Was this the turning point when presidential politics took a weird turn, leading us to Donald Trump?

Strange But True Stories From The 1988 Presidential Campaign.

Part Two of Gary Hart’s Run For President. 

Sacramento, California, USA January 27, 2020

February 3rd marks the beginning of the Presidential Primary Season when the first voters in Iowa begin assembling for the Iowa Caucuses. Thirty two years ago, two young political science graduates went out to Iowa from California to work for presidential hopeful Gary Hart in what would be “part two” of his campaign for president. Could they make a difference? Would Hart be able to recover from the scandal with Donna Rice? Would this one time presumptive Democratic Party hopeful surge to popularity like he did in 1984 or are there no second chances in American government and politics? Outside Chance by Lee Chazen takes us on a whirlwind tour in this "Inspirational, entertaining, fast-moving, insider's view of the campaign trail."*

There were several driving forces that got Chazen to write the book. The first was disappointment and anger after reading the November, 2018 issue of The Atlantic where James Fallows wrote an article titled “Was Gary Hart Set Up?” He would rediscover the painful fact that he had discovered back in 1988 -- that a career of study, good ideas and service can be nullified by one scandalous story. Making it worse was the idea that it was a setup.

The second thing was that there was another side to this story that was not being told -- that there is a lot of activity beneath the surface that no one knows about -- ideas, policies, thinkers, idealists -- people who make great sacrifices on behalf of someone they believe in and that there are solutions that never see the light of day because of dirty and disgusting political practices. 

Lastly, there was a second part to Gary Hart’s campaign after his six month break from the campaign trail that is rarely if ever documented - not mentioned in Matt Bai’s book All the Truth is Out and not portrayed in the movie The Front Runner, starring Hugh Jackman. 

One of the last of the true intellectuals to run for President, a scholar who understood and often quoted the Founding Fathers, Hart toured the country, rolled up his sleeves and gave lectures across the country. Chazen wanted to write a story that recaptured the spirit and imagination of this campaign - something that would also push ideas and strategies into the present. 

Lee Chazen is an educator and content developer who does consulting work under the name GliderCell. A former high school social studies teacher, Lee’s primary focus is in applying his research in self-organizing systems to education, politics and society. He is also a musician and Young Artist competition winner (on French Horn), founder of Global Challenge (a game-based social studies project) and HikeStorming - a method for getting people to think and brainstorm better through hiking.

Outside Chance is available on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2RyIbKi and the Google Play Store: http://bit.ly/37DN5va

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If you would like more information about Outside Chance, or to schedule an interview or presentation, please contact Lee at lee@glidercell.com. 

Background Information and Links 

Author page: https://rightbrainworld.blogspot.com/p/lee-chazen_9.html

Blog http://rightbrainworld.blogspot.com/

Website https://www.glidercell.com/ 

*Amazon reviewer

Understanding and Valuing The Liberal Arts

I Went to a fascinating Meetup last night hosted by a local TED discussion group. The topic was reinventing liberal arts. I couldn't help but get angry as I realized how valuable a liberal arts education is and just how far we've gone away from understanding the value of a well rounded person in our society. I went home from this and started rewriting my LinkedIn profile. I mean, imagine if we were allowed to truly show who we were and what we were capable of, aside from these narrow areas of focus. I started working on it, but the first few lines sounded more like a blog post. 

The point I wanted to make was that, sadly, we live in a world of specificity. It serves a purpose and we do need experts in such areas as medicine, law, technology, journalism, finance, engineering and education. But what, if anything, is said about the person who can merge ideas together to form something new, who can bring in aspects of all areas of their interests and knowledge to form a new product or system or type of organization or method? What is said about the person who can look at a room filled with different people and different perspectives and find the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts or the idea that will effectively merge things together to form a better solution? 

The world of standardized tests and content memorization has served us well to a point. But, now we are living in a time talked about by Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. It is an age of conceptual thinking, and there ought to be a way to represent this on our resumes or LinkedIn profiles. I'm sad, somewhat, because Pink wrote about this in 2005 and I was really hoping we would be there by now - that we would value a liberal arts education more and appreciate people like this in our workforce. 

