Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

MERS-CoV - Should we accept that job/assignment in Saudi Arabia?

For those in Saudi Arabia the death rate from respiractory disease MERS-CoV is about 65%, reports THE WASHINGTON POST.  

It's passed along person-to-person, so keeping clear of the chickens won't help.  The help-wanted always has great jobs in or around Saudi Arabia.  Maybe we speechwriters and ghostwriters better think this one through before we apply, at least right now. 

Suicide: Remains a great career move

Ovens, guns, ropes, razors, rivers.  There are diverse ways in which one can get the edge on professional recognition through suicide.  It's rarely not a smart career move.  Would we Baby Boomers have pored over Sylvia Plath's poetry about Daddy had she not ended it during a frigid winter in England via gas?  I doubt it. 

VICE captures the mystique of sucide among female literary figures in a photo composition. The usual suspects such as Viriginia Woolf are all there. The genius of the spread, in addition to the concept, is that the iconic literary figures are depicted in provocative ways. 

Of course, there's the risk that VICE's cleverness could put a bee in the bonnet of female writers who feel unrecognized.  They could join the growing number of, for example, New Yorkers who are leaping off tall buildings or off platforms in front of subways.

UPDATE

The LA TIMES reports that VICE has removed the suicide photo spread from its online edition.  That remains available in the print edition.  Since suicide has become the meme of the 21st century, especially among the middle aged, this seems to be a legitimate and public-interest media story.

Mindfulness: Unbundling it from religion

There's a generational divide.  Geezers like Leonard Cohen and the Beatles went to get their training in being present in the now from religious folks.  Today, successful professionals get the secular version.  Hold the religion.  Mindfulness training, without all the religious trappings, is taking place at Raytheon, McKinsey, Ford Motor, Unilever, and General Mills. 

Although a geezer, I have also decided to unbundle mindfulness, or meditating, from its religious platform.  I had to.  In my search for inner peace and clarity, I had trudged off to Buddhist centers. Actually three of them.  That was enough of a sampling to convince me that religion seemed to attract to leadership those needing to control.  The experiences were brutal.  "Bullying" would not be too strong a word.  Acquaintances tell me that there is one Buddhist center in the New Haven, Connecticut Metro area which seems to be bully-free.  I plan to check that out soon. After all, given how mirror neurons operate, we affect each other cell by cell.  By being in a group of meditators I could pick up on their good vibes.

But for now, I remain in the Happy Valley of pure mindfulness.  Several times a day I stop my day.  I sit on the couch.  Next to Jason my feline companion.  We get quiet.  We find our way into the now.

In all three Buddhist centers there were few Millennials.  Will Buddhism die out in the West, if it can't provide consumers with mindfulness without all the dogma?  I might run into different demographics when I sample the fourth Buddhist center in my area.  If I do, I will keep you posted.

Loneliness Can Kill, Documents THE NEW REPUBLIC - But belonging can hurt so much

Twelve-step programs hammer the dangers of isolation.  They encourage even compulsively attending meetings to create a sense of belonging.  The why behind that is documented in Judith Shulevitz's article in THE NEW REPUBLIC "The Lethality of Loneliness." Yes, feeling alienated or apart from can lead to early death, mental illness, and physical deterioration.

On the other hand, belonging can bring horrific pain.  In our 12-step group we are stilling looking glazed-over from the suicide of one of our members.  He was buried last Thursday.  But this loss remains the emotional elephant in the room.  Those of us who managed to drive away loneliness with animal companions often suffer the same kind of devastation from pet grief.  Canine Molly Mittens died seven years ago on a vet's table.  I can still find myself crying.

The price of being part of is high.  I have compassion for those who choose loneliness over connecting.  Sometimes I wonder if it's a devil's bargain we make to live among the human race and animal kingdom with open hearts.

Breast Cancer: We know the research, where's the cure?

"My daughter's aunt had breast cancer." 

That's all my college friend had to say.  What woman hasn't done comprehensive study of all the research?  I knew what the genetic tragedy was.  And its devastating implications.  The very young woman - my friend became a parent late in life - had cancer.  Surgery this week would disclose if it had spread.  There will be a double mastectomy.  

We know so much about breast cancer.  Yet where's the cure?  That's as frustrating as knowing so much about the patterns of mental illness and not having effective, enduring treatments.  Another college friend contacted me five weeks ago. Her 38-year-old is mentally ill.  The diagnosis is paranoia.  Where's the cure?  The daughter sits in her parent's home, not doing much.

The 20th century was about the celebration of science. The 21st century has to be about a push to ditch the theory.  Let's return to the American genius for solving real problems.

 

Cockroaches: No wonder we Jersey City kids are so resilient

"You keep bouncing back!" That's what both my friends and enemies remark. 

Now I can answer, "I owe it all to the cockroaches I grew up with in Jersey City."  Their own resilience taught me mine.  AP reports that the current issue of SCIENCE explains how cockroaches in Florida developed glucose aversion within five years.  They did that to prevent getting poisoned by sweet-tasting bait traps. 

In Jersey City, no matter how fastidious a person was, once roaches entered the apartment (we were urban kids) they were never going to leave.  I observed.  Then I applied those survival and comeback lessons to my own career challenges.  My business is bouncing back nicely from the last recession.

