FREE CELL AS A METAPHOR FOR CAREER SUCCESS

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Rod Sullivan

Microsoft's Game Free Cell is a Metaphor for Career Success

I heard someplace that Microsoft developed the Solitaire game Free Cell in order to help teach people how to drag and drop on a computer screen using the mouse. Nevertheless, since its inception the game has been played hundreds of millions of times by people thoroughly familiar with using a computer mouse, most of whom are looking for a way to pass the time.

I too enjoy playing Free Cell, but over time I’ve become convinced that the strategy for winning the game is a metaphor for the strategy of winning at life. My strategy is simple: 1) I try to reach for the heights, piling as many cards on top of one pile as I can from the other piles; 2) I am relatively unconcerned with where the “prize” Aces are; and 3) I let final completion of the puzzle surprise me with it swift resolution. Allow me to explain why this is a metaphor for career success and even life.

By reaching for the heights, I am unconcerned about short term goals, like getting the next card or removing cards from the playing table. The strategy is to “reach for lofty goals” while being unconcerned with receiving immediate credit for solving the puzzle. I’ll admit to being somewhat spiritual in my metaphor and thinking that the more I aspire to achieving Divine will on earth, the more likely I am to achieve worldly success at some unexpected point, seemingly without striving for it.

While I claim to not be overly concerned about where the “Aces” are on the table, I always do note their positions. If they can be reached by moving just one card off of the table to one of the four “free cells,” then I do it, but I will seldom fill two free cells just to reach an Ace.  In other words, while I am unconcerned about worldly goals, if there is “low-hanging fruit,” I do snatch it because it makes completion of the remainder of the game easier.

I am always surprised that when Aces come too easily at the beginning of the game, and without too much struggle, that the game is to successfully finish. When a game starts with two aces on the tops of the piles, a situation which should make the puzzle easy to solve, I frequently fail. I don’t know why that is, but the metaphor is that easy gains lead to ultimate failure and that it is better to have to struggle for those gains than to have them handed to you without your having to expend effort. If I see a game starting with too many advantages, I know that I am unlikely to succeed in completing it.

By following this strategy: reaching for new heights, being unconcerned about receiving credit, and being nonchalant about reaping immediate rewards, I find that suddenly the puzzle is finished, the cards are all falling into place effortlessly, and my success seems effortless as well. However, I know that it was only by selflessly toiling earlier in the game that my ultimate success comes so suddenly.

Anyway,  if you too find Free Cell to be a metaphor for career success and for life,  let others know.  It may help them to succeed while making success appear to effortlessly fall into their laps.

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WHY I THINK CONDOLEEZZA RICE SHOULD BE MITT ROMNEY’S RUNNING MATE

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Rod Sullivan

Professor Rod Sullivan

Contrast: Hillary Clinton and Dr. Rice

I am convinced that Hillary Clinton, despite her protestations, will be President Obama’s running mate in the 2012 election.  If I am right, then Dr. Rice provides an refreshing contrast to Mrs. Clinton.

First, Dr. Rice rose to the position of Secretary of State on the merits of her education, training and ability.  Mrs. Clinton rose to the position of Secretary of State by being the First Lady.  Is she competent?  Yes.  Did she help make Bill Clinton the man he is?  Yes.  Did she get where she is through her own hard work and determination?  Being honest.  She got there through marriage.  I know, that’s politically incorrect.  However, it happens to be true.

Secondly, Dr. Rice’s tenure as Secretary of State outshines that of  Mrs. Clinton’s.  Mrs. Clinton presided over the Arab Spring, the destabilization of the Middle East, and the rise of Iran as a nuclear power.  We will long live to rue these changes in world politics.  Did she cause them?  I doubt it.   Did she hasten them?  We’ll never know.

Thirdly, both Dr. Rice and Hillary Clinton will appeal to female voters.  However, Dr. Rice won’t repel the votes of men like Mrs. Clinton will.

Contrast: Barrack Obama and Dr. Rice

Dr. Rice has impeccable academic credentials.  She would be proud, I am sure, to share her college transcripts with the world.  Barrack Obama’s college and law school transcripts have never seen the light of day.

Dr. Rice has written academically for years.  These are her own works, crafted in her own hand, reflecting her own thought on important topics.  Barrack Obama is the only editor in the history of the Harvard Law Review to have never published a scholarly article.  He has never published an scholarly paper, even as a college professor.  His ability to rise in both Harvard and academia without writing or publishing can only be attributable to one thing—he was pushed along despite failing to meet the minimum requirements to be a law review editor or a college professor.

Dr. Rice and Barrack Obama have both written books about themselves, but no one doubts that Dr. Rice authored her own books by herself.  The lingering doubt about Barrack Obama is that his books were ghost-written by political supporters to promote his candidacy to the Presidency.

Dr. Rice can speak eloquently extemporaneously, and without notes.  Barrack Obama fears leaving his Teleprompter.  It is his crutch and his support.  The words projected on it are the words crafted by others for him to speak.

Barrack Obama was the product of a less than ideal home.  He was raised without a father, and primarily by his grandmother.  Dr. Rice was raised in a loving home with a mother and father who were educated, hard-working, and married.

Dr. Rice grew up knowing racism in Birmingham, Alabama.  Barrack Obama grew up in multi-ethnic Hawaii and Indonesia.  He didn’t know the sting of racism that Dr. Rice did.

In short, Dr. Rice and Barrack Obama make a glaring contrast of what African-American’s can overcome in this country.