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Content By GliderCell

GliderCell is currently running a Holiday Special through January 15th.

40 % Off The Regular Rate For All Content! Sign up here:   https://www.glidercell.com/

The Enlightened Worldview Project Slideshow

Click Here For The Full Slideshow Presentation.

The Enlightened Worldview Project's mission is to promote societal understanding and inner awareness. The group will be working with a community of writers and thought leaders on a book about how our worldviews are constructed. Through the book, blog posts, public discussions and a podcast series, the organization hopes to improve communication, relationships and our public discourse.

Brandon Norgaard, founder of the project, brought me on board to work on content, narrative, infographics and other educational materials. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have worked on something that could really make a difference.

For more information about EWP, visit their website at http://enlightenedworldview.com/.

If you would like help with your writing project, please contact me at theglidercell@gmail.com. I can help you with all forms of web and social media content, research, reports and slideshow presentations.

Join Us For a Hike and Discussion About Improving Communication and Understanding

Join us for a hike on November 17th where Brandon Norgaard (founder of the Sacramento Politics and Philosophy Meetup and The Enlightened Worldview Project) will be discussing his new project. Among other things, we'll be discussing ways to improve communication between people of different worldviews.

You can sign up here: 

More information at http://enlightenedworldview.com/

Let's Take a Time Out And Applaud What it is to be Human

I find it interesting that, instead of focusing on the amazing potential and capacities of humans - that we can think abstractly, that we have meta cognition (ability to be aware of our thinking), that we can evolve our positions, that we can dive deep into topics and unravel layer after layer of information, that we have actually explored outer space - leaving the limits of our own gravitational forces - that we had a human being who created an equation that explained space and time (E= Mc2), we spend countless hours in many of our discussions talking about our limitations and fallabilities. 

No, we're not computers. We're not perfect algorithms. We're not Fermat's Last Theorem. It's not perfectly elegant all of the time. But, is there no curiosity about what might be better or what new construct or thought experiment might take us to a better level of existence? Is there no celebration of what it means to be human? We are, in fact, amazing!

Source: https://altexploit.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/grothendiecks-universes-and-wiles-proof-fermats-last-theorem-thought-of-the-day-77-0/

Need Help with Educational Content?

If you need help with any type of educational content please feel free to contact me at theglidercell@gmail.com. I also do content strategy, podcast editing, podcast content, graphics and social media work. Many of those samples are available at GliderCell. 

Proposal to Design Implementation Guides by lchazen

It's Time For a 21st Century Job Site

True story. I saw a job posting for a product manager at a major job site. The role would be challenging and the pay (something I had not seen before) indicated just how challenging it would be. So, I decided to take a crack at it. As I took a closer look at the position I decided it might just be time to offer a full redesign of what job sites do, i.e. completely disrupt the industry so that we get better matches between what people can actually do and the types of jobs they get. This slideshow is just scratching the surface, as you could easily write a 100 page report on what needs to happen. But I had been thinking about these things for a long time and it was just time to put it out there -- whether I got the position or not. This is the slideshow I submitted with my application. I think we’re in for big changes and I hope some of these things happen soon. For more information, write to theglidercell@gmail.com

Copy of An Integrated Approach to Job Sites: Seven Ways to Make Job Sites Better by Lee Chazen

How to Make Job Sites Better from Lee L. Chazen, M.A.

Podcasting In Between Lyft Passengers About Everything, Including an Idea for a New Bi-Partisan Tech App for the IRS

"A rare, inside look at the 'second' '88 Hart campaign from someone who was there."

