LASH for Cash

Deadlines for mandatory, sexual harassment prevention training are fast approaching in New York and California. I know this, because I received a mistargeted eblast from my lawyer’s firm, addressed to its corporate clients. The firm wanted to remind them that it has the expertise to turn Harvey Weinstein into Sir Walter Raleigh, for an appropriate fee. Okay, I’m paraphrasing, but there seems to be big money to be made here. That’s why, today, I’m proud to announce the introduction of LASH, Lemkowitz Anti-Sexual Harassment training.

To dramatize why LASH is such a standout product, let’s take a quick look at the history of sexual harassment in the workplace. Remember the Seinfeld episode in which George gets fired for having sex on his desk with the office cleaning lady? When confronted by the boss, George gives him a look of wide-eyed innocence and says, “Oh, is that against company rules? Nobody mentioned that at the orientation.” He hadn’t been properly trained! Similarly, how are construction workers supposed to know it’s wrong to make vulgar noises when women walk by? How are Fortune 500 executives supposed to know it’s unacceptable to barter blow jobs for sales jobs? These poor guys just haven’t been trained! That’s where LASH comes in.

LASH training will save your company both money and time by training all your male employees in a single, 90-second session. That’s right, friends, 90 seconds! With all your male employees gathered in the audience, our certified LASH trainer begins by asking them a number of simple questions.

“How many of you have wives? Anyone who has a wife, please stand. How many of you have girlfriends? Anyone who has a girlfriend, please stand. In fact, if you have a sister or a daughter, please stand as well.” By this time, chances are that everyone in the room will be on his feet. But in case there are any stragglers still in their chairs, the trainer will add, “How many of you have a mother? Anyone who has a mother, please stand.

“Now, gentlemen,” the trainer continues, “this is the part where you really have to pay attention. Any time you’re about to interact with a woman—here in the office, out on the street, or wherever—just ask yourself if what you are about to say or do is something you’d want some other guy to say or do to your wife, girlfriend, sister, daughter, or mother. If the answer is ‘no,’ don’t say or do it. If the answer is, ‘Sure, that’s fine,’ then you’re on solid ground. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? Excellent. Training over. Everyone back to work.”

That’s Phase I of our program, and you may be wondering if it does an ounce of good. Our anecdotal data so far suggests that it has exactly the same effect on male employees as programs lasting a year and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars more. In other words, none whatsoever. Because sexual harassment training is just a revenue generator for the cottage industry that’s grown up around it. The real way to stop sexual harassment is with strictly enforced penalties. Penalties so serious that they act as deterrence—loss of pay, loss of vacation time, loss of seniority, loss of job, and referral to the cops whenever a law has been broken. Fortunately, our company is able to assist you in that part of the process as well, with our unique Phase II program. In Phase II, we handle your most incorrigible transgressors through our wholly owned Penalty and Deterrence division, located in Singapore. There, LASH takes on a whole other meaning. Satisfaction guaranteed.

A NIGHT AT THE ROUNDTABLE

Over the weekend, I was able to sneak in to a secret meeting of Democratic presidential candidates and actually take part in their roundtable discussion. It was a lot easier than you might think. I told the guy at the door that I was John Delaney, and nobody batted an eye. Just as I was settling in, Joe Biden stood up and took the floor.

“Listen here,” he demanded. “No one, and I mean no one can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like our Democratic party, and I’ll be damned if we’re gonna drop that ball now!”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Bernie Sanders yelled. “I’m a Jew from Brooklyn who tells everyone he’s a socialist! I’d be better off claiming to be a Nazi! Who’s doing more to lose than that?!”

I saw my chance to jump into the conversation, or at least John Delaney’s chance. “You know,” I piped up, “I’ve always wondered about that socialist thing. I mean, clearly, you’re not a socialist. Neither is AOC or anyone else in this party, not even close! In socialism, the state owns the means of production. You don’t want to own GM, do you?”

“Of course not,” Bernie screamed back. “I just want some damn healthcare! Trump is going to beat us to death with the socialist thing. So don’t tell me I’m not doing my part. And I’m not even a damn Democrat!”

