"It was a relentlessly grim and gloomy picture of America, built on thinly disguised racial distrust and paranoia. It was a portrait that was also essentially false. Violent crime has been steadily falling for more than two decades. Immigrants are less prone to criminality than native-born Americans. But portraying America in such a dark light let Trump cast himself as the nation's dark hero, a kind of billionaire-businessman fixer, unbound by rules or expectations of decorum—President Batman, the only one with the guts and the will to fight for the people. Trump did not invoke superpowers, of course, but he might as well have; he had no other ideas or solutions to offer... Trump's entire speech was packed with threats and power grabs, details be damned. It was a speech about how government should be made bigger and stronger and given more authority over every part of American life, and government, in most cases, simply meant Donald Trump himself. It was an argument for unlimited government under a single man, for rule by Trump's whim. He sounded less like he was running for president and more like he was campaigning to be an American despot."
Showing posts with label threats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label threats. Show all posts
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Was a Terrifying Display of Nightmarish Authoritarianism; Reason, 7/22/16
Peter Suderman, Reason; Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Was a Terrifying Display of Nightmarish Authoritarianism:
Monday, March 2, 2015
Pitt seeking input on new strategic planning initiative; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/27/15
Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pitt seeking input on new strategic planning initiative:
"The University of Pittsburgh on Friday said it has launched an ambitious strategic planning initiative, looking at every level of the institution to identify both opportunities to continue to flourish as well as threats to its stability and standing. The university has scheduled a series of campus town hall sessions for next month to solicit input, officials said at Friday’s board of trustees meeting. But already, groundwork has been laid by approaching a wide swath of constituencies for their views, among them school trustees, faculty, staff and student leaders. The effort will be informed in part by previous initiatives and documents, among them a 1995 mission statement and the Statement of Aspiration and Strategic Priorities, last updated in 2014."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Now at Starbucks: A Rebound; New York Times, 1/21/10
Claire Cain Miller, New York Times; Now at Starbucks: A Rebound:
"Then, in a one-two punch, consumer spending plummeted, and Starbucks, selling a luxury rather than a necessity, was one of the first to feel the pinch. Meanwhile, competition emerged from a new corner of the market when McDonald’s began serving espresso.
When Mr. Schultz, standing at the bar in one of the new Seattle shops and sampling espressos with whole milk, talks about Starbucks, he uses phrases like “the authenticity of the coffee experience” and “the romance, the theater of bringing that to life.”
But that does not match the reality of many Starbucks customers, who rush through each morning on their way to work, or many of its former customers, who have rejected the chain’s cookie-cutter shops in favor of small local shops that serve more carefully made coffee.
Mr. Schultz’s first job upon returning was to halt the marathon store openings, lay off 1,500 United States store employees and 1,700 global corporate employees and figure out how to get the remaining 150,000 to think like employees of a scrappy little company that just wants to serve a good cup of coffee. Starbucks’ coffee buyers, for example, had chosen only varieties of beans that were produced in large enough quantities to supply all Starbucks stores. They rejected coffees made in small batches, which artisanal coffeehouses specialize in. Mr. Schultz changed that. “We’re not one size fits all.”
Even as Mr. Schultz tries to manage more like a start-up founder, he has given in to traditional big-company ideas that he had previously resisted. Last year, Starbucks embraced customer research surveys and ran its first major advertising campaign...
Mr. Schultz brought Cliff Burrows, who was managing stores abroad, back to Seattle to run American operations. One of the first discoveries he made talking to customers seemed basic, but had been lost in Starbucks’ push to open stores.
Coffee drinkers in the Sun Belt, it turns out, prefer cold drinks, while those in the Northeast generally like drip coffee and those in the Pacific Northwest drink more espresso. Yet the executives in charge of regions of the country were divided along time zones and out of touch with what different customers wanted."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/21sbux.html?scp=2&sq=starbucks&st=cse
"Then, in a one-two punch, consumer spending plummeted, and Starbucks, selling a luxury rather than a necessity, was one of the first to feel the pinch. Meanwhile, competition emerged from a new corner of the market when McDonald’s began serving espresso.
When Mr. Schultz, standing at the bar in one of the new Seattle shops and sampling espressos with whole milk, talks about Starbucks, he uses phrases like “the authenticity of the coffee experience” and “the romance, the theater of bringing that to life.”
But that does not match the reality of many Starbucks customers, who rush through each morning on their way to work, or many of its former customers, who have rejected the chain’s cookie-cutter shops in favor of small local shops that serve more carefully made coffee.
Mr. Schultz’s first job upon returning was to halt the marathon store openings, lay off 1,500 United States store employees and 1,700 global corporate employees and figure out how to get the remaining 150,000 to think like employees of a scrappy little company that just wants to serve a good cup of coffee. Starbucks’ coffee buyers, for example, had chosen only varieties of beans that were produced in large enough quantities to supply all Starbucks stores. They rejected coffees made in small batches, which artisanal coffeehouses specialize in. Mr. Schultz changed that. “We’re not one size fits all.”
Even as Mr. Schultz tries to manage more like a start-up founder, he has given in to traditional big-company ideas that he had previously resisted. Last year, Starbucks embraced customer research surveys and ran its first major advertising campaign...
Mr. Schultz brought Cliff Burrows, who was managing stores abroad, back to Seattle to run American operations. One of the first discoveries he made talking to customers seemed basic, but had been lost in Starbucks’ push to open stores.
Coffee drinkers in the Sun Belt, it turns out, prefer cold drinks, while those in the Northeast generally like drip coffee and those in the Pacific Northwest drink more espresso. Yet the executives in charge of regions of the country were divided along time zones and out of touch with what different customers wanted."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/21sbux.html?scp=2&sq=starbucks&st=cse
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