Being an Idiot AND Being in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time? Bad Combination!

I've been very lucky in my life. I've done many idiotic things and I'm still here. I've been in the wrong place at the wrong time and I'm still here.

I have had the unfortunate (?) experience whereby I was an idiot, and in the wrong place at the wrong time, at the same time, but still somehow, I got lucky and escaped.

I got an email from a good friend about this sort of thing that I'd like to share with you. You might laugh or you might be horrified.

My friend works at some sort of automotive business. Here is what he wrote:

Mike, 

So once upon a time, I get to take cars home just randomly under the pretense of evaluation. Sometimes I actually need the cars for work and other times I just want to drive cool shit like the Alfa Romeo. There are others just like me at the company who have the same privileges.

So, one day, this dumbfuck intern at the company thought it would be a good idea to take home a cop car (this is where the "idiot" part comes in - Mike). 

He thought it would be smart to turn on the lights on a freeway and yell at some guy, "Pull over IMMEDIATELY!" and the guy actually did. Problem is a real cop witnessed this and was quickly on the scene. Well, the intern and all three of his friends in the car got arrested. So they all got fired from the company (of course) and now our organization is blacklisted from (Name of Major US Automobile manufacturer here) recruiting for a while. 

The kicker is, the parents of the kids who weren't driving and riding in the passenger seats are now suing both the company and the driver of the car for defamation since they weren't driving nor did they tell him to turn on the lights (You know, it's a "He said, she said, situation.") and the kids who were passengers were basically blacklisted (for life?) from auto since HR talks to each other. To make the situation even more of a clusterfuck, the driver's parents are countersuing, and the company is countersuing them all.  

Here's the thing; I was pretty close with those four people and was considering going with them that very night since they said they were going to a house party and thought it would be cool to take a police car there. The only reason I didn't go along was because I had to stay in late at the office because I had a presentation due the next day so I'm luckier than the guy who didn't get on MH370. 

Holy SHIT!!!!!! IDIOTS!!!!! 

I wrote back:

Really. Holy Shit. God smiles on you! I've had many close calls like that in my life... 

He continued:

It is hilarious in retrospect. But when I first heard about what had transpired, I was shitting bricks at how close that was. 

I replied:

Forty years ago, when I was in High School, my friends and I would do the typical stupid things that high schools kids did back in those days. One of the dumbest things we did with regularity was to drink and drive all the time; it was our weekend idiot ritual. We took turns driving our cars. John (not his real name) had a small truck. Rick (not his real name) had a small Japanese car. Me, Mike (Yes, my real name) had a German sports car. I am amazed that I was never stopped even once by the police (but we did live in what was a small town at the time with many rural roads.) 

The small truck that John had that could only ride two in the cab up front and the third had to ride in the back on the bed of the truck (back in the days when that, as well as many other things, wasn't illegal). The three of us would drink a fifth of JD straight and be so drunk we couldn't see the divider lines in the road without covering one eye. (If we didn't drive one handed and cover one eye with our other hand, we'd see the divider lines on the road doubled!).... 

We did that insanity months (idiot youth!) 

One night, as usual, my friends called me and asked me to go drinking with them. I had never refused before, but that night, for some reason, I did. I stayed home that night.. I'd find out the next day that they rolled the truck that evening. 

God! How lucky I was. If I had gone with those two that night, then one of us, either me or Rick would have died. Who ever would have been riding in the back would have surely died as the truck took a sharp turn and rolled over a few times on a downhill asphalt curve... 

Since I didn't go, those two could ride relatively safely in the cab. The two of them only suffered concussions and a few broken bones (and a completely totaled truck).... And, of course, being arrested for DUI. 

I was extremely fortunate. To this day, I often wonder why I didn't go that night. I've dodged that kind of bullet many times...

Consider yourself fortunate, my friend... It is a good omen for your future... Always get in tune with your inner feelings and when you feel something "isn't right" then don't do it. 

