I’ve raised one boy to manhood. This second time around, with my 13-year-old son, I’m being even tougher, putting him through ordeals that some might, shall we say, question.

Like last Friday, at the mall. I sent him in with his twin sister, into a clothing store catering to teen girls and young women. I watched from a seat at a pretzel kiosk. He followed behind his sister, she loading him down with jackets, sweaters, and blouses as she pulled them from the display racks. Occasionally, she would try something on, and then toss it back on to the pile of clothes growing in his arms.

He rolled his eyes. He slumped his shoulders. He huffed exaggerated sighs as the minutes felt like hours.

And I just sat there thinking, you asked for it, in such a rush to become a man – now you know what being man is all about. (more…)

I was in Gulfport, Mississippi last week. I was spending a day with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Gulfport, working with them on how to reach target audiences as part of their abstinence-education program. (Those programs, by the way, get a real bum rap in the popular press – a future Blogenberg, you can bet.) They revealed to me devastating damage from Katrina that, to my knowledge, has gone unreported.

Like every program working with young people, hoping to guide youth to a healthy and rewarding future, the staff at Boys and Girls Clubs in Gulfport rely on kids with a positive attitude, with a hopeful and healthy outlook on the future. These “positively charged” kids act as leaders and role models for other youth in the community. Youth workers rely on the “positively charged” kids like a battery that helps power the entire group, pushing them all toward constructive use of their time, helping all to see that goals are worth pursuing.

Ever since Katrina, the staff shared with me, the number of these “positively charged” kids has been steadily going down. (more…)

The toughest thing about being a small business is being bigger. Not getting bigger; being bigger.

Getting bigger will happen – or not – on its own time schedule. But being bigger, when business or proposals or pitches demand it, that’s another thing. Because sometimes the only way I can get new business, or put a competitive proposal in, is to actually be bigger than we are. That’s why, as I’ve mentioned in earlier Blogenbergs, I’ve started on a concerted effort to enter into strategic alliances with other companies.

I’m now creating marketing materials around alliances with an advertising agency, a marketing firm, and a design shop – case studies, for example, which share logos. I pick and choose the strategic alliance, off the shelf, so to speak, depending on what the proposal or pitch demands. Now, I can market my business as bigger. I’ve just got to make sure bigger equals better.
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My wife likes to watch Dateline. I’d rather watch Barney re-runs.

Just somebody tell me what journalistic contribution NBC is making with it’s all murder, all rape, all kidnapping, and, of course, all pedophilia show that is Dateline. Indeed, it’s not that Dateline makes no contribution to society. It’s a negative, a drain on the bit of civility this society has left. Dateline is nothing but the constant glamorizing of evil for the sake or ratings.

Here’s a note to Dateline producers: take a field trip to 60 Minutes, where they actually try journalism.

Blogenberg Bit 1: Today, on Fox News Channel, 24-hour cable continued its steady erosion of American society, reaching a state of sensational nirvana. FNC ran a split screen. On one side of the screen, a tragic mining disaster. On the other side, a live car chase.

Blogenberg Bit 2: My wife and I took our family to Italy for Blogen-cation. This I can report: to a 13-year-old girl, Florence is a shopping mall surely created by the hand of God. From Michelangelo’s David, to open air markets selling Italian leather goods, to a Chanel store. So this is what the Renaissance was all about, she must conclude!

Blogenberg Bit 3: A sad scene came across me in the Washington, DC train station today as I walked toward my gate. Two very cute boys, looking about nine, were begging in the station for “my mom who needs two dollars.‿ Their mother stood to the side, looking overwhelmed by about four additional children. At one level they were cute. At another level it was so sad to see boys this age learning to beg. I gave them a dollar. (I didn’t have two.) I figure I don’t know if Jesus put them in front of me. (more…)