I hope that you are healthy, happy and incredibly prosperous as we enter The Persian New Year (The Persian New Year)

“Dan!” Nazy interrupted. “What kind of font is that?”

“It’s a Persian-like font, my dear to celebrate Persian year 2012...”

“Persian year 1391, Dan.” Nazy replied with her charming accent. “Are you making fun of my accent?”

“Me?”

“Your font is unreadable.”

“The other Persian-like font (Persian-like font) as even worse,” I replied descriptively.

As we prepared to celebrate the coming of year 1391, Nazy wanted to set up the traditional haft-seen table. And this year, she wanted a complete display - including a gold fish in a bowl. This, however, necessitated a trip to the pet store and negotiation with the clerk.

“You cannot buy one of these fish. They like company, you need at least ten.”

“I don’t want ten, I want one.”

“Where are you going to keep it?”

“In an aquarium.”

“How big is your aquarium?”

“Not big enough for ten,” Nazy replied.

“Does the aquarium have adequate filtration?”

“Don’t these fish live outside? In Ponds?”

“So?”

“Ponds don’t have filters.”

“This fish will grow very large. I don’t think that you’re qualified to own, eh, take care of such a fish.”

“Doesn’t how large it grows depend on the aquarium size?”

“The fish will be unhappy in a small aquarium. And remember it likes to eat plants.”

“We have lots of plants,” Nazy replied. “And even more algae,” she thought.

“Will you feed it every day?”

“Of course,” Nazy replied. “I wish we still had the cat,” Nazy thought. “Then I could feed the fish to the cat.”

After considerably more discussion, Nazy was able to leave with a gold fish.

Note: This encounter is not fictional. They take animal rights very seriously here. If Nazy had said that she was going to put the fish (named ‘Hope’) in a bowl, they would not have sold it to her. The legal profession is currently defining the obligations of ‘animal lawyers’ who will represent animals in court cases. Based on my experience with the Swiss Legal System, these lawyers should represent long-lived animals - like the Bowhead Whale (200 years) or the Antarctic Sponge (1000 years). I just hope that the Cantonal Police don’t stop by to check on Hope’s Health. Hope cannot go into our aquarium since it is a gold water fish and the aquarium has tropical fish.

Later, we were talking to Darius about coming to Zurich for a short visit. I telephoned to confirm his trip.

“Were you sleeping, Dar?” I asked, noting that he sounded strange.

“Meditating, Dad.”

“Hmmm. What were you meditating about?”

“You don’t meditate ‘about something’, Dad. I was concentrating on breathing.”

“I can breath without concentrating.”

“Dad..”

“My involuntary nervous system handles it for me. I can even do it when I’m unconscious.”

“Dad!”

“In fact, I’d be very worried about this breathing concentration scheme. If you train your body to expect concentration, you may forget to breathe when you go to sleep.”

“I’m not going to worry about..”

“And naps, Dar. Avoid naps.”

We went to the MIDO eyeglass exhibition in Milan last week. Counterfeit eyeglasses are a major problem, so exhibition materials included a pamphlet, eh, booklet, eh monograph about the extensive measures the organizers were taking to make this conference a counterfeit-free event. Personally, I was skeptical as I explained to Nazy..

“Check out the guy in the Hong Kong booth.”

“The one touting the titanium spectacle frames?”

“Right. Look at his tee shirt.” [Tee shirt slogan ➹.)

And, finally, we’ve been watching the process by which the USA selects Presidential candidates. The debates had the feel of a reality quiz show. [Newt Gingrich! Come on down and be the next contestant on ‘Who wants to be President!’] The other thing that we noticed was the ascendency of media coaches...

Aside: I had a media coach when I was working for DEC. I led the project to replace the DEC ALL-IN-1 email product (which we were still selling) with Microsoft Exchange. After we were done, there was a lot of media attention. I went to a coaching session with my boss, the CIO. In the simulation session, they fired questions. My boss’s question: “You’ve initiated this incredibly successful project to deliver massive cost benefits and you single-handedly convinced the Executive Committee to endorse your great idea. What’s the secret of your success?” My question: “You led a project that made it impossible to sell ALL-IN-1, a product that has contributed $3.0B to DEC. Because of your work, 1200 of your fellow employees have lost their jobs. How do you feel about that?”

But I digress. Media coaches tell candidates to stay ‘on message’. This means that the candidate memorizes, and recites, a pithy, memorable and (usually) misleading sentence for each potential topic. Michele Bachmann’s healthcare example:

“Never in our history have we had a situation where a single person, President Obama, can determine which medical treatments we can obtain.”

This sentence is unusual in the sense that it is literally true. Of course, it is misleading because we don’t have that system now and the insurance companies have always determined which treatments are covered. Because the media amplifies the chance that a slip will be misinterpreted, spontaneous and thoughtful comments can be costly blunders. Accordingly, candidates acts as if the electorate is too stupid to understand nuance. [The rise of single-issue voters who respond to venomous and untrue attack ads makes it reasonable to question the collective intellect of the electorate.]

An example of punished spontaneity: The Romney camp’s Etch-A-Sketch comment. This comment simply reflected the fact that to get the Republican nomination you focus on conservatives, to win the Presidency, you need to appeal to everyone. (Of course, if Romney hadn’t changed positions so often and so radically in the past, this miscue wouldn’t haunt him as badly.)