This isn't John's truck. John's truck was much worse than this. John's truck had the cabin flattened like a pancake. It's a miracle those two guys didn't break their necks.

The moral of the story: Everyone does idiotic things in their life at one time or another. I think most people have been in the wrong place at the wrong time at something during their life too... Try not to be an idiot and in the wrong place at the wrong time at the same time; that can be a devastating combination.

I concluded my note to my young friend: 

"Some people just wind up doing stupid things and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.... You weren't one of them this time.

Do your best not to be one of them the next time also."

-----------------

NOTES: Folks, never drink and drive and always drive defensively; slow down. Speeding to get where you want to go is only going to save you a few minutes (that won't matter anyway) and it greatly increases your chances of a life changing accident.  

I have been lucky all my life even when I did stupid things. Today? When I drive, I never speed and always stop at stop signs and traffic lights and haven't gotten stopped by police for any traffic violations in 27 years! So anytime I see the cops with roadside blocks checking for seat belts or traffic violations, I laugh as, since I do not break the law, they can't stop me; It's my own little revolution against the taxation system. 

To get slightly off the subject, and to read how these traffic violations and the following fines are actually a form of taxation, read: Driver's Licenses Have Zero to Do With Safe Driving: They Are a Back-door Tax! 

Bad and Incompetent Management? It's Everywhere!

You've got to wonder how people, who are so clueless to even their own industry, get into management positions. 

Bored

But, come to think of it, actually, you and I don't have to wonder; someone wondered about it long ago and wrote a book on it in the 1970s. It was all explained in the seminal book, The Peter Principle. That book explained the phenomenon of how, in a hierarchy, everyone rises to their top level of incompetence. Then because they are incompetent, they remain in that position, unable to advance or, because of politics, be demoted.

Wikipedia says:

The Peter Principle is a belief that, in an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization's members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently.

Yep. That's it. 

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have railed on incompetent management at broadcasting stations for years. Just to prove that even a broken clock is right twice a day, almost 4 years ago, I wrote (on July 24, 2010) in One More Phase in the Shattering of Mainstream Media:

I rode the Tokyo subway today and saw a sign inside the car that notified the passengers that as of July 24, 2011, terrestrial television stations will no longer broadcast analogue signals in Japan and will finally make the switch to digital.   

This signals the final nail in the coffin of many of the FM radio stations in this country and the collapse of TV Tokyo and TBS.    

I predict that *****FM will either be bankrupt or sold to a new owner by 2014 and TV Tokyo will be in the same situation: insolvent or absorbed by another company by 2016. 

I picked the first one correctly (polite applause here). The FM station was sold to another company in the summer of 2012. My prediction came true two years ahead of schedule. 

I've got a few more years left on my TV Tokyo prediction and I'm feeling very good about that. Especially since TV Tokyo is unable to payback a $5 billion dollar loan from Mizuho bank they made in Feb. of 2010 and keeps rolling that loan over every year... I wonder how long the rollover will be allowed by Mizuho bank especially since the new Japanese government has publicly stated a policy of 2% inflation which will lead to much higher interest rates.

(TV Tokyo share price was around ¥4,400 at that time. Today, TV Tokyo Holdings shares run at ¥1768 - a rise of over ¥800 from the 2011 lows - due to Abenomics?)

I haven't been writing about these stations recently, but a while ago I had a meeting with management at a broadcasting station that just made my head spin. The boss of the station said to me in an incredulous manner,

"Mike! We have to do something to get people back to listening to the car radio... Did you know that Toyota stopped putting radios in cars? Did you know that??"

Simply astounding! Doesn't this manager read business publications at all? 

It was in 2007 that Toyota had publicly announced that they were phasing out analogue radio in the automobiles within three years and that they would no longer be standard equipment in 2011 (that was two years ago!) Taking that obvious clue, I even blogged three years ago that the future of radio lay in the hands of, not the stations, but Toyota. How could a station manager, almost seven years later, just be finding this out? 

