In a recent column, you mentioned carrying forward a capital loss from a previous investment. I was told you cannot do this, so would appreciate your viewpoint. I hold a power of attorney for my son, who is Australian and has worked overseas for more than 20 years for an arm of the United Nations. He has five investment properties in Melbourne and, before the outbreak of COVID-19, decided to sell three. One, held for 20 years, should make a healthy profit but the other two, held for eight and nine years, respectively, would be lucky to sell for a loss of $50,000. If one or two are sold in this financial year at a loss, could those losses be carried into a following financial year to offset the profit of number three when sold? What is the tax rate for a non-resident? F.C.

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If your son generates a capital loss in 2019-20, it can be carried forward indefinitely and can offset future capital gains, but not income. A realised capital gain is taxed in the year the property is sold.

Good tax planning would therefore suggest that you either take your losses first, or sell all three in the same financial year. Note that a Capital Gains Tax event generally occurs when you exchange contracts, not when you settle.

As a non-resident, the first $87,000 of taxable income is taxed at 32.5 per cent, with no Medicare Levy, while the excess, up to $180,000, is taxed at 37 per cent, then rising to 45 per cent.

Dont tell your son that United Nations pensions are taxed in Australia. He might be disinclined to return!

I have a five-ounce gold ingot which I have had for many years, put aside for a rainy day. With the gold price quite high now, the rainy day has come, as I need some maintenance work on my house. There is a stamp on it for the Australian Bullion Company, the percentage of gold, and the weight. Can you please advise the best and safest way to sell the ingot? V.P.

ABC should buy back your gold bar. The company has offices in capital cities, excluding Adelaide. Call them on 1300 361 261.

You have done well. At the time of writing, gold in Australian dollars is up 12 per cent in 2020 and has almost doubled in the past decade, although it has been drifting down since March, as the US dollar weakens and our dollar strengthens accordingly.

If you have a question for George Cochrane, send it to Personal Investment, PO Box 3001, Tamarama, NSW, 2026. Help lines: Australian Financial Complaints Authority, 1800 931 678; Centrelink pensions 13 23 00. All letters answered.

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Beware being too heavily invested in overvalued property - Sydney Morning Herald

Innotech Profile

Date started:2013

Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari

Based: Muscat, Oman

Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies

Size:15 full-time employees

Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing

Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exitedthrough an agreementwith a new investor to secure new funding that itunder negotiation right now.

When the coronavirus outbreak spread quickly from China to the rest of the world, triggering a global shortage of medical equipment and a race to secure supplies, Omani entrepreneur Othman Al Mandhari proposed a solution to the health authorities: Go local.

The 30-year-old engineer's Muscat-based start-up, Innotech, specialises in 3D printing services that produce parts for oil and gas companies, industrial businesses and research and development labs. As the Covid-19 pandemic paralysed international trade, disrupted supply chains and hit manufacturing bases globally, Innotech switched gears and began providing life-saving ventilators and masks for those on the frontline of the Covid-19 response in the sultanate.

"Before Covid-19 business was a bit slow, it was really tough, people didn't believe in the technology and we had to do many experiments to show customers," Mr Al Mandhari says. "Now, with Covid-19, people see the technology works. If you cannot import from China, you're forced to manufacture locally. If you want masks or ventilators, you have to manufacture locally and 3D printing is the best way."

For the former Schlumberger engineer, who left his job in 2016 to focus on growing his business, local manufacturing using 3D printing technology is one answer to Oman's economic diversification efforts to help reduce reliance on imports, create jobs for nationals and build new industries.

"Now people are thinking: what happens if you can't import from China? Worldwide, everyone will start to invest in manufacturing hubs," he says. "Why dont you invest in young engineers thousands are looking for jobs in Oman educate them, start to manufacture and export?"

Much like Innotech, 3D printing businesses in other parts of the world are modifying their production to meet increasing demand for medical equipment during the pandemic. For months, manufacturing companies, start-ups, research and development labs and major corporations have been busy 3D-printing face shields and ventilator parts for healthcare professionals and hospitals.