Angelina Jolie: Breast-cancer awareness takes giant step beyond pink

Public relations case studies will be written about how Angelina Jolie's preventative double mastectomy singlehandedly moved forward breast-cancer awareness.  It takes a celebrity.

Scrap the pink campaign.  Stick with Jolie's branding of the mission to save women's lives. 

My sister Camille Genova Klinga died of breast cancer in 2001.  In 2012, I had two biopsies for breast cancer.

"Mad Men" - Creativity as glue which holds Don Draper together now acknowledged in mental-health circles

It's Mother's Day on "Mad Men" and it's clear that the only baby which matters to tormented Don Draper is what he gives birth to during the creative process.   This time that baby is the new Chevy campaign which holds back showing the actual car.

The year is 1968, a time when so little was really known about mental illness and how those like Don who managed to still function, despite the disability, did it.  Now we know that creativity is often the best and only medicine for certain kinds of mentally ill to survive or maybe even become centered. 

In the breakthrough book "Manic Depression and Creativity," psychiatrist Jullian Lieb showcases the mentally ill in history, reaching way back to Newton and Beethoven, and how their lives were embedded in some kind of creative pursuit. Although they suffered as do all mentally ill, they were able to find sanctuary in what they could create.

During Sunday's episode of "Mad Men," someone comments that Don just isn't interested in money.  The firm is toying with idea of an Initial Public Offering.  But where Don's focus is on is the creative aspects of being in the ad industry, not how to maximize the money an agency can generate.  It's when Don's thrown off his creative game that he goes into a downward emotional trajectory.

 

Zen and the Art of Basement Waterproofing - New Haven Zen Center, May 19

In the Kwam Um School of Zen life is seamless, therefore what we traditionally call "work" is just part of everything else. 

Framed that way, I found out at a retreat at the New Haven, Connecticut Zen Center last month, the drudgery, resentment, and angst usually associated with work just don't pop up.  The zen master gave me and another retreat-goer a bottle of Windex and paper towels to make all the window on the second floor sparkle.  We were to do it in silence. Intuitively, we knew how to operate as a team.  Since the two of us approached the task as part of the spiritual experience, that's exactly what it was.

On Sunday, May 19th, the New Haven Zen Center will conduct another work detail.  This time it will take place after the normal meditation period, from 9:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M.  That period is divided into a number of 20-minute sitting and 10-minute walking meditations.  Those attending participate in some or all of them.  Usually, I swing by the Center for two sitting (since I'm a Baby Boomer I do the sitting on a chair, not a cushion) and one walking mediation each Sunday.  At around 11:00, there will be a light lunch, then down to the basement to prepare it to be waterproofed. 

Again, this is an opportunity for spiritual enlightenment about our relationship to ourselves and to what is classified in capitalism as work.  Maybe Karl Marx was dead wrong about the alienation of human beings from what is necessary to do to earn a living. Isn't it rather all in the framing or mindset?  Interestingly, one guiding teacher views what happens along the continuum as beyond likes and dislikes.

There is never a fee for the Sunday meditation sessions.  Donations are welcome, though.  To take advantage of zen and the art of basement proofing, just show up sometime between the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. at 193 Mansfield Street, in New Haven, on May 18th.  Although there are signs about complex parking regulations, it's fine just to park on that street near the Center.  

For those who live near the New Haven green or attend Yale, a walk to the Center is doable. The resident monastic Seon Joon Sunim rides her bike to the conferences she gives and participates in at the university.  She is leaving for a 100-day retreat in South Korea and will be back in August.

For more information, please contact info@newhavenzen.org or 203-787-0921.

Diederik Stapel: Can brilliant public relations create new career path for academic con?

Former social-psychology researcher at Tilburg University in the Netherlands Diederik Stapel never crunched that data. 

Instead, as Yudhijit Bhattacharjee reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, he not only created a hypothesis but also the statistical evidence to support it.  After investigation, the University concluded Stapel had committed fraud in 55 of his papers.  His career in tatters, Stapel tried to publish a book to get a new start and some money.  However, that hasn't panned out as expected since society is sophisticated enough to not let him profit from his misdeeds.  For example, the book has been put on the web for free distribution in PDF form.  In addition, the reviews have been mixed, says Bhattacharjee.

So, here in the U.S. we in the communications industry, which has been hailed, often rightly so, for its brilliance in giving disgraced professionals a second chance, we wonder if Stapel can find the public relations help he needs and achieve the needed outcome: a new career path.

Since the corridors of influence and power are so cluttered with sinners, absolution seems likely.  A sustained sincere apology, followed by good works, can defrost hard hearts.  Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus for financial gain, has been vilified because he gave into despair and committed suicide.  The social archetype is for seeking redemption. The 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are based on it.

The challenge is for Stapel to carve out a new niche for himself as Nixon handler Chuck Colson did in becoming a religious evangelist. Public relations experts have to figure that out for this disgraced academic. Promising might be for him to become an elementary school teacher in a developing nation, bringing the fundamentals of the scientific method to the next generation.  Do that a few years and then a documentary can be made.  Stapel can come as a hero to the U.S. and reform elementary education.