Bernie Madoff in Des Moines dollars

By his own admission Bernie Madoff engaged in criminal acts using $65 billion of other people’s money. He lost it.

How much is $65 billion in Des Moines dollars?

The median annual household income in Polk County is under $55,000.

If the average Polk County family worked 1 million years, they would still be $10 billion short.

You say you don’t have a million years? Enlist your friends. There are about 150,000 households. If every man, woman, and child in Polk County pooled their income for about 8 years, we could match the $65 billion. 

That’s one perspective on the crime: Bernie Madoff took the equivalent of 8 years of labor of every man, woman, child in Polk County, Iowa.

I wonder where his thinking went wrong. 

photo by flickr by Steve Rhodes of a painting by Yan Pei Ming

DOA in Iowa

In the State of Iowa the Department of Elder Affairs is changing its name to Department on Aging. Local politicos think that the acronym DOA is too much of an in-your-face reminder. They are falling all over themselves trying not to use it.

The change from elder affairs to aging was made in order to conform with the names of federal agencies dealing with the elderly. Reuters reports that Iowa’s elder affairs chief John McCalley will not use the DOA acronym; he favors DA. That’s very sensitive of him. It’s bad enough to be feeling a little arthritic. We surely don’t want to be heading through a door that says DOA !

On the other hand DOA has a nice ring to it.

• It is a medical term, dead on arrival, meaning that a person was already dead upon the arrival of medical personnel. Oops. Sorry. That’s the reminder we’re trying to avoid here, isn’t it?
• D.O.A. was a 1950 movie, and if you remember it, you have business with the Department of Elder Affairs.
• It was also a 1988 movie and If you only saw the D.O.A. remake with Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, try the DONQOTH BC, Department of Not Quite Over the Hill, But Close.
• If you think DOA stands for Dogbert Outplacement Agency (Dilbert), you probably have a sense of humor that allows you to think Iowa’s DOA flap is funny.
• If you think that DOA stands for the band Disciples of Annihilation with hits like Ya Mutha and Pound Down on Your Brain, I’m sure you’re not reading this blog.

In the meantime, don’t take yourself too seriously.

photo by flickr by Mike Licht

An American hero?

I was home for lunch and caught the biggest news of the day.

Here’s the lead-up to the story in a nutshell.

• Chicago banks made loans to owners of apartments buildings
• owners rented the apartments
• the renters did not get behind on payments
• but the owners did get behind
• banks foreclosed (and maybe they weren’t interested in following the letter of the law but)
• the banks ordered the sheriff to evict the renters

And what I saw on the news at noon was an angry young man saying,

” I will no longer be party to something that is so unjust.”

Who was the angry young man? It was the Sheriff. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart found his ethics in conflict with the law. And he has ordered his deputies to stop evicting the tenants. The AP reported the story earlier today. Check the details; the details are ugly as in go to work in the morning, come home to what’s left of your belongings on the curb. The Illinois Mortgage Bankers Association was not pleased with the Sheriff. In a twit, they announced they just wouldn’t give loans in Cook County. You can read about this in the Chicago Tribune. It’s breaking news in Chicago. Will there be copycats? Could it happen in Des Moines?

You are going to have to judge this one for yourself. Was the Sheriff right? If you think there is an easy answer, guess again. It is a wonderful conflict of law, ethics, and morality. Take your stand. There is no in between.

photo by flickr by DrCee

Facing Des Moines: Meet Desmund Adams

Desmund Adams is a talent magnet. In June 2005 he founded the Talent Acquisition Group of Johnston, Iowa and has served as its Principal since. Honored by Business Record in October 2007 with the Best Kept Secret Award, Talent Acquisition Group continues to enjoy a national reputation for its retained executive searches.

A native of University Park, IL (home of Governors State University), Desmund came to Des Moines and earned two degrees at Drake University, first a Bachelor of Science degree in the School of Education and then a Doctor of Jurisprudence in the Drake Law School. While in law school Desmund interned with The Honorable Louis A. Lavorato (former Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court) and with The Honorable Don C. Nickerson (formerly District Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa and now the Judge in District Court 5C of Iowa). Returning to Chicago for his first professional positions, he learned excellent career skills from Lawrence Richardson, Managing Director of Investment Banking with Wachovia and Alex DuBuclet Principal of the Exeter Group of Illinois.

But here is the measure of the man.

• First, being a great father is a closely-held value for Desmund. As a consequence he moved back to Des Moines to be close to his young son.
• Second, he and his local fraternity brothers from Alpha Phi Alpha (historically a fraternity for African-American men) have put their concern for young people into a local action program called Project Alpha. In 2006 local alumni including Desmund made a five year commitment to mentor high school students at East and Roosevelt through in-school and after-school discussions of the strengths required to be successful in business and life. One piece of advice he gives is, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow doesn’t exist. You must focus your attention on today because that will affect your consequences tomorrow.”
• Third, Desmund is National Chairman of Alpha Phi Alpha’s College Life to Corporate Life Initiative (C2C).  He designed and developed the Champions of Change Internship Program here in Des Moines. The C2C program was based on the local Champions of Change Internship design. The national fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, has very recently built upon this program of internships for ethnically diverse high school and college men and women. National corporate participants include Wells Fargo Financial. Desmund’s experience and commitment to right action for youth have allowed him to be a strong contributor to the design and functioning of these internship programs at both the local and the national level.

A favorite book is Harvey Mackay’s Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive.

Around Des Moines you may find Desmund Adams golfing at one of the municipal courses or eating at Fleming’s Steakhouse or the sports bar Tonic.

Watch for Desmund Adams around Des Moines. At 6′5″ he’s hard to miss, and you will want to meet him.

photos by James Lindberg

Facing Des Moines: Meet Randy Torgeson

Randy Torgeson, the King of Cubes (as in cubic inches) is known around the world for building cylinders and other parts for the biggest American-made, V-twin motorcycle engines on the planet. His project last week was a 167 cubic inch engine that is heading to Australia. When I visited on 8/2, an engine had just arrived from a customer in South Africa. Hyperformance in Pleasant Hill is not the place you will find someone to work on just any bike, but if you want a complete, Hyperformance long block engine, cylinders machined from ductile iron (an iron-magnesium alloy), titanium connecting rods, or other specialty parts, you’ve come to the right place. You’ll find Randy Torgeson working in his shop 65-70 hours a week. His specialty cylinders and an engine he built are in a 205 called Woody (styled after a California Woodie) built for Doc Hopkins, a Harley dealer in WI who likes to ride with Jay Leno. Another set of cylinders is going into the world’s largest custom motorcycle engine, a 260 being assembled in Des Moines by Radical Cycle and Randy’s business partner Kent Croskey. You can see the bike on You Tube. You will also find Randy answering technical questions at his website or at the V-Twin Forum.

Harkin, McCain, Obama and a Deaf Mom

July 26 marked the 18th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) was a principal sponsor of this 1990 bill, and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has been recognized as a champion of the rights of disabled Americans. In recent comments Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are in agreement with Harkin that the Supreme Court has incorrectly narrowed the protection intended by the 1990 ADA. Each will press for a clearer law in 2009.

In a video that Senator Harkin posted on YouTube in 2007 you can watch him explain the reasoning behind the ADA and how the Supreme Court has altered the intent of the law by its interpretations. He begins by discussing the four pillars of the law – that people with disabilities could have

• full participation in our society
• equal opportunity
• independent living and
• economic self-sufficiency.

In May 2008 I went to SOBCON in Chicago where the Purple Wren
and I met the woman who writes A Deaf Mom Shares Her World. We all had dinner at Greek Islands Restaurant. (Mm-boy, but that’s another story.) Karen (DeafMom) works hard to achieve full participation, equal opportunity, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. She does her part and asks for little.

If you wonder if everyone embraces the spirit or the letter of the law called ADA, you can read an account of DeafMom’s experiences at Steak ‘n Shake - an account that I find disturbing. Read it and listen to the linked videos. I don’t think she asked for much of an accommodation. Would she have been treated the same way in Des Moines? I don’t think so. Do you know?

Will our returning veterans receive appropriate accommodation? I watched Hidden Wounds of War, a special video report, on WHO-TV last week – 7 or 8 minutes without interruption, very powerful. It captured the nature of traumatic brain injury of local Guardsman Cindy Robison. TBI is now called the singular injury of the Iraq War. Read more about mild and severe TBI in the New England Journal of Medicine, Discover magazine, or in USA Today. Other veterans are returning with limb and back injuries.  

No matter what we might think of the nature or severity of anyone’s disability, I think that the four pillars of ADA should be respected, that our current law be enforced, and that the four pillars of the original law be upheld as Congress reexamines it. What about you? 

photo by flickr by soldiersmediacenter.

 Guest Writer: James G. Lindberg (Jim) is the Purple Wren’s sweetie and is a visiting chemistry professor at Grinnell College and retired from Drake University.