RIck Perry's Brain Freeze

Rick Perry's mental lapse has lead the news. Videos of the CNBC debate showing his inability to recall all the agencies he would close have led news broadcasts across the country. He has my sympathy; more than once I've had a brain freeze as I tried to remember the perfect word or phrase, or, worst of all, someone's name when I saw them.

However, the question of eliminating Cabinet-level departments or agencies is actually a serious and important one. When the country was founded, there was the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General. That was it. Four individuals reporting to the President. It metastasized into its current form in the twentieth century. While populist thinking would eliminate both the Department of Education and the Department of Energy (both excellent ideas if we are really going to try to repay $15 trillion in debt), I'm now questioning the Department of Housing and Urban Welfare.

One thing we can say about the current economy is that we have plenty of houses. Millions of houses for sale and millions more in foreclosure. If you work for the Department of Housing and Urban Development aka "HUD", what do you do every day? One would hope that they don't show up every day and try to get someone to build more houses.

Sounds like a good place to start if we are going to cut some spending to try to avoid the fate of Greece and Italy.

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Book Review: What Matters Now by Gary Hamel

Interview of Eric Schmidt by Gary Hamel at the MLab dinner tonight. Google's Marissa Mayer and Hal Varian also joined the open dialog about Google's culture and management style, from chaos to arrogance. The video just went up on YouTube. It's quite entertaining. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Cover of The Future of ManagementMy list of must-read business writers continues to expand.Gary Hamel, however, author of What Matters Now, with the very long subtitle of How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation, has been on the list for quite some time.Continuing his thesis on the need for a new approach to management introduced in his prior book The Future of Management, Hamel calls for a complete rethinking of how enterprises are run.

Fundamental to his recommendation is that the practice of management is ossified in a command and control system that is now generations old and needs to be replaced with something that reflects an educat…

Add This Great Work to Your History Bookshelf

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The more I study American history, the more I realize how little I really know. I just completed Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals in which she explores the inter-workings, personalities and politics of the Lincoln administration.Every American schoolboy or schoolgirl knows that Lincoln presided over the most difficult period in American history save the George Washington era.Most know that he struggled with a series of second rate generals until Grant emerged. And that he was tragically assassinated just as the War Between the States ended. But how many of us know that many of the cabinet members opposed Lincoln in the primary?That many of those thought he was unqualified for the office?That one of them – Salmon Chase – actually tried to build support to oppose Lincoln in the 1864 election?Or that Lincoln’s opponent in 1864 was former General McClelland, who so famously failed to take advantage of his…

New Research on How to Use Exercise to Grow a Bigger Brain

The Good News We’re swamped with research on how to grow and maintain a bigger brain into old age. Much of the research emphasizes exercise as essential to brain health at every age. Here’s a summary of relevant baseline research, then we’ll move to some new, interesting and thought-provoking research. Background Dr. Carl Cotman and Dr. Nicole Berchtold of the University of California Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia performed research on aerobic exercise and brain health. Cotman and Berchtold concentrated on “brain-derived neurotrophic factor” (BDNF). Because, in their words “it supports the survival and growth of many neuronal subtypes, including glutamatergic neurons”. In our (very) layman understanding, BDNF is a protein that helps nerve cells do, well, a lot. Grow in particular, as well as get stronger and avoid premature cellular death. Cotman and Berchtold learned that the act of consistent exercise increased levels of BNDF in the hippocampus. This finding was important, b…

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