“Now just a minute,” Corey Booker said with an air of righteous indignation tempered with reasonableness that could not possibly be threatening to white people. “Democrats of color have a unique part to play in this effort. We are proposing that all, poor African-American children be guaranteed the opportunity to attend Pre-K. That predominantly African-American public school districts receive extra aid and support. That historically black colleges and universities receive enhanced government grants. And that we make plentiful, low interest loans available to black entrepreneurs.”

“Those sound like great ideas,” I said. “Especially since everyone says the African-American community is the backbone of our coalition.”

“Black people hate me,” murmured a downcast looking 15-year old whom I hadn’t noticed before.

“Who’s the kid?” I whispered to the guy next to me, Beto O’Rourke.

“Buttigieg,” he practically spat his answer.

“But I know a sure-fire way to turn this into a loser,” the kid went on. “We group all those programs together and call them ‘reparations.’”

“Reparations!” Kamala Harris laughed out loud. “We’ll never hear the end of that. I love it. It’s a winner!”

“You mean loser,” I tried to clarify.

“Right she said,” flashing her brilliant smile, “which makes it a winner.”

“Try to keep up, baldy!” Amy Klobuchar screamed at me from across the table.

Just then, the door flew open, and another bald guy strode into the room.

“¡¿Quién es este chico?!” O’Rourke said in a bad accent.

“I’m the real John Delaney!” the newcomer proclaimed. This guy’s name is Lemkowitz,” he shouted, pointing at me like Uncle Sam, “and he needs to be thrown the hell out of here!”

“Not so fast,” Andrew Yang said, looking up from his iPad. “He’s suddenly polling half a percentage point higher than Gillibrand!”

This revelation ignited a storm of high volume crosstalk and general tumult, until Marianne Williamson stood and raised both arms in a V shape, as if she were going to deliver a benediction. Unsettled by this quasi-religious tableau, everyone quieted down. In a strong voice, Williamson said, “The loving spirit that I feel from every corner of our great land can warm our hearts like the sun. This is the true solar energy that we must harness to once again be a beacon to the world.”

For a long moment, everyone sat in stunned silence. Finally, Elizabeth Warren spoke.

“Fuck it,” she said. “Let’s nominate her.”

Blondes do have more fun.

The two most entertaining people in the country right now are both blondes who have no fear about saying whatever pops into their heads, the delightful Amy Shumer and the dastardly Donald Trump. Shumer has turned the American sex comedy on its ear, and Trump has knocked the Republican dream team of candidates on its collective rear. The real significance of Trump's candidacy is not his strength in the polls, but the way he's exposing the weakness of the rest of the field. Not one of his 16 rivals has demonstrated the guts, gravitas, or public speaking skills to get in front of a big audience, act like a leader, and send the Donald home. And eventually, someone will ask this embarrassing question: "Hey, tough guys, you guys who all want to bomb Iran and anyone else who comes to mind during your morning limo rides, how are you going to handle Putin, ISIS, the Chinese, et. al., if you can't take on Donald Trump?" Meanwhile, I'd suggest that everyone go see Trainwreck. 

Memphis Blues

I’ve heard it said that writing a blog is like joining a gym. You start out like a house on fire, but before you know it, you're putting on weight and your membership has lapsed. In my case, it’s been a while since something has infuriated me sufficiently to get me back to the blog. Happily, last Wednesday (1/13/10), I found a fresh outrage on the front page of the New York Times. His name is Harold E. Ford, Jr.

Mr. Ford wants to run for the United States Senate from New York. Except that Mr. Ford isn’t from New York, he’s recently moved here from Tennessee, where he lost a race for the Senate in 2006. According to the Times, he said he would be “a fiercer advocate for New York” than Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand. Okay, fine. We like fierce in New York, but the notion that we have to import it—from Tennessee—does not make a lot of sense. Have you ridden the subways lately?

Of course, there are those who will argue that New York has had a history of carpetbaggers in the Senate, most notably Robert F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. Despite RFK’s familial Boston accent, however, the fact is that he’d lived much of his life in New York at the time of his election. I can make no such claim for Mrs. Clinton (and I was against her, too), but, to paraphrase the famous description of Dan Quayle, Mr. Ford is no Hillary Clinton.

Harold E. Ford, Jr. is one of those politicians who has never held down a real job outside of government in his life. He had an elite education at St. Alban’s School for Boys and the University of Pennsylvania, followed by law school at the University of Michigan. Despite graduating from one of the nations finest law schools, he failed the bar exam in 1998 and never roused himself to take it again. After a couple of years as a capitol staff aide, in 1996 he inherited his father’s 10-term seat in the House. (The elder Ford was tried and acquitted in 1990 on bank fraud charges.) In fact, politics is the Ford family business. In all, seven family members have held political office, three of whom have been indicted on federal charges.

Mr. Ford, Jr. moved to New York in 2007, after becoming engaged to Emily Threlkeld, who works here for the Carolina Herrera fashion house. They married the following year, and, befitting his new responsibilities, Mr. Ford took his first real job—Vice Chairman at Bank of America, at a reported salary of $1 million per year. Who says there are no entry level jobs in New York? Okay, so his influence is for sale, what pol’s isn’t? What’s more distressing is the fact that he seems completely untethered to any political principles.

As a Congressman from Tennessee, he voted against same-sex marriage, described himself as pro-life, voted to protect gun makers from lawsuits and to repeal the District of Columbia’s restrictions on firearms (he’s still a card carrying NRA member), and voted to allow local police to arrest illegal immigrants ( a measure energetically opposed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the grounds that it will prevent people from cooperating with the NYPD). Now, he says that his positions on all these issues have “evolved.”

Possibly, this Senate seat is just cursed. New York Governor Patterson has been a dead man walking since he appointed Ms. Gillibrand. And whatever happened to Caroline Kennedy, whom everyone thought was the governor’s presumptive appointee? Why haven’t the people who said she’d be a brilliant Senator mentioned a single word about her as a potential candidate? Possibly, Ms. Kennedy liked the idea of being Senator, she just didn’t want to bother running for Senator. Come to think of it, under those rules, I might just throw my hat in the ring. And one final thought on Mr. Ford: I’ve got a hundred bucks that says he doesn’t know how to pronounce “Houston Street.”

Guilt, Shame, Denial: Elite Schools and the SATs

Searching for the right college with your kid is not the most entertaining process in the world, so if you need a break in the tension, ask the admissions officer about the school’s reliance on SAT scores. Then watch him or her react like a family-values politician who has been caught doing an Eliot Spitzer.

“SATs?” they’ll respond with an avuncular chuckle and twinkle in the eye, “Oh, I wouldn’t obsess so much about the SATs. You know, we really pride ourselves on looking at the whole student.” Translation: “What do you take us for?! Do you think we’re so horribly shallow as to pay attention to something as meaningless, as common as the SATs? My God, that would be like dating a girl just because she’s pretty! You may find some rival institutions who sink to that level, but not us. Of course, we require SATs, but just so we can glance at them, in the most cursory way, for divertissement, if you will.”

I’m not sure where this outpouring of guilt is coming from, but it’s spread to the high school college counselors, as well. I heard one of them suggest that the entire SAT process is a conspiracy between the College Board (which administers the test) and the Princeton Review (the biggest test prep company). In fact, he said, “The SATs don’t measure intelligence, they don’t measure knowledge, all they measure is the ability to take the SATs.”

Well, maybe. But when my first born was tutored for the SATs, no one planted a secret test taking chip in his brain. (I was watching.) His scores went up, because he studied and learned more vocabulary words and mathematical formulas than he knew before he started. Could all that educational time, effort, and expense have been put to even better use? No doubt. But the colleges and universities are calling the shots, and they remain addicted to the SATs, despite how clearly embarrassed they are by their own behavior.

So if the young scholar in your house is attempting to scale the ivy covered walls of academia, should you eschew the expense of SAT tutoring and have your kid read T.S. Eliot or memorize the chord structure to Beowulf instead? Well, let’s look at some of last year’s average SAT scores.

Harvard: 700-800 (Critical Reading) 700-790 (Math) 690-790 (Writing)

U of South Florida: 500-600 (Critical Reading) 510-610 (Math) 470-570 (Writing)

Seton Hall: 470-580 (Critical Reading) 480-590 (Math) n/a (Writing)

I discern a trend. But hey, that’s just me. You really don’t need to obsess over SAT scores if you’re applying to Harvard—unless you want to get in.