't going to stop them.)
• If you outlaw guns, people will just use knives. (You know what's a great defense against a knife? Two working legs. I can outrun a knife, I can't outrun a bullet. You don't hear about too many drive-by knivings. I understand the logic behind this, but if a few knivings replace lots of shootings, that's a win.)
• Outlawing guns won't stop bad people from using them. (As Jon Stewart once said, murder is illegal and people do it anyway. That doesn't mean we make murder legal.)

With any decision, we have to look through the cost/benefit analysis lens. There are serious costs to outlawing guns all together, so the benefits need to be worth it. If the benefit were a definitive "no more shootings," the cost is absolutely worth it. But I think even the most radical gun control advocate knows that isn't true. There have been so many guns disseminated in the country for so many years you could never track them down and destroy them. Comparing us to another country's gun control success is futile because we are so different. But that doesn't have to be the end of the conversation.

As one of my brother's friends pointed out on Facebook, after the Boston bombings, no one blamed the bomb. So why after shootings do we blame the gun? Is he right? What was so different about the bombing?

Bombings are rare because bombs are illegal and difficult to make for the average sufferer of mental health. The question we have to ask is: can we make shootings as rare as bombings?

John Kerry was once asked how to end terrorism. He responded that you can never really end terrorism, you try to contain it. There have been 74 shootings since Newtown. How many of those could have been prevented with some type of legislation: better mental health access, gun owner bracelets, banning assault rifles or the amount of gun/ammo a person can own? I know the answer is not all 74, because a percentage of that group is industrious enough to take the steps to ensure they take another's life.

Let's look at banning the assault rifle. The less ammo Adam Lanza had, the less shots he would have fired, the less children he would have hit. He'd still be a monstrous killer, but legislation would have reduced the number of dead children. We can't fix stupid, but can we contain it?

Lanza took his mother's weapons; he never had to buy any. So any gun legislation will take a while to impact the next generation of mass shootings, but the idea is to find ways to crowd out the on-the-fence killer. A certain percentage of those 74 shooters were always going to find a way; that's the world we live in. Maybe we should focus on what we can contain.

My Personal Battle With Language

The funny thing about being an editor is that it enables an unnecessary sense of power. Whether you're using AP, APA, or Chicago Manual of Style, you get so used to correcting a particular wording or phrase that it starts to bother you when you see it used incorrectly. Especially if you're not in a position to edit it.

We become so used to adhering to this guide that we start to believe that it was carved into a tablet centuries ago, transcribed from the direct words of God.

I use Chicago Manual of Style at work but am familiar with AP. I belong to a LinkedIn group at my alma mater that features mostly journalists and PR professionals who use AP. One of them started a discussion about AP's recent change to accept "over" as interchangeable with "more than" when referencing quantity. Panic ensued.

I've been trying to wrap my mind around why this irritates people. I think that whatever you were taught as the "right" way to do something as a youth, you imagine was always that way. "Over" was never used for quantity, how can we change it now?

I think the other reason is power. AP editors have continuously corrected persons using "over" instead of "more than." Now they have to let it go, which means they lose a little bit of that power.

My English professor used to say that the word sycophant used to mean "one who smuggles figs." It disappeared for centuries and only reappeared recently with the meaning "a person who praises powerful people in order to get their approval." Language is a synthetic, human invention. We give meaning to words. Not lexicographers or editors, we as a whole. It's a democratic process.

Now that I've gone all high and mighty, I'm still mad about the acceptance of "literally" and it's new, not-so-literal definition. People say "literally" when they mean "figuratively." I'm fine with adding new meanings, except that "literally" and "figuratively" mean the exact opposite. So now, "literally" means "literally" and "the exact opposite of literally."

Thanks to everyone for screwing this up. You couldn't have just said "My head exploded"? You had to say "My head literally exploded" and add extra confusing language that your directionless friends assumed was the right way to use? Your poor grammar spread like a meme and now we have to accept it in our dictionaries.

Thanks, this is literally the worst thing to happen to language.

Average is Over ... Except in the Music Industry

I just finished reading Tyler Cowen's new book Average is Over. I liked it. I tend to like Cowen's work because he has a fairly nonpartisan view of things. He is an economics professor at George Mason University. His writing doesn't infer that our economy is screwed up because of greedy corporations, selfish republicans, or ignorant liberals who need to get government out of the way so the free market can fix everything.

He's unassuming as he tells us where we are and how things are going to be. He doesn't write to scare the reader into voting a particular way (although the picture he paints is rather grim). Instead he tells us what to prepare for.