Innotech secured contracts with Oman's Ministry of Health to provide masks and ventilators when it became more difficult to import supplies from China, he says. Now it produces 300 to 400 masks daily in its workshop of 22 3D printers.

"Our 3D printers are running 24/7 ... we are working day and night to keep up with the demand," he says.

So far, Innotech has supplied more than 6,000 masks to the Ministry of Health, which in turn distributes to hospitals and has supplied 2,000 masks to the World Health Organisation in Oman, according to Mr Al Mandhari. It sells each mask for 2.5 Omani riyals (Dh23.87/$6.50), roughly the same amount as the cost of production.

"We are not looking to profit from these products. We are working to help our country in this crisis," he says.

Innotech was established in 2013 and was self-funded. In 2017, venture capital firm Oman Technology Fund invested $100,000 in its sister business, Innobox, which makes educational kits used to teach children aged eight years and older about electronics and programming.

Now Mr Al Mandhari is in talks with local venture capital firms to raise $2 million (Dh7.34m) to $3m in a Series A funding round to expand his businesses and expects the deal to close within six weeks, he says.

We are not looking to profit from these products. We are working to help our country in this crisis, Othman Al Mandhari,

founder, Innotech

The investment will fund plans for a 3D printing factory, which will allow clients from around the world to access the platform, upload a file with the technical specifications for their product, have them manufactured through Innotech's 3D printers and shipped.

The factory will span 3,000 square metres in the first stage, with plans to expand in future phases.

The current round of finance will also see Innotech fund plans for concrete 3D printing that will allow it to fabricate buildings initially two-to-three storeys before going on to larger construction projects, he says.

Mr Al Mandhari is also looking to finance the other part of the business, Innobox, which has already sold 800 units, but is embarking on a redesign of its product, to manufacture in-house and expand into the other Gulf and Middle East markets.

The engineer admits that the various branches of his start-up, from 3D printing to education, have prompted investors to see the business as "scattered". However, he insists that this diversification has been an advantage during the Covid-19 pandemic.

For example, the education part of the business stopped generating revenue during the pandemic as schools and educational centres shut down to curb the spread of the virus, which led to the switch in focus to 3D printing.

"Thanks to other services, we survived because of multiple revenue streams," he says. "The mentality of investors is starting to change and they're starting to see it as an advantage."

Getting its Series A funding to open the new factory will be "critical" for the business to focus on demand for parts from all sectors.

"Right now we see huge demand and we can't cover it because we're limited by the number and type of 3D printers," he says.

Oman, which relies on oil revenue for economic growth, is home to major international and local oil and gas companies that currently import parts for their facilities from others countries.

Innotech aims to add value by supplying the parts locally, which would cut costs and delivery times, according to Mr Al Mandhari.

"If we can do this service in Oman we can save time rather than months, it can take weeks for parts to arrive save costs, and help companies meet their quota for contracts to local firms," he says.

The company has doubled revenue between 2017-2019 but expects the coronavirus crisis to put a dent in that growth trajectory this year.

"The target for 2020 is to double revenue, but with Covid-19, our expectations are a bit lower," he says.

Growth this year will come from the 3D printing business once the investment is secured and the factory is set up.

"Now we can't target too many clients because the capacity of our printers is limited, but when we get the investment, we can target new customers," he says. "Once we have this factory up and running, we can definitely increase our revenue."

The start-up aims to hire another 12 employees once its secures new funding, as it looks to grow the current team of 15 people.

Future growth targets include expanding the 3D printing business to include metal, concrete and plastic production, he says.

"We are open to any investors from the Middle East," he says.

Q&A with Othman Al Mandhari, chief executive of Innotech

Who first invested in you?

Oman Technology Fund, a local venture capital firm, invested $100,000.

What already successful start-up do you wish you had started?

SpaceX! I am an engineer and engineers are in love with solving challenging problems and space is the most challenging problem you can imagine! I have always been inspired by anything related to space.

What is your next big dream to make happen?

Launch our factory, grow to become the world's number 1 online 3D printing platform and construct the first 3D-printed building in Oman.