Please refer once again to July 24, 2010: One More Phase in the Shattering of Mainstream Media

The future of FM radio doesn't lay in what they broadcast or how they up the ante of quality of content (but, of course, it will always be a competition between stations for dwindling audience and sponsorship dollars)...

The future of FM radio depends on what Toyota does.

That's right. Toyota is the one who decides what is going to happen. In my opinion, it is obvious that FM  is is serious trouble and that we are now witnessing the end of an era; and it's happening, in slow motion, right in front of our eyes.

But, don't take my word for it, decide for yourself. Let me explain further...

Think about this: Where do most people listen to FM radio? In cars, right?

The Japanese government and all the big manufacturers in this country, Sony, Panasonic, etc. (who, by the way, all have an incestuous relationship with each other and Toyota in stock holdings) are pushing for the digital conversion big time. These manufacturers need their flagging fortunes to get an injection of sales and profits that new broadcasting and new equipment will generate. Digital equipment costs anywhere from $500 - $2,000 (USD) a set. The Japanese manufacturers want and need for the Japanese public to go whole-hog into digital broadcasting. They need the public to dispose of their analogue equipment and buy the new digital equipment... (By the way, a cursory check of analogue equipment at Bic Camera the other day - what little I could find - showed that all the analogue products were all manufactured outside of Japan).

If digital broadcasting is a failure in this country, then it's going to hurt Japanese manufacturing for a very long time... The analogue equipment I saw was all manufactured in Malaysia, Indonesia, and I found some from Taiwan (which was surprising).

Now, how does Toyota fit into this equation?

Imagine your car dashboard. It has a GPS, CD player, and television/radio set all built together. Most people have an analogue device (with terrible TV reception!) From July 2011 there will be no cars that come with that device. They will all be digital.

After July 2011, on your dashboard, you will have a digital GPS, Internet, digital TV and digital radio. Want to do Social Media, YouTube, Twitter, U-Stream, blog? Got you covered. Need to Google or Yahoo search? Sure. When you need traffic conditions, just a click on your GPS will give you up to the minute details on traffic and road conditions. All the TV channels? No problem. Throw on top of that 6 digital radio channels and, of course, a CD player and probably an iPod connection, and you have the next generation of car entertainment system. 

Now where does that leave radio in the equation? Especially when you consider the fact that radio, unlike TV and the Internet, cannot give data on exactly how many users it has and cannot give ratings... 

Why does it matter that radio cannot give ratings? Well, because any advertising campaign expenditures from sponsors must be justified at accounting at the sponsor company. How can one justify a radio campaign in Japan when clients cannot be told how many people listen and who is listening? They can, though, get data on viewers for TV and Internet and numbers for print media.

That upper management at a station can be serious and tell me in an incredulous tone, a full seven years after Toyota's announcement, that they just found out that the world's largest car maker stopped making radios for their cars shows just how completely out of touch with reality some people are with what's going on with people's lives and the world and society they live in.

But, gee, far be it from me to tell people what to do, but I think it is the duty of management to keep apace with the market and conditions. Anything less is gross negligence. The shareholders should be, and will be, furious. It's a simple matter of time.

You be the judge! Do you think people like that, who are so unaware of the market - and even their own business merits and demerits - who seem to not read business publications on market trends - can run a successful business? They should be fired! There are employees working under them who have families to support; management has a responsibility! 

Of course, if the guilty parties ever read this, they would probably be angry at me for stating the obvious... I don't know why. I am doing them a favor.... 

But, as you know, when the tyrant king doesn't like the message, they will not consider where they went wrong, they will just kill the messenger boy... 

What was I saying about the Peter Principle?

"Who are you to make such claims?" Complaints Bloggers (I) Receive

Sometimes in posts on this blog, I want to warn people with small children about dangerous diseases and illnesses that can be prevented easily. But sometimes people will write thing like, "Who are you to make such claims?" Or like in yesterday's post, a comment like this, "You seriously are comparing the worst nuclear disaster ever, to flu shots. (sic) You are a sick individual." 