Get Your Copy
Just $2.99 on Amazon 

I’ve pitched this to #Democrats & #Republicans / #Libertarians & all seem to like it. Seems like something #AndrewYang might go for? Oh, & I recorded this bit of audio in between picking up #Lyft passengers, because that's how we roll in the #GigEconomy #GliderCell #Yang2020

— Lee Chazen (@Lee_Chazen) July 22, 2019

The Existential Tour of Pleasant Hill, California

I decided it was time to start releasing all new audio content for the GliderCell Podcast. It had been a while and there were all these audio files -- interviews with some really fascinating people -- just sitting there -- never to be heard. If all goes as planned, I'll start releasing a new one each week. But, I can't do this without a word of caution. These are unedited. No intro or outro music, if you will. Time and budget constraints prevented me from being able to get all that done. But, what you'll get here is raw, unfiltered ideas -- real people sharing some really interesting things -- with no commercials! None!

In this episode I ask the question: 

In the Internet of Things, if everything is “talking” to everything else, can humans be left out of the conversation? 

This episode is brought to you by When the Dust Settles: A Collection of Stories From Gary Hart's 1988 Presidential Campaign Kindle Edition, available on Amazon.

It is also made possible by GliderCell, a consultancy specializing in content development and strategy.

Lessons from Gary Hart’s 1988 Presidential Campaign — and Why Good People Often Opt Out of Politics:

My response to: Was Gary Hart Set Up? by James Fallows

My older brother (a journalist), sent me this article and then posted it on Facebook. I had worked on Gary Hart’s campaign for President in 1988, so felt I needed to respond in part to defend history’s judgement of him.

It’s really sad what happened here. This scandal absolutely pales in comparison to anything that has happened in American politics since that time (or even before, if we dive into the alleged scandals of JFK, LBJ and others). I got to see Hart up close as a student at Colorado State, where he announced his Presidential campaign in ’84 to a packed lecture hall. I would see him again on his National Field staff for his1988 run. I worked mostly in Iowa for the caucuses there with a staff that was organized by a then relatively unknown Martin O’Malley (who would later run for President in 2016).

Hart was a very decent, respectable, intelligent and thoughtful man and would have made a great President. I should note that Paul Albritton (a friend and strategist for Hart) once told me that Hart had told him (over dinner I think) that he (Hart) did not think he would have been too popular with the public. Hart was known for rolling up his sleeves at campaign stops and using the chalk board to give lectures on civics, government and the role of the citizen in a democracy. Hart believed the public would have grown tired of this, and judging by where we are in our public discourse in this country now — I think he was right.

After barely losing to Mondale in the ‘84 Democratic Primaries and then seeing Mondale get demolished by Reagan in the Presidential Election, Hart was the natural front runner in ’88. I learned, during the course of the ’88 campaign, that there was even a meeting between Hart and Soviet leader Gorbachev sometime after the ’84 Presidential Election - since even Gorbachev likely believed Hart to be the next U.S. President. Possibly resulting from this meeting, Hart authored a policy he called “constructive engagement” — which was included in a 94 page book we gave out to voters that year, called Reform, Hope and the Human Factor: Ideas for National Restructuring.

There was so much excitement about Hart becoming President that it was only natural for an “attack dog” like Atwater to find a way to bring him down. This would lead, of course, to the more desirable candidate for the Republicans, Mike Dukakis (and we all know what happened there).

It just makes me sad that he got caught up in this — and that these tactics are still used today — driving out otherwise good and qualified people!

Thanks to James Fallows of the Atlantic for writing this piece. I think it was important to set the record straight, but also important for us to see the historical roots of how we got to this place in American politics. The question now is whether we’ll learn from our mistakes and make an attempt to strive for something better.

I’ve now written the entire story in a book called:

When The Dust Settles: A Collection of Stories From Gary Hart's 1988 Presidential Campaign

A Collection of Stories From Gary Hart's 1988 Presidential Campaign

A Collection of Stories From Gary Hart's 1988 Presidential Campaign

11 Activity and Lesson Ideas for Teachers, Summer Camps and Team Building Programs

Here are 11 activity and lesson ideas you can use in the classroom, at summer camps or for team building.

Also available in larger form here.

hashtag#STEAM hashtag#SummerCamp hashtag#edu hashtag#EdTech hashtag#teachers hashtag#ArtsEducation hashtag#TeamBuilding hashtag#ProfessionalDevelopment hashtag#GBL hashtag#PBL

New Meetup Group in Sacramento For Experiencing and Discussing The Arts

If you are in the Sacramento area and are interested in music, film, theater, dance, poetry, literature,
painting and sculpture - then this is for you.

Brandon Norgaard, Founder of the Sacramento Politics and Philosophy Meetup is starting a group called
Sacramento Dilettantes and you are formally invited. The purpose of the group is to have great
discussions around cultural and artistic events in and around Sacramento.

You are invited! All you have to do is go to the Meetup site and click on join. That’s it.

If you have an idea of your own -- something involving music, art, dance, theater, etc., let us know.
And, if you are personally involved, e.g. musician or artist, tell us about your upcoming event here.

Please forward to a friend.

Thanks!

Note:  Sacramento Dilettantes is affiliated with The Sacramento Politics and Philosophy Meetup,
GliderCell and HikeStorming (unofficially known as the Sacramento Intelligentsia).

Episode 4 of GliderCell -- UNDERemployment

Are you working in a job that has little to do with your actual talents, interests and abilities? Have you ever wondered what percentage of the population is like this, i.e. not being able to match their interests with being able to make a living and wondered why that is? Did you ever stop to think about the high level of human talent, intelligence and creativity that lays dormant in the world? Does there appear to be an invisible barrier that we don’t quite understand that prevents so many from rising up to positions where their efforts can make a difference?

That’s one way to look at “underemployment” and what it really means. It was also the topic of Episode 4 of GliderCell.

The setting for our discussion was a kitchen table with four well informed, creative thinkers and people of vision. These folks have found a way to combine their need to be creative and use their mental abilities with making a living and they had a lot to say, not only about underemployment, but about all of the other contributing factors.

Guests

Going clockwise from where I was seated at the table. 

Roderick Bedingfield is a modern day Renaissance man, finding connections between his love of Tango, creative thought and construction. He has studied graphic and fine arts, biology, business, building science and carpentry. His current work involves designing and building compact housing and “grid free infrastructure and buildings.” Contact Info. LinkedIn Profile

Afzal Rashid is the current Vice Chair of the Afghan Development Association an NGO working on integrated rural development projects in Afghanistan. Formerly, he was the Country Director for the International Development Law Organization of Afghanistan. He also worked as a Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Finance in Afghanistan and, after moving to California, became Chief of Quality Assurance for the Mental Health Section with the State. He was also a main contributor to Speaking Afghan Pashto : the eastern Afghan dialect.

Brandon Norgaard is the founder of the Sacramento Politics and Philosophy Group and the author of the forthcoming book Seeking a More Enlightened Worldview. You can read more about his project at EnlightenedWorldview.com. Brandon has a day job where he develops network management software, but he spends his nights and weekends working on his true passions: community organizing, reading, writing, and philosophizing.

Robert Freeman is the Founder, President and CEO OF VoteMatrix.com An experienced Solutions Architect, Software Developer, and Systems Integrator, Mr. Freeman has worked with many consulting firms providing technical expertise to State of California government agencies and other companies utilizing the latest, largest, and most complex computer systems available. He is a futurist, technology leader, developer mentor, community contributor, and self-proclaimed Altruistic Nerd. He is also proficient in project management, process improvement, proposals, manufacturing, 3D modeling, graphics design, mechanical engineering, business analysis, philosophy, marketing, electrical engineering, and event coordination.

More interested in discussing than moderating, your host for the GliderCell Podcast, Lee Chazen.

Special thanks to our channel partner, Qualia (Use the code GLIDERCELL to get 10% off single month orders and 15% off of a subscription).

Also, thanks to show consultant Ed Mulder and producer, Ivan Juric.

Forward March By Pat Metheny: Funny, Yet Strangely Artistic

In 1984 The Pat Metheny Group figured out a way to turn what a 6th grade band sounds like into an art form. Funny & strangely artistic (no offense to 6th grade band students. I've been there before and I know your struggles).

Forward March by Pat Metheny Group https://buff.ly/2EIaksR