He basically states that Americans of average abilities and education are going to struggle, along with everyone below them. There is going to be a small group of wealthy people at the top, and the rest of us will be left to scrap. (Well, it's not that bad. He writes a lot about how technology will make it easier, cheaper, and more enjoyable to live with less.)

In addition to reading, I've been listening to a lot of music lately. I like the "Discover" option on Spotify. It suggests music based on what you listen to. It's better than Pandora because I can look at a whole menu of artists and pick which one to listen to, and switch whenever I feel that the artist isn't to my liking.

I like indie bands, but Spotify has turned me into a real music snob. I've discovered amazing groups like Menomena, French Kicks, Kids These Days, and White Denim. These are band that I would have never heard of in the 1990s. You know what the 90s had? Rock Gods like Pearl Jam, U2, and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers that pervaded MTV, top 40 radio, and enormous arenas across the planet. You don't see that anymore. The super band is dead.

Conversely, it's really easy for an obscure, independent band to be discovered through platforms like Spotify. They'll just never be that big. An "average" band is better off now than ever, and popular artists will never be as wealthy as when music distribution was controlled by a few large media corporations.

This is just one industry that contradicts Cowen's prediction, but I wonder how much technology will enable startups that would otherwise have remained dormant. It remains to be seen how much technology will affect the middle class and whether it will be a job killer or a job creator.

What Dexter Tells Us About Our Lust for Violence

My wife and I have been plowing through seasons of Dexter lately. In case you are unfamiliar with the show here is a summation: the protagonist is a serial killer with an insatiable need for blood. But he only kills bad guys and works as a blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro Police where he can discreetly research his next victim.

It's an enjoyable show. There's no memorable lines like "I am the one who knocks," or intriguingly complex characters like pretty much everyone in The Wire. What the show does lack in creativity it makes up for by satisfying a deep human need for violence. How else can the viewer explain rooting for a mass murderer to find his next victim and not get caught?

This need for violence (even if it can be satisfied vicariously) calls up my fascination with cognitive dissonance. In this case, the dissonance comes from:

1. wanting to see violence
2. knowing that violence is wrong.

How does the brain resolve this dissonance? With the concept of justice. We love punishing bad people and that's exactly what Dexter does for us–gives us an outlet for that need. He teaches us that it's okay to watch a person drugged, stabbed to death, dismembered with a bone saw, and vanquished to the bottom of the Atlantic. They were bad. The world is now better off.

Vigilantism is a fun fantasy to indulge in, especially for conservatives. It fits several of the narratives behind conservative thinking:

• Government is inept (in this case, at putting bad people away)
• It justifies the need to own a firearm. Even an assault weapon. Even if one lives in a good neighborhood.
• Capital punishment is effective. 

The unfortunate reality is that Dexter Morgan, Batman, and Dirty Harry are not real. You know who is real? George Zimmerman. You know what form of government is inept? Florida's Stand Your Ground law.

I have no problem with people owning guns to protect themselves or for recreational use. I have a problem with vigilantism, with people looking for trouble. It's a state of mind that does more harm than good, and it stems from our need for violence.

I don't know if shows like Dexter are part of the problem or part of the solution. If they feed into the vigilante narrative or satisfy it so more George Zimmermans don't have to go roaming their neighborhoods with a gun, looking for someone to use it on. I am a big proponent of self awareness and I just hope that more people become mindful of the emotions that drive their actions.

The New Print Ad Strategy

I'm reading though ESPN the Magazine and I get to a spread that has an interview with Eagles quarterback Nick Foles on the left. On the right is a layout about Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. It features a large image of Fitzgerald at practice, a big headline with copy below, a pullout quote, and some snippets and smaller images on a side bar.

It wasn't until I finished reading the "column," when I got to the logo in the bottom left corner, that I realized I had just read an ad for the University of Phoenix. This is a marketing strategy I used to see all the time in Wired magazine but it wasn't until now that I realized how genius it was. Marketers have figured out a way to cut through all the noise–don't design an ad that looks like an ad. Design it to look like what the readers actually want to read.

I'm an ESPN Magazine subscriber. I like sports. I'm not a Cardinals fan but I like Larry Fitzgerald; he seems to have a true passion for the game. After reading this ad, I know that he has an interest in journalism/broadcasting, he sees football as merely one stage in his life, and when his mom was battling cancer he made her a promise that he would keep education as a priority in his life.

I don't feel like I was sold anything. All I did was learn something new about an athlete I admire. More importantly, I actually read the ad. I can't remember the last time I could say that about a magazine ad.

It's becoming more and more difficult to cut through the noise of advertisement and communicate your message. This is a good example of the necessity to tailor your message to sound like what your audience already wants to read.

No one wants to read ads. Ever. Give them something they care about.