What new skills have you learnt in the process of launching your start-up?

Dealing with people! Something we are really bad at, as engineers, is dealing with people because we are dealing with machines most of our time! Being an entrepreneur helped me shape my skills and learn how to deal with people, from customers and employees to family and friends.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted your business?

Our 3D printing and R&D services are positively impacted because the government and the private sector could not import technology from China and other countries because of the lockdown, so we had a massive increase in R&D and 3D Printing services. In our EdTech department, we struggled in the beginning by losing many contracts, but later on we managed to shift into online learning platforms and got back to the track.

Updated: June 14, 2020 01:32 PM

Innotech Profile

Date started:2013

Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari

Based: Muscat, Oman

Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies

Size:15 full-time employees

Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing

Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exitedthrough an agreementwith a new investor to secure new funding that itunder negotiation right now.

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Generation Start-up: Oman's Innotech seeks $3m investment to expand 3D printing business - The National

While yields on short-term Indian government bonds are falling like there is no tomorrow, those on longer-term bonds remain sticky. This has led to a steep yield curve the sort that the country has not witnessed at least in the past two decades. A steep yield curve has implications for investors. The country has witnessed steep yield curves twice in the past, and each such occasion was followed by a stunning bull run in equities. To quote a popular saying, history does not repeat itself but it does tend to rhyme.

The first instance: Between 2003 and 2005, yields on short-term government bonds had fallen to historic lows and the yield curve was steep. The spread between short-term bond yields and long-term bond yields was close to 2 percentage points (or 200 basis points). While the three-month government bond yield was at four per cent, the 10-year G-Sec yield was at six per cent. At this point in time, investors were wary of investing in the equity markets. The Y2K bubble had burst and 9/11 had happened. Between 2000 and 2003, bonds delivered double-digit returns. Towards the end of the bond market rally, equity investors booked losses in equities and entered long-duration bond funds at high net asset values (NAVs) at a time when yields had already bottomed out. Over the next few years, it was the equity markets that delivered one of the strongest rallies ever. The Sensex went from 3,000 to 21,000 over the ensuing four years. From mid-2006 onwards, investors booked losses in bond funds (because yields had risen) and shifted large amounts of money into equities. This was a time when the IPO (initial public offer) boom was on in the markets. Come 2008 and equity markets fell off the cliff. Investors thus lost money both in bonds and in equities.

Wrong timing once again: As equities crashed in 2008, yields also declined. So, while equities delivered negative returns, longer-duration bond funds gave returns as high as 40 per cent during the second half of 2008. During this period, investors saw the value of their investments in equities decline at the same time when net asset values (NAVs) of bond funds were rising steeply. In 2009, investors moved out of equities (booking huge losses, of course) and entered long-duration bond funds, when their NAVs had already risen to high levels. By this time, yields had already crashed to levels that were even lower than in 2003. The yield on the three-month treasury bill was at three per cent while the 10-year G-Sec yield was at around 5 per cent. In other words, the difference in yield between these two bonds was two percentage points (or 200 basis points). At a time when retail investors had abandoned equities, the Sensex once again zoomed from 8,000 to 20,000 over the next two years, starting from January 2009. Small investors were bystanders in this rally as well.

Steep curve once again: Currently, the yield on shorter-term bonds is below three per cent. The slope of the yield curve is also the steepest, with the difference between the three-month treasury bill and the 10-year G-Sec being three percentage points (or 300 basis points). The yield curve was not as steep either in 2003 or 2009.

Equity markets are once again on tenterhooks due to the global pandemic. The fear that there may be a second wave of the pandemic, which may be more severe than the first, has dampened investor sentiment. But could 2020, during which we have witnessed a global pandemic, cyclones, locust attacks, earthquakes, and intensification of the trade wars turn out to be another belter of a year for equities? And will retail investors manage to participate in the rally this time?

Unclear picture: It is a tricky situation. The market is deriving its adrenaline chiefly from the injection of liquidity. The system is flushed with liquidity, as can be seen from the fact that every day more than Rs 7 lakh crore is parked in the Reserve Bank of India's reverse repo window. So, while the fundamentals are weak and should, in the normal course, cause equity markets to crash, liquidity support is very strong, due to which the equity markets are holding firm.

