Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Work-Life / Balance

We interrupt this pandemic to bring you a Memorial Day message

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This is my Memorial Day column with a coronavirus pandemic component, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Reasonable people disagree on the exact origins of what is now called Memorial Day. But most accept that the practice of decorating the graves of Americans who died defending their country began in earnest by women of the South during and following the Civil War.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, National Commander of the Army of the Republic, was the first to make Memorial Day official. With General Order No. 11, he stated in part that “the 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.”

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Keeping the coronavirus pandemic – and our response – in perspective

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Perspective: The capacity to view things in terms of their true and relative importance.

Four stock market crashes, seven recessions, three wars, three pandemics, one global financial collapse, one Y2K – and 9-11. This scary list identifies the varied major crises which have taken place during my long career. In the aggregate, they’ve ground a perspective lens through which I view momentous moments, like the pandemic of COVID-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Of all the things on my list, we’re likely to agree that the two most frightening and destructive are the 9-11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. But you might be surprised to learn that the challenge providing me with the best perspective on the coronavirus pandemic is the Y2K event. Not for what happened, but because of what didn’t happen.

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In defense of the misunderstood scrooge

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This is Jim’s traditional Christmas column.

Some say I’m a scrooge. They might be right.

Here are three exhibits (some say excuses) in my defense of this indictment:

1. The early part of my career was spent in retail. Retailers know what that job does to your holiday spirit. There’s a syndrome for everything else; why not one for retail survivors? Let’s call it RPTHSS: Retail Post-Traumatic Holiday Shock Syndrome.

2. Since I don’t wait until the holidays to give someone a gift, I just don’t get all worked up about holiday giving. Not that the ladies mind getting stuff all year (let’s not lose our heads!). It’s just that they want me to be giddy about giving at Christmas-time. Giddy? Bah! Humbug!

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When cause-and-effect met humanity

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This is Jim’s traditional Thanksgiving column.

As the 17th century dawned, cause-and-effect was merging two parallel universes.

In the Old World, a group of Leiden Separatists was making decisions that would put them on a circuitous journey. Meanwhile, in the New World, a manchild named Tisquantum was born to the Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoag Indians.

Both the Separatists and Tisquantum became very important to the future of mankind, but not before their lives would change and intertwine in ways not to be imagined by the inhabitants of either world.

In search of religious freedom, the Separatists crisscrossed Europe and then the Atlantic Ocean. On their odyssey, these unlikely explorers would steel their convictions, which would prove handy in the New World.

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On Veterans Day, and every day, let’s recognize all who served

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Veterans Day has its origins in Armistice Day, which was first acknowledged by President Wilson in 1919. The first anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles took place “in the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” Congress made Armistice Day a national holiday on November 11, 1938.

After World War II, Alvin King, a small business owner in Emporia, Kansas, had a problem with the narrowness of those honored on Armistice Day. Al was so moved by the death of his nephew, John E. Cooper, who was killed in the Battle of the Bulge that he, along with the Emporia Chamber of Commerce, started a movement to rename and redefine Armistice Day as Veterans Day. His goal was to expand recognition beyond military veterans who served in WWI. The idea caught on and President Eisenhower made Veterans Day official in 1954.

But who is a veteran? Having a lot of money at stake in the definition of military veteran, since it comes with the eligibility of benefits, the government sticks to a narrow one: someone who served on active duty for more than six months, while assigned to a regular U.S. armed services unit. Unfortunately, this version omits the service of most of the members of the National Guard and Reserves.

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A father’s tough love is the harder job

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As the father of an adult daughter and son, plus the grandfather of four knucklehead boys (Hurricane, Tornado, Crash and Train Wreck), I’ve learned some things about love.

All the hours logged as Dad and Poppy have often caused me to contemplate how different are the roles of mother and father, especially in the overt demonstration of parental love. It’s fascinating how the manifestation of this love differs between mother and father – biologically, emotionally and experientially.

A mother’s love, at once sweet and fierce, is observed in almost all animals, not just humans. No doubt you’ve heard this metaphor: “… as sweet as a mother’s love,” and this warning: “Don’t get between a momma bear and her cub.” I’ve witnessed and been the happy recipient of this kind of love, and there truly is no other force in nature like it.

A human father’s love, on the other hand, is more often associated with words that are unfortunate, like “tough” and “discipline.” Here’s a warning no one has ever heard: “Just wait ’til your mother gets home!” As a teenager, my dad once – and only once – apologized to me when he thought his demonstration of paternal love might have seemed “hard-boiled.” It did.

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