I get lots of hate mail especially when I compare the risks of everyday occurrences with a media sensationalized story like Fukushima.

Challenges. Those are comments that I often get... Along with invective and personal insults. I try not to insult these people back. I like to think that the big electrode, God, Buddha, Zig Zag, what-have-you, in the sky put these people on the earth to teach me patience and how to be a better person.

Kindness to people works wonders!

My third daughter Wendy.  Some say she is handicapped. 
I say she is "just perfect!"

The most recent attacks I have received are because I have warned parents about serious problems, diseases and illnesses that can affect their children and I use Fukushima sensationalism as a comparison. People will grossly overreact to Fukushima, over a hundred miles away, but when serious causes of diseases (that get little media attention) are right under their noses, they are oblivious. 

To pat myself on the back (once again) as a mass media professional for over thirty years, I know what kind of BS goes on with news reporting and sensationalism as I have seen it from the inside. And, with four kids, I hope I know a bit about raising children. In fact, because of 4 kids, and one of them defeating a rare, deadly childhood disease - yet remaining handicapped for the rest of her life - I know more than most parents would ever want to know about raising kids and diseases like childhood cancer.

Many times I have pointed out that we cannot believe what we hear on the TV news and even so-called alternative media. The sensationalism sells advertising. That's the point and, in this day and age, it astounds me that most people today say they know that, but when it comes to something like Swine Flu or Fukushima, they seem to forget it. I am beginning to think that this selective response is due to some childhood phobias. Please refer to: Japan Nuclear Disaster Update & Strong Criticism of Western Media Sensationalism:

Actually, it astounds me that people do accept what what the media says as gospel truth. Don't forget that this is the very same media that told us 3 years ago that Swine Flu was going to kill more than 50 million people worldwide. This was the same media that told us that the USA had to invade Iraq because of Saddam's nooklar weapons. This was the same media that told us that SARS also was a killer virus that was going to wipe out entire populations. This was the same media that told us that Bird Flu was going to do the same.

As of today, worldwide  deaths from Swine Flu: 82. No nuclear weapons for Saddam (if he had any, do you really think we would have invaded Iraq?). Worldwide deaths from SARS: 100. Worldwide deaths from Bird Flu: 80. Don't even get me started on Man Made Global Warming!

Fact of the matter is that this is the same media who constantly exaggerates stories in order to sell advertising space to an extremely gullible public. When will people ever learn? If history is any example then the answer is: Never. They'll never learn.

Just wait a year or three for the next killer disease and we can start all over again.  

So, I write posts like the above pointing out problems with the media. Then I write articles alerting people to serious cancer and disease causing problems that, while not trendy, nor spectacularly newsworthy, are actually much more dangerous to our children than Fukushima will ever be. For one example of that, please refer to: 

Benzene in Cars! This Will Kill More People Than Fukushima Will 

Do not turn on A/C immediately as soon as you enter the car! Please open the windows after you enter your car and do not turn on the air-conditioning immediately.

According to research done, the car dashboard, sofa, air freshener emits Benzene, a cancer causing toxin (carcinogen - take note of the heated plastic smell in your car). In addition to causing cancer, it poisons your bones, causes anemia, and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure will cause Leukemia, increasing the risk of cancer. may also cause miscarriage.

Acceptable Benzene levels indoors is 50 mg per sq. ft.. A car parked with windows closed will contain 400 - 800 mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors, under the sun, at temperature above 60 degrees F (15.5 C), the Benzene level goes up to 2000 - 4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level... And the people inside the car will inevitably inhale an excess amount of the toxins.

It is recommended that you open the windows and doors to give time for the interior to air out before you enter. Benzene is a toxin that affects your kidney and liver, and it is very difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.