GDP data for FY20 was poor, as was widely anticipated. The economy may contract in FY21. This is a development that most investors will experience for perhaps the first time in their lives. The outlook remains bleak across sectors. Not a day goes by without news of some company or the other laying off employees.

In times of such economic distress, it is difficult to justify the current market valuations. But with so much liquidity sloshing around, it is unlikely that the markets will witness a sustained fall for a prolonged period of time. A steep yield curve also means that banks can borrow cheaply for the short-term and lend at higher rates for the long-term. Bank profits could rise. The S&P BSE Bankex is among the worst-performing sectoral indices over the past year.

Looking back at the markets in 2003 and 2009, index valuations were quite low just before the equity markets rallied: The Nifty PE was between 10 and 14 times on both these occasions. Retail investors were averse to equities. Neither of these two conditions prevails today. Equity markets are not trading at very low valuations, nor are retail investors fleeing from this asset class. So, empirically, the equity markets may not have bottomed out yet.

In such circumstances, instead of betting on current valuations, investors should run systematic investment plans (SIPs) so as to average out their cost of purchase. If they don't want the trouble of selecting an active fund, they should go with an index fund. Second, at a time when markets could plunge, quality stocks can provide a good hedge to ones portfolio. High-pedigree stocks tend to weather a storm relatively better. And even if they fall, these stocks tend to be picked by value seekers first. Third, if the portfolio size (including both direct equities and equity mutual funds) is bigger than Rs 25 lakh, the investor should consider hedging his portfolio.

In the case of a large and sudden fall, many retail investors tend to panic and sell their equity holdings. If your portfolio is hedged, you will not need to worry even if the market cracks. It is like having a raincoat while going out: Whether it rains or not, you are not affected.

While it is good to take precautions, we should not forget the lessons of history. Bull markets are born in the depths of pessimism. Staying invested in equities is important. Even if retail investors made mistakes in 2003 and 2009, they should get things right the third time in 2020.

First Published: Sat, June 13 2020. 22:01 IST

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Signals from the debt market: Staying invested in equities is importants - Business Standard

Wyzant

Customer success management is essentially relationship maintenance, built on the foundation that the client feels genuinely attended to at all times, especially when problems arise. But when it comes time to scale up, managing several accounts, including enterprise ones, requires more time. Hiring more customer success managersisnt always sustainable.

Thats where technologies like CRM systems and macros that prefill emails come in. Effective automation allows companies to tactfully respond to a large number of clients at once while still empowering CSMs to give greater attention to the biggest problems.

Built In spoke with tech professionals from three Chicago companies Fusion Risk Management, Aptitive and Wyzant that have seen rapid growth. Wyzant, for example, went from two founders connecting students and tutors on college campuses to 2 million users and 80,000 instructors worldwide in less than a decade. They said automated customer success is inevitable, but it cant succeed without human touch. All three respondents mentioned that customer success teams need to know how to analyze data and determine whether an issue can be solved through automation, or whether it requires personal outreach.

Fusion Risk Managements team analyzes their conversations with clients through a CRM, while Wyzant examines email language to determine whether it requires an automated response or a human one.

Tracey Rice

Senior Vice President, Customer Service

Tracey Rice, SVP of customer success at Fusion Risk Management, said automation only comes into play following conversations CSMs have with clients. At the Chicago-based provider of risk management services, reports and dashboards offer the birds-eye view that CSMs need to create high-level strategies for clients.

When it comes to scaling your customer success team, what are the most important considerations and why?

Its important that our customer success team is filled with empathetic, forward thinkers who are willing to go the extra mile for our clients. Their personalities are important. We also want a balanced client to customer success manager ratio so our CSMs can dedicate adequate time to each client in their portfolio. Were using metrics like product adoption, license utilizationand others to track their growth before and after joining the customer success program. We also lean on Fusions other departments to provide their subject matter expertise so we can focus on our roles account management, product, delivery, supportand solutions engineers which all have an impact on the success of our clients programs.