Contrast: Mitt Romney and Dr. Rice

Romney Gives Great Stump Speeches

Mitt Romney’s strong suits are executive ability, financial ability, leadership ability and domestic policy.  Dr. Rice’s strong suits are foreign policy, language, and the arts.

Dr. Rice was the National Security Advisor on 9/11.  She speaks Russian.  She is a concert pianist.  She knows all the leaders of the world, and particularly those of the former Eastern Bloc,  on a first name basis.  Mitt Romney and Dr. Rice complement each other.

The Question of Religion

Let’s fact it, the religion question is out there.  While George Romney’s faith was never even raised when he ran for President in 1968, we have become less religiously tolerant over the past 44 years, and now people, including my own mother,  are being silently bigoted about Mitt Romney’s religion.

Dr. Rice is a Presbyterian—one of God’s frozen chose, as Presbyterians are proud of calling themselves.  She is the granddaughter of a Presbyterian minister.  She doesn’t wear her faith on her sleeve, but she is a person of faith.  Her silent but heartfelt faith is part of her strength, and her presence on the ticket will appease some of those who have unstated animus towards Mr. Romney’s equally heartfelt faith.

Conclusion

In short, I think Dr. Rice is the best person to run with Mitt Romney as VP.  After all, if its Romney and Rice, the ticket will be RR, and that combination of initials has never been bad for the country.

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Obama, the Defense of Marriage Act, and the Role of the Courts

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Rod Sullivan

Professor Rod Sullivan

The President is being somewhat hypocritical when he says that overturning statutes because they are unconstitutional is “unprecedented” and “judicial activism.” At the same time that Obama is criticizing the Supreme Court his administration, with his blessing is essentially asking federal courts to find the Defense of Marriage Act, which was similarly “passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress” is unconstitutional.

On February 23 of 2011 Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Congress saying that the President and the DOJ would no longer defend the DOMA in court against challenges to its constitutionality and that if Congress wanted to defend the Act, it needed to appoint its own counsel.  See http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-223.html.

A year later, on April 2, 2012 President Obama said “Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

Then on April 3 the President revised his comments to say: “the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this.”

The DOMA provides that: “the word “marriage” means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word “spouse” refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

I interpret Obama’s comments as being a desire to fool the uneducated into believing that a Supreme Court decision overturning the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act would be unusual or “unprecedented” when if fact it is an ordinary part of the function of the Court to determine whether a statute is constitutional.

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HUMOR DURING DAY 1: ORAL ARGUMENT ON OBAMACARE

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Rod Sullivan

Day one of the three days of oral argument on the constitutionality of Obamacare focuses on the question “Should the Supreme Court Hear this Case Now or Later?” To understand the issue, you need to understand how federal tax suits work.

The federal government says that if you object to paying a tax, you must pay the tax first, then go the IRS and try to settle the case with them. It’s only after you’ve tried to work it out with the IRS that you can go to court.

The argument pitted Robert A. Long from Covington and Burling, who argued against the Court hearing the case, against Solicitor General Verrilli, who was arguing that the case should be heard.

Here are some of the more humorous portions of today’s argument:

Scalia: “There will be no parade of horribles [if we hear this case] because all federal courts are intelligent.” (laughter from the audience)

Justice Alito (to Solicitor General Verrilli, arguing in favor of Obamacare): Today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax.

Justice Kennedy (to Solicitor General Verrilli): “Don’t you want to know the answer [about whether Obamacare is constitutional]?” (laughter from the audience)

Justice Breyer (to Solicitor General Verrilli):  “Why do you keep calling it [the individual mandate penalty] a tax?”  (big laugh from the audience—Verrilli will argue tomorrow that it is a tax, not a penalty.  Today he is supposed to be arguing that it is a penalty, not a tax.).

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Occupy Fizzles Out at CPAC-Occupy Unmasked Will be a Big Hit!

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Rod Sullivan

Professor Rod Sullivan

The Occupy Movement threatened to disrupt CPAC 2012 but in the end, their presence fizzled out.

Over 1000 protestors were in the street on Friday, but then an enterprising reporter got one of them to admit on tape that they were all being paid $60 each to spend the day there by their labor unions, and were bused in from out of town. That explains why all the protestors seemed to be from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and cities other than D.C.

Saturday was somewhat different. A number of protestors had paid the $25 admission fee. Security was too tight for them to protest in the main ballroom, so they focused their energy on the upper level where the break-out sessions were being held in the smaller Marshall Ballroom, and the Taft and McKinley rooms, where I was all day.

At one point three or four of them showed up in a session discussing the proliferation of criminal laws. They unfurled a large banner accusing a speaker from Kansas of being a racist. It was a pretty good stunt but for one minor glitch. They had picked the wrong room. The guy they were targeting was across the hallway. The people in the room where I was laughed and laughed at them, until they left in embarrassment. Then security showed up and escorted them away. The target of the banner never even knew about it. Simple incompetence.

On Thursday there was a similar scene in a press conference held by Andrew Breitbart and Citizens United. When the floor was opened to questions, one “member of the press” asked a question intended to embarrass the producer, David Bannon. Breitbart picked him out right away as a plant and it was revealed that he was a liberal blogger from a site called “Crooks and Liars.” Now the questioner was the focus of lots of laughter from the crowd, especially when it was revealed that all he knew about the film he was asking about he got from the trailer. Bannon and Breitbart, to their credit, treated him respectfully and even offered to give him a DVD of the film he was criticizing so that he could watch it. Classy guys.

The press conference, which I got to attend as a blogger, is called Occupy Unmasked. It will be released in April, and if it is anything like its trailer, it will be intensely entertaining. You can watch it yourself here. Occupy Unmasked

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