Durability is a Plus.

This was just one of those things that had outlived it's usefulness and
as such, had to be destroyed. Thank you Jeremy for the camera work.

This film was edited by Liz Muller.
All Rights Reservated.

Interesting Quote of the Day

The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.
- Flip Wilson

The Honorable WalMart.

Most of my friends and many of my aquaintances have heard my many rants on WalMart. And the reasons why I have been inside those doors only a time or two in a decade (the answer is that I was travelling and there was not another option in the one-horse town). If you have heard my WalMart blasts, then you also know that this is first hand information from working in retail strategy and working to save smaller companies (or just prolong their life). It is not the third hand drivel of people that heard, "so and so didn't get paid for his break last week". Things like WalMart's purchase of the lowest FDA approved grade of beef and (skipping a few really NASTY processing steps) their increasing that beef by 12% water weight. That may seem like a small thing to some, but imagine it without the added the water weight. If you're good with that, I've got an 11 ounce "pound" of coffee I'd like to sell you. And I know you'll like this one: How about a three quart "gallon" of gas...

This is by no means the worst example of the WalMart game, but is indicative of the overall techniques employed to grow the brand.

On to the point of this blog. Having been on the inside, having sat around board room tables trying to save smaller chains from the clutches of a company that it seems will do anything to win (including a 3-4 year loss plan for new locations to put the competitors out of business), I love to see the occasional dirty laundry come out. Some more has come out. And this time it's funny. It seems that the blog "Wal-Marting Across America" (they have taken it down since being found out) which presents a very rosy picture of a travelling couples interaction with all of those lucky enough to be working in a Walmart store (just ask them, they are really happy and love the company!) is actually a paid endeavor made possible by WalMart themselves. It's beautiful, really. It is the second fake blog by their PR firm Edelman to be exposed!

Business Week Article

MediaPost Article

Home, Home on the Ranch

Tracy and I are off to the Walton Ranch tomorrow for a week. Part of the purpose of the trip is to celebrate her dad's 70th birthday.

Over the course of the last couple years, I have been restoring hundreds, yes hundreds, of antique photos from the ranch (and pre-ranch, meaning pre-1910). Some have been prints, and some have been in negative formats no longer used. Those, I have had to photograph on a light table, then invert and manipulate.

There have been some amazing photos among them. Photos which even if they had no family meaning - or history that we knew of - would be enchanting just to look at. That we have the history, or can look at the same landscape now and see the effects of time and "progress", is absolutely amazing.

In preparing for his 70th, I have added another dozen or so restorations. This is one that I found especially fascinating. It could not be better composed.

(J. B. Walton Sr. is on the left.)

Dear Glenn Beck,

Thanks for the great article. Amen.

Sincerely,
Dwight Knowlton

That's Sharp!

Wow. That's some kind of genius.
I have got to have one of these!


















Here's the site that sells the product.
I'd say they really know how to pick 'em.

New Poster

I have had this idea beating around in my head for a while now - and have finally executed it. At least a draft. It is a combination of 7 layers of photos and copy. There are several additional layers that I contemplated, but did not feel made it stronger. Those that have read my blog on pseudo-environmentalism will know right where this is coming from.

I know it's a departure from the norm, but could I ask for some feedback on this one? I would appreciate your insights and commentary before I revisit or distribute it...

dknowlton@73ideas.com

Dogs are Supposed to be an Excellent Judge of Character...

OK. So maybe she's a Democrat.

It took all of two days to annihilate the Republican mascot.

It makes sense:

She eats, has a place to live, gets health care provided - all of that stuff - but doesn't work at all.

Dogs Are an Excellent Judge of Character.

Mine's a Republican.
How about yours?

...of course if I had known that she would be tearing the stuffing out of it in the first day...I may just have gotten her the donkey...

What is Truth? Part 1: General Georges Sada

Thursday, I had the honor if being in the same room with a top military commander of Saddam Hussein's.

That's right – I said honor.

I was looking forward to it going in, but could never have known what I would leave with, how much information I would have left to process. This blog will only touch on one tiny element of the numerous (some vitally important) topics and insights offered. I have been lucky to be "in the room" several times in my life/career, but this day is up there on a short, short list. After a couple hours of hearing the man speak, it was truly an honor to meet him.

General Georges Sada is an Assyrian born Christian, an ace fighter pilot, a diplomat who spent years in both Britain and Russia, a Bishop, and as I mentioned a moment ago, a man who was called on to be General – the number two man – in the Iraqi Air Force, under Saddam Hussein. He is the author of Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied & Survived Saddam Hussein. Get it on Amazon here.

One of the initial challenges I had to wrap my head around was this: How can a man this close to the top, serving within such a regime, have his hands clean? I mean, just because a guy has a story doesn't mean he should be believed. But while it is still something to wrap one's head around, I have both my gut and now my research to base my answer on – and the answer is that General Georges Sada speaks the truth.

It is true. He did serve in a bloody and terrible regime.
I believe that his duty before God was to make it less bloody and less terrible.

Every word I heard him speak, as well as everything I have been able to dig up, back up his truth -- that his insight and perspectives tempered an irrational Saddam, and prevented much greater catastrophes. Can anyone remember the US fighter pilots shot down in Desert Storm in 1991? He stood up to Saddam when Saddam demanded that they be executed (ignoring the Geneva convention) and prevented them from being executed. He was imprisoned by Saddam as a result. That Gen. Sada's book contains a foreword by retired US Air Force colonel, David Eberly, who was one of those prisoners of war – is good enough for me. He vouches for Gen. Sada who once held him captive, as "an honest and honorable man". Another on his long list of prevented catastrophes is an attack of Israel with chemical weapons. Weapons. Chemical weapons. Weapons of Mass Destruction. WMDs.

Which brings me to this. A war is being waged. One of the key contentions for it's being useless, contrived, over oil, Bush's "Daddy's War", and most importantly: BASED ON A LIE ... is that there were no WMDs. Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a (read: THE) key component in their criticism of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in 2003.

But there were WMDs.
Saddam's General – his number two in the Air Force – says there were.
He tells us where they were.
He tells us what they looked like.
He tells us how there were secreted out of the country.
And he tells us when.

According to Gen. Sada, the Hussein regime used civilian airliners with their seats removed (not military aircraft) to fly the weapons out of the country. On Fox News's Hannity and Colmes: "Well, up to the year 2002, 2002, in summer, they were in Iraq. And after that, when Saddam realized that the inspectors are coming on the first of November and the Americans are coming, so he took the advantage of a natural disaster happened in Syria, a dam was broken. So he – he announced to the world that he is going to make an air bridge..." Sada continues to say that, "They were moved by air and by ground, 56 sorties by jumbo, 747, and 27 were moved, after they were converted to cargo aircraft, they were moved to Syria." And this second in command of the Iraqi Air Force – this fellow who was there – he's not the only one.

In March of 2002, one year before we invaded Iraq, the CIA was examining satellite photos of trucks loading what were believed to be chemical weapons. Seven additional movements over the next two months were captured by satellite imaging. The CIA was never able to determine their destination due to satellite tasking problems, but analysts were convinced that the material was chemical weapons. Charles Duelfer of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) stated that the scenario of Iraqi WMD's being moved to Syria is "unlikely". But his predecessor on the ISG, David Kay, does not agree. "There is ample evidence of movement to Syria before the war – satellite photographs, reports on the ground of a constant stream of trucks, cars, rail traffic across the border. We simply don't know what was moved." As it stands now though, Syria has refused to cooperate with the United States in the War on Terror, has denied harboring Saddam's weapons stashes, but are funding terrorists who are killing women and children in Iraq.

The ironic part (and evidence that our “truths” are flexible) is that David Kay was heaped with praise by the Left when he said, "My summary view, based on what I've seen, is we're very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons. I don't think they exist." When he tells them what they want to hear (no WMD in Iraq), he's a respected source. But when he tells them what they DON'T want to hear, ("there is ample evidence of movement to Syria before the war") this once respected source is ignored as just another “Bush buffoon”. On top of that, in January of 2004, a Syrian journalist who defected to the west identified three sites in Syria where he claimed the WMD were secreted.

So what's the problem?

I believe that the problem is (as I have stated in a previous blog) that we are entitled to our own opinion despite the facts. A Senator from Massachusetts, for example, can discount and ignore this information, this "opinion", because it does not fit with his agenda. How easy it is to sit back in your comfortable house, on your comfortable estate, and decide whether or not you like the words spoken by a man who's life was on the line every single day. As Scott Malensek of The New Media Journal states in his article: In Search of Saddam Hussein’s WMD, "Is this subject one where the word of a former governor of Vermont is better than that of highly decorated generals and weapons inspectors who have served their country all over the world for decades?" How is it that some Senator, some former Governor, or you, or I, or the Associated Press are better equiped, more informed, more qualified to determine what is truth? Why is it that we are so entitled to our own opinion – even if that opinion is in disagreement with evidence?

One final contention. This is being spoken a man who was there. A man who was involved. A man who time and time again stood in front of an irrational, power hungry (and at all costs), leader who could kill him or have him killed at a moment's notice – just because he disagreed with him. A man who executed people for not watching his speeches on TV.

Most importantly (if after all of that, there is room for a "most importantly"), it is being spoken by a man who's claims – every other one of them – can, and have been, substantiated. A man who's word has been proven. An honorable man. Yet it is open for discussion as to whether on not this ONE thing ... ONE ... could really be true. Because we just don't have quite enough proof...

Isn't his reputation for truth, even under the most dire circumstances -- even facing imprisonment or execution – evidence enough?

A Quote for the Day

The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'. - Larry Hardiman