Time to Think

The “No Service” Economy By Hank Silverberg For years we’ve been hearing that “Americans don’t make things anymore,” and we have switched over to a “service economy.” That is not totally true. There are still factories in the United States that make everything from nails to solar panels (both hit hard by the Trump tariffs, but that’s for another edition). But it is true that much of our money is spent on health care, the internet, sports and entertainment. We spend a lot on things like doctors, brokers, ISP’s, tourism and streaming. The exception may be the electronics we buy, much of it built overseas.     So, you would think that since we are in a service economy, that A merica would lead the world in customer service. Sorry, no. In fact, a new survey from LinkedIn shows customer service is among the scarcest qualities in workers in general, and especially in the DC region. (We are not including Congress here, which also provides very little customer service.) 

The Social Media Trap  By Hank Silverberg You may have connected to this blog through Twitter or Facebook. Maybe you also have an Instagram account or Linked In. Social media has become part of everyday life for millions of Americans. Many of us look at it first thing in the morning or the last thing at night before going to sleep.   But as  Admiral Ackbar said in Return of the Jedi —"IT’S A TRAP”! I could quote studies from sociologists about Internet addiction or recount stories of people whose lives and careers were ruined by something they posted on social media, but I would rather look at the big picture—what it is doing to the way we communicate both personally and professionally, and how that is damaging social discourse.    Twitter and Facebook began as wonderful social tools. I set up my Facebook page more than ten years ago when my children were in college. It was a way of keeping in touch with what they were doing in school and for them to follow wh

Under Attack By Hank Silverberg                                           We are under attack!    Our freedom is now threatened, and no one seems to notice. I am not talking about the Russians hacking into our election process. That is also an attack and I may have more to write about that when we know more about President Trump's meeting with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.         The latest skirmish in a two-year-old war that I want to focus on came in London, as Trump held a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.   Mr. Trump wouldn’t take a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta, calling the network “fake news.” He jumped to John Roberts of Fox News instead.   Then later on when Kristen Welker of NBC News asked a question, he attacked her and her network because he didn’t like her well-structured and legitimate question on the Putin meeting.   Trump called her question “dishonest reporting.”   Check out the video at this link to see the exchange f

Self-Evident truths  By Hank Silverberg   “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ”     Anyone who has graduated high school should recognize those words as the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. But over the last week, it has become clear that much of the Declaration, approved by the Continental Congress over several days in July of 1776, is a mystery to many Americans.        Thomas Jefferson wrote it, borrowing heavily from political philosophers of the time. It was a compromise document with Jefferson changing John Locke’s “life, liberty and property,” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” to broaden the concept and more likely to delay a continued debate over slavery. That would plague the new country for another 87 years.          To many Americans, the words ar

                                            Death in Annapolis By Hank Silverberg         This past week was not a good one for America.   Five people who worked for the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland were gunned down by a disgruntled reader who thought they had done something to harm him. Editor Gerald Fischman, Assistant Managing Editor Rob Hiaasen, sports reporter John McNamara, reporter Wendi Winters and sales assistant Rebecca Smith, were just doing their jobs, the same kind of job that hundreds of journalists in towns big and small do every day. People who work at small newspapers like the Gazette don’t make a lot of money. They rarely get national recognition. They don’t cover foreign summits, White House briefings or international intrigue.                                                            Most of the stories they write are about their community. What is the school board up to with your child’s education?   How is the city council going to