Or even my most recent post: 

Massive Cover-up! Worse Than Fukushima? Japan (and the World Over) Danger Levels at More Than 250 X Safe Limit!

Here are the facts: 300 death claims from flu vaccine. And Flu vaccines and neurological problems (caused Guillian Barre Syndrome in over 500 people). These two links show over 800 deaths and nerve damage vaccine related illnesses from, you guessed it, flu shots in one year alone! So far deaths or illness from Fukushima: Zero. 

Because of these posts, though, I will get attacked by people who ask me what right or authority I have to mention anything about diseases like this or children's cancer. Perhaps I am confused, but here is where I think my authority lies. My authority lies in my dearest third daughter whom I love deeply and will spend the rest of my life caring for and trying to help other parents (and their children) to prevent a similar struggle. 

So let me give my qualifications. First, my darling daughter, Wendy. One day, when she was age 1 1/2, she suddenly could not walk anymore. It was very strange. One day she was running around, the next day she couldn't stand. Soon after, she was diagnosed with 4th stage of a rare form of children's cancer called Rhabdomysarcoma. The doctors said it was incurable and her diagnosis was poor. She, like all children diagnosed with this horrible disease, was only expected to live for 2 ~ 6 months. 

As some may know, 4th stage cancer is the worst and final stages. The doctors at Setagaya Children's Hospital told me that she had virtually no chance. But I fought back. We fought back. 

I fired those doctors and hired the #1 expert in Japan (and top doctor in the world for this type of cancer - Dr. Mugishima at Nichidai hospital in Itabashi Tokyo) to handle my daughter. I fired the first group of doctors because they said, "Virtually zero chance." Dr. Mugishima gave us a 7% chance. Good enough. Better than zero. If your doctor doesn't think you have a chance, then that's not good. Fire them.

As part of the new doctor's regime, my then wife had to move into the hospital with my daughter 24/7 and that left me at home with two small girls to care for by myself and to try to hold down a job too! In spite of that, I took care of those two girls, and visited my daughter and wife in the hospital everyday religiously for nearly two years. 

The hospital cost me an impossible amount to pay. It was well over $5,000 a month every month for those 2 years (insurance doesn't pay for private hospitals and choices) and yet I paid it out of my pocket with no loans (Heck, I was a foreigner in Japan, my wife was in the hospital with my daughter, I had no assets, who's going to give me a loan? No one.) Yet, even with all this, I held down my job, paid for everything, cooked and cleaned and we came out victorious in a war with a deadly disease. 

When my daughters cancer was declared in full remission she was released from the hospital with one big caveat: Because of the treatment, her immune system was so damaged that she was not allowed to live with other children for six years because she would be catching all sorts of illness (from her sisters who played with other children at school who caught colds all the time). And those illnesses might kill her. 

After two years apart in the hospital and then another six years apart (at least) for the future, and me with a 11-year-old and a 9-year-old from a previous marriage, my wife and I decided it was best to get a divorce. In over 80% of all cases where a child in Japan gets cancer in Japan, the parents wind up in divorce. The pressure and stress are too great.

My daughter is now a high school student and looking forward to college. She is wheelchair bound for life but one of the happiest and most positive people you could ever hope to meet. I wish my other daughters were so happy!

Japan has a population of about 130 million people. Only about two or three children per year get this rare form of cancer. Nearly all of them do not survive. My daughter was only the second one in history of Japan, since it started cancer study with Germany and the USA in 1971, to do so.

These are my qualifications. I don't think they are so bad. 

UPDATE: People need to get their priorities straight. For example, did you know that: In the U.S., the odds of being killed by conventional medicine are almost 20 times (2,000%) greater than being killed in an automobile accident and almost 30 times (3,000%) greater than being killed by a gun. - From Confessions of a Drug Industry Insider.

*If any parents have such a challenge to deal with, please write to me and perhaps I can give some advice that may be helpful... I will try.