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Only a Very Few Will Get This One

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KA Sushi

In 2015, at Washington near Lee,

There was a band of sushi chefs as bold as they could be,

They rolled with Li and Jack-san from the bayou to the bay,

They banded themselves together and they called themselves KA

 I’m a son of a san of a son of a san of son of an ol’ KA

A son of a san of a son of a san of Nippon Land, Hoorah!

 We have some cafes in Peru and plenty in Japan,

We’ll roll our rolls in Africa and any foreign land,

To them we give aji, mako and a Crazy Irishman.

We’ll take our stand in Old Japan and roll for ol’ KA.

Chris Bell for Mayor

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Red is endorsing Chris Bell for Mayor of Houston.  As this is Red’s first ever public endorsement, he does not make it lightly.  Chris has dedicated a good portion of his career to improving the lives of Texas citizens as a Houston City Council Member, a U.S. Congressman and an excellent attorney.  When elected, Chris will work for a more efficient and responsive government, equal rights for all, a cleaner environment, reductions in waste, increasing parks and greenspace, better public transportation and reducing congestion.  But above all, Chris is just a really bright, funny and engaging person who will be a tremendous representative for Houston throughout Texas, the U.S. and the World.  Please consider voting for Chris Bell for Mayor.

Texas Best High School Marching Bands

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At least a third of the crowd at your average Texas high school football game is there to see the marching band perform at half-time.  Another third is there to watch the game.  And the last third is there because there isn’t anything better to do on a Friday night.  The band students work extremely hard and put in long hours perfecting these routines.  Now you can enjoy from the comfort of your desk.  Wideopencountry.com provides the proof.

Red Reviews the Dems

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Red watched as much of the Democratic Presidential Debate as he could stand last night.  If it weren’t for the awful performance of the GOP candidates in their debate, Red would have to be even harsher in his criticism of these five.  Here goes:

Hillary Clinton –  Is there anything that does not make Hillary want to break into her bland Midwestern smile?  Terrorism – smile.  Our dead diplomats in Benghazi  – smile.  Email scandal – smile.  Police shootings – smile.  It is somewhat unnerving to have a candidate who apparently finds everything at least somewhat amusing.  Red will say this – Hillary’s makeup people are incredible.  She looked 40 years old last night; which is also a little unnerving.  What does come through is that while Hillary is polished and professional, she really believes in nothing other than Hillary and will do or say whatever she thinks will get her elected.  Not exactly what Red is looking for in a candidate.

Bernie Sanders – We have no doubt about what Bernie stands for and that he will go down with that ship.  There is no doubt about his passion for working to improve things for ordinary Americans and attacking the oligarchs of Wall Street.  But will that ever sell with enough of the American electorate?  It seems doubtful, and one can only imagine the right-wing attack dogs that would come out of every hole and corner were Bernie to actually get the Democratic nod.  But at least someone is talking about the issues that the others are dodging.  Still, Bernie comes across as the crotchety old economics professor who knows better than everyone else and by gum is going to tell you about it.

Martin O’Malley – Martin might be getting some serious traction if all the air in the room were not being sucked up by Hillary and Bernie.  Looks Presidential – never a bad thing – but hardly enough to want to vote for him.  Martin made no real mistakes, but neither did he score much.  He was impressive on the Iraq war fiasco and explaining where Hillary and others went wrong.  He has a better track record of executive decision-making experience than the other four candidates combined, but that apparently is not impressing anyone right now.

Jim Webb – Desperately trying to get noticed and complaining about your lack of screen time will not help your cause in a big time debate.  Red will say this – when the shit hits the fan, Webb is the only one of this group that seems like he would know exactly what to do.  But what a stiff performance he gave last night.  You want someone as your President who you actually might like, not someone who looks ready to apply a choke-hold at any moment.

Lincoln Chaffee – Don’t remind us that you only became a U.S. Senator because your father passed away.

Overall, Red was unimpressed.  The debate was at least civil – no Ted Cruz throwing bombs at everyone but Trump.  But it lacked a pulse for much of the evening.

Carly Gets an “F” from Fortune

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Carly Fiorina sole “qualification” for the high office to which she aspires is her supposedly successful business career.  Fortune takes a closer look at CF’s tenure at HP and the results are not good.  Fortune asks the simple question, How did she do?

The answer in short is: Pretty badly.

In 1999, a dysfunctional HP board committee, filled with its own poisoned politics, hired her with no CEO experience, nor interviews with the full board. Fired in 2005, after six years in office, several leading publications titled her one of the worst technology CEOs of all time. In fact, the stock popped 10% on the news of her firing and closed the day up 7%.

Arianna Packard, the granddaughter of HP’s founder, commented when discouraging voters from supporting Fiorina in her 2010 senatorial run, “I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded.”

However, before Conservative Political Action Caucus in February, Fiorina proclaimed that under her HP command, “We would double its revenues to $90 billion, triple its rate of innovation to 11 patents a day, and go from a laggard to a leader in every product category and every market segment in which we competed.”

Sure, she doubled revenues—through a massive, ill-conceived, controversial acquisition of Compaq Computer in 2002.  Fiorina did nothing to increase profits over her five-year term, with the S&P 500 showing net income across enterprises concomitantly up 70%. Furthermore, shareholder wealth at HP was sliced 52% under her reign against the S&P, which was down only 15% in that bearish period. She modeled the old joke of “making it up in the volume.”

Fiorina rammed the Compaq deal through despite intense opposition by analysts, employees, and shareholders. When it appeared that she would lose the proxy vote, the balance was tipped back the other way using hardball tactics that would make Donald Trump wince.

The lost shareholder wealth and lost strategic direction at HP are only part of Fiorina’s legacy. Also lost during her reign were 30,000 U.S. tech jobs, the company’s revered employee morale, and the egalitarian, humble HP way culture. A new defensive, finger-pointing style of leadership led to waves of firing. Dissent was equated with disloyalty as discovered by Walter Hewlett, a board member and son of HP’s co-founder, when he questioned Fiorina’s misguided Compaq acquisition strategy and refused to be bullied into a board statement of unanimous consent, suffering legal and personal threats.

Despite such carnage, Fiorina pocketed over $100 million in compensation for her short reign—including a $65 million signing bonus and a $21 million severance. I have studied comebacks from adversity, but she’s not shown the required contrition nor earned the needed exoneration, and she’s not served as a CEO since. Upon leaving Taiwan Semiconductor’s board, the firm disclosed she only attended 17% of the board meetings. Under Meg Whitman’s brilliant leadership, HP’s character and performance have recovered, but we have not seen Fiorina’s parallel resilience just yet.

El Papa es Contigo

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Pope Francis began his first papal visit to the U.S. today.  Sadly, Red will miss it.  But PF’s message of forgiveness, humility and service has not been lost on Red who does occasionally strive to modest improvements on those fronts.  Red further completely supports PF’s campaign to root out the corruption at the heart of the Catholic Church under the abominable reigns of Pope John Paul II and his chief henchman Pope Benedict.  But the Pope’s focus on what must be done to correct the social injustice in society has raised the ire of the right-wing bloviators.  Here is what they have to say about the world’s leading religious figure.

Rush Limbaugh  – “Pure Marxism.” 

Michael Savage – “Hand-selected by the New World Order. The same people who gave us Obama gave us this pope. “

Alex Jones – “Part of the globalist plan to destroy the world.” 

The Islamofascists are pikers by comparison. If these morons are against him, he must be doing something right.  And he likes soccer to boot.

Photo of Pope Francis with Argentine soccer legend Carlos “El Apache” Tevez from www.balls.ie.

The Last Full Day of Summer

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Red’s favorite season is, without a doubt, Fall.  In much of Texas it lasts from November 1 to Christmas.   Even a month of a really good Fall is worth waiting all year long for.  The official end of summer is typically more of way station on the route to another month of summer-like weather.  But on the last day of summer, there is hope in the air that the last of the punishing heat is on the wane and that the days that make you want to live in this state are on the way.  So celebrate the Autumnal Equinox tomorrow morning at 3:22 a.m. and maybe just maybe Fall will come a little early this year.  And while we typically don’t get the spectacular Fall displays common to other parts of the U.S., Red predicts that there will be some decent Fall color in Texas this year.  We deserve it.

Photo of Lost Maples State Natural Area from Texas Parks & Wildlife.