What tools or technologies do you use to make customer success more scalable?

Right now were leaning heavily on virtual events and video to connect with all our clients regularly. We rolled out a three-part recurring series of engagements to foster a network of sharing among our clients. We hold monthly webinars spotlighting our client success stories during our customer spotlight series and new ways our products can be used during our product showcases. Since we had to postpone our seasonal, in-person regional user group meetings, we launched a weekly community exchange so clients can candidly discuss the challenges, successesand questions they face day-to-day. Letting our communities learn from each other gets them excited about new ideas, and the CSMs can help the ideas come to fruition more efficiently.

Automation comes into play when we take what we learn from our conversations, input it into our CRM and let the analysis do the work from there.

How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?

We rely on regular conversations with our clients to ensure we have full insight into their program goals, executive priorities, challenges and opportunities. Were a data-driven organization, so automation comes into play when we take what we learn from our conversations, input it into our CRMand let the analysis do the work from there. Reports, dashboards and scorecards are generated so we can analyze the breadth of our clients programs and strategize where the biggest opportunities to help them may be.

Aptitive CEO Paul Corning said the Chicago-based data and analytics consulting firm develops customized templates and tools for individual clients based on previous successes so they can be repeated throughout the customer lifecycle. But no template will suit every client, so the templates are unique to each based on their own processes.

When it comes to scaling your customer success team, what are the most important considerations and why?

We want repeatable successes for our clients, but we have to consider what makes each client unique to achieve that. Our technology projects have to address the people and process side of every client if we want to be successful. The most important thing is to reuse designs and maximize the productivity of our consultants with templates and tools, while still customizing the people and process solution for each client.

What tools or technologies do you use to make customer success more scalable?

By leveraging our prior project successes, we can apply best practices and be more likely achieve the customer success that our clients want. We also extensively train our consultants in the latest technologies and build frameworks and templates that help our small teams be highly productive for client project work.

We hire only the brightest consultants and rely on their expertise to balance automation with high-touch people and process solutions.

How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?

The key for Aptitive is a focus on high productivity across a small team of experts. We strive to deliver value to our clients aggressively and let the consulting team leverage the tools and automation that best apply in each client project. We hire only the brightest consultants and rely on their expertise to balance automation with high-touch people and process solutions.

Tim Janis

Customer Support Team Manager

Wyzants customer support team manager, Tim Janis, said the Chicago-based edtech platform handles a significant number of its 2 million users issues at one time by keeping multiple modes of communication open, sometimes even bypassing personal customer support by providing self-service solutions or auto replies to common problems. This allows CSMs to personally address more sensitive issues.

When it comes to scaling your customer success team, what are the most important considerations and why?

As a web-based platform, our product is constantly evolving. So one of our biggest challenges is ensuring training materials are up to date with changes on all of Wyzants platforms. Thats why the skill we seek most in a new team member is the ability to adapt to changes on the fly and incorporate new information into their daily processes. Even after six years at Wyzant, I still learn new things about our front-end and back-end platforms. As comprehensive as our training is, there is no way to distill every single thing a new hire will encounter in their day-to-day work into the process. So along with the ability to stay current with platform changes, curiousnew team members must also be collaborative, tech savvy and creative problem-solvers.

What tools or technologies do you use to make customer success more scalable?

In order to assist as many customers as possible, we offer support through a variety of channels throughout the day. While we traditionally focused on phone and email support, it can be very difficult to assist multiple customers at once using these channels. Live chat has really helped us increase the number of customers we can service concurrently. Because we deal with a lot of similar customer interactions over time, we also use email macros to be as efficient as possible. Macros that prefill customer information and add a customizable email response really help make sure we can serve as many customers as possible while still providing a personalized touch. We have also started experimenting with automated email replies for common issues that do not require personalized assistance. By looking at the type of email a customer is replying to or the language used in their messages, we can automatically reply to provide a solution to their issue. Of course, we let the customer know that if they still have issuesthey can reply once more soa representative can assist further. Maintaining up-to-date self-service resources for customers is also extremely important for scaling services. Providing customers the answers to their most frequently asked questions before they even reach out not only improves the customers overall experiencebut also ensures our representatives are available for inquiries that require more hands-on assistance.

We take a data-driven approach to everything we do at Wyzant, including our support operations.

How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?

We take a data-driven approach to everything we do at Wyzant, including our support operations. All our customer interactions are tagged with metadata so we can review why the customer reached out and how we resolved their issue. This information has helped us automate support provided for issues that are always resolved the same way. Simple inquiries like account navigation and platform functionality are easily automated since the answers rarely change. More sensitive situations, such as customers' purchasesor those involving multiple users or variables, should always be handled by an actual representative. These interactions are harder to automate, and customers want to feel there is a real person there to take care of them and listen to their concerns while providing a solution tailored to their specific issue.

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How to Scale Customer Success Without Losing the Personal Touch - Built In Chicago

In a hectic world where technology is evolving at a faster rate, where artificial intelligence (AI) and robots are able to handle basic humans tasks, where conflicts and wars routinely break out, and where long-term relationships seem to be harder to maintain, emotional intelligence is more important than ever.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) or Emotional Quotient (EQ) refers to an individuals capability to understand, manage, and use their own emotions and those of the people around them in positive ways.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to distinguish between different feelings and identify and understand them to communicate effectively, empathize with others, relieve stress, conquer challenges, and defuse conflict.

American psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman is one of the most inventive writers on the topic of emotional intelligence. In his book Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ, the author argues that EI is twice as important as IQ (Intelligence Quotient).

IQ is relatively a fixed intelligence while EI includes behavioral traits that can be learned and improved for significant benefits, from personal happiness and well-being to career success, he underlines.

Goleman defines EI in five key categories:

Self-awareness: Self-evaluation, understanding your emotions, and recognizing how they affect your thoughts, behavior, and the people around you. Self-awareness helps you have a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses and allow you to feel more confident and fulfilled.

Self-regulation: The ability to be in control of your emotions, impulses, or disruptive thoughts. People who self-regulate are flexible and adapt easily to changes and situations, and they are great at managing conflict and taking responsibility. Self-regulation can help you think before you act, allowing you to be more thoughtful without compromising your values.

Self-motivation: The ability to self-motivate, determine what motivates you, and achieve self-gratification without waiting for validation or praise from others. People who have high emotional intelligence are usually motivated and work consistently towards their goals, and are highly productive and effective in everything they do.

Empathy: The ability to recognize and identify other peoples feelings, wants, needs, and viewpoints and how to respond to them in social situations. Empathy helps you understand the emotions of others even if they are not obvious. It allows you to listen well, judge fairly, avoid stereotypes, and give constructive feedback.

Social skills: The ability to use your understanding of others emotions to build better relationships and connect with people using social skills such as listening and verbal and nonverbal communication. People that use social skills are usually friendly and easy to talk to. They are diplomatic in nature and experts at managing conflicts and helping others succeed.

The importance of emotional intelligence

The importance and benefits of emotional intelligence are immense, both professionally and personally. EI improves relationships, confidence, and communication skills to achieve academic and professional success.

Emotional intelligence is important in forming and developing peoples growth, which is why psychologists have suggested teaching EI in schools Emotionally intelligent children grow up to become emotionally intelligent adults and productive and compassionate members of society.

Some benefits of strong emotional intelligence include:

Better communication

Having high emotional intelligence improves communication, allowing you to express yourself clearly while staying calm in difficult situations. Strong communication skills will earn you respect and appreciation from others.

Being a good communicator helps you persuade and influence others, solve problems effectively, and have better and stronger relationships either in the workplace or personal life.

Good communication in a company helps maintain a peaceful work environment with energetic employees that get along with and respect one another, enabling longlasting professional success.

Teamwork

Highly intelligent people recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and they always put others into consideration, making them great communicators in a team. They are able to respect and value their coworkers input and points of view while listening in a positive way, building trust with their peers.

Having high EI also helps individuals be confident and open to share their own ideas without controlling the teams dynamic to get what they want, as they prefer to work in teams to increase creativity and promote ideas to help achieve the teams goals.

Adaptability

Emotional intelligence helps you adapt and adjust to new situations easily, even if they are difficult or unfamiliar, without feeling frustration or any other negative emotion resulting from the change.

People with high EI are open to change and can manage the stress, anxiety, and other challenges that come with it. Emotionally intelligent people make change an opportunity for success and growth while instilling trust and confidence in others by helping them through these changes, as well.

Leadership

Great leaders are emotionally intelligent people. They are considered, thoughtful, strong communicators, and respectful of others. They are able to understand their emotions and others thoughts, feelings, and actions and determine how to influence them and inspire them positively.

Having a deep understanding of your own and others emotions can help you be in control of your life and have a better connection with those around you, nurturing stronger relationships built on clear communication, trust, and a positive attitude.

Motivation

Understanding and managing your emotions can have a positive impact on your life. You will know how to deal with conflicts and difficult situations, leading to an increase in motivation and productivity.

Emotionally intelligent people believe that they are in control over their own lives. They are often optimistic, hard-working, and driven by a sense of ambition to be successful, no matter what obstacles they may face.

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The Personal and Professional Importance of Emotional Intelligence - Morocco World News

It is a DallasBasketball.com tradition to re-run the accomplished journalist Glenn Yoders 2011 Dallas Mavericks NBA title reflection on the anniversary of that incredible time. and it all brings rushing back Yoders work, at the top of his game on Dirk, at the top of his. Happy ninth anniversary. Enjoy .

With about a minute left in Game 6 of the 2011 NBA Finals, and the Dallas Mavericks having effectively deflated the Miami Heat's championship hopes, I turned wide-eyed to my group of friends and the packed Denton bar surrounding me. The words shot out loudly as the realization washed over the gathered crowd.

"Oh my God... They're going to win!" I must have yelled that 10 times, each holler louder than the last, and within 30 seconds, as Dirk Nowitzki's face showed that he was experiencing the same thought, I cried.

In adulthood, crying over sports is silly since you're not directly involved. It's like when I received over 20 congratulatory texts within minutes of the game ending nice, but I didn't do anything to earn that praise, other than devote years of hopes and cheers to a basketball franchise that happens to be in my hometown.

Millions of fans do the same in 29 other NBA cities each year, many of which never experience this wonderful pay-off. Players may say it is about the fans, and when things go right we feel rewarded for our commitment to the team (worse, on the other side of the coin, some of us feel "owed" when things don't go so well), but in a twisted way LeBron James is kind of right:

Our lives do remain the same, regardless of the outcome of a sporting event.

What made this win particularly special for Mavs fans is that it wasn't just about bragging rights or our validation for supporting the team through all these years. It was bigger than that, more intimate than your run-of-the-mill title. The feeling was personal, yet somehow not about us, the fans, at all. As a friend of mine tweeted that Sunday night, "Championships are so much better when you feel happier for the players than yourself."

But of course, this isn't about multiple players, even if this was a "win for team basketball," as Dirk put it. Yes, it's heartwarming to see a bunch of deserving ring-less veterans like Jason Kidd, Jason Terry and Shawn Marion finally reap the fruits of their labor. But even all of them know the truth. This was for Dirk. ... Chuck Cooperstein's call touches on that as The UberMan hits the Game 6 dagger ...

Obviously, far superior writers than I have already detailed how fantastic it is to witness Dirk's loyalty triumph over Miami's stir-and-serve recipe for success. It's a critical, beautiful storyline to this dream finale, but it only scratches the surface of a much deeper well of emotions. In short, Dirk loves Dallas, and Dallas loves him back.

In 2004, my second year living and working in Boston, I covered the celebration when the Red Sox won the World Series. I vividly recall sitting in a cramped apartment full of college students as the team closed out a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. Even in the ninth inning of Game 4, the Boston fans were convinced something was going to go awry (turns out this fear is buried inside me as well). But the jubilation that followed the Sox' victory was sweet for Bostonians for a totally different reason not better or worse than this Mavericks' win was for us. The Sox' championship was deeply personal to the fans, the culmination of 86 years of waiting and praying, parents and grandparents passing their fandom onto their kids and grandkids, and so forth. In the Mavericks' case, this title may be a pot of gold after 31 fruitless years passed down over a few generations of fans, but throughout this playoff run, I believe the vast majority of Dallas fans removed themselves from the equation. Even Mark Cuban took a backseat by going silent.

Why? It was all about how Dirk felt.

Under normal fan circumstances, we would simply be happy with a Mavericks championship. Dirk's personal success, which thankfully runs concurrently, should be secondary to us after all, he's a man most of us don't know personally. However, the script got flipped. In Dallas, seeing Dirk become a champion became Priority No. 1, while the fact that it also meant a Mavericks title became the bonus.

There's a simple explanation for this. Our feelings for Dirk, and frankly, his personal well-being, grew to be extremely personal over time. That's what happens when you watch an awkward player who looked like Bambi trying to walk on ice during his first season develop into the saving grace of your moribund franchise and then come oh-so-close to a championship in 2006. His struggles made us proud of each of his successes and appreciative of his tireless work ethic. We started taking personal offense when other fans, who clearly didn't regularly watch him play through countless sprained ankles, labeled him "soft." We vigilantly defended his honor when lazy national writers attempted to place Pau Gasol above him on the league's best European player list (that debate was settled convincingly this year, right?).

Soon, we began worrying about Dirk as if he was our own son out there on the court how is he going to feel about losing to the Warriors in the first round then quietly accepting an MVP trophy? How will he react if he believes his best friend got low-balled on a new contract, causing that friend to sign elsewhere? He never asked for this doting concern from us and he never would. But he certainly earned it.

Dirk toiled in the gym every day not to enhance his own legacy (his rebudding of endorsements makes it crystal clear he honestly doesn't care about his mainstream image), not just to know how it feels to be a champion for his own personal sake, but largely because he appreciated the rollicking support of Dallas, both the city and the organization. It's why he often said it wouldn't feel the same to win a championship elsewhere as was widely suggested by those who said he could never play the Batman on a title team, and should just become another team's Robin.

"I can't even tell you how great the city has been to me over the last 13 years. They've been by my side through ups and downs, fighting through a lot of stuff, and they always stuck with me," Nowitzki told Hannah Storm after the Game 6 close-out, sniffling through the interview. "They took me like one of theirs when I came there 13 years ago, and this is for them."

The second part of that quote is particularly significant: "Took me like one of theirs." For a 20-year-old German with spotty English playing in loud and proud Dallas, Texas, that's huge. But Dirk, don't defer credit: You earned that acceptance. Many of us have watched the Mavericks since long before Dirk knew where Dallas was on the map, but never felt the affection for a single player as we have for him. Dirk is everything you could want in a franchise player, as well as a humble spokesman for our city and team and an ambassador for the game itself. That those facts were so woefully misunderstood by the at-large NBA public for the duration of his career led to Mavericks fans embracing Dirk tighter still. He became one of us.

No wonder Mavs fans thanked him in true Texan style, putting Shiner Bock on his doorstep after the Finals. Dallas and Dirk have been inextricably linked for years, and amazingly, after all these seasons of wondering whether championship windows were cracked or closed, that union paid off. Big time. In the sweetest way possible, with all sorts of fun storylines about revenge and vindication and The Decision. But it didn't really matter who Dirk won a championship against. We just wanted him to get one for him. And if he didn't? We would have loved him just the same.

I spent a long time that Sunday night justifying those tears to my friends who snapped photos of my crumpled face. But there wasn't any need. They understand. The connection with Dirk runs deep his tears are our tears, and vice versa. He may have hidden his tears from public view when he jumped over the scorer's table as Game 6 ended, running into the locker room showers while covering his face with a towel to hide his emotion.

But I am proud of mine, silly and embarrassing as they may be. They're for Dirk. He earned them.

Glenn Yoder is a lifelong Mavs fan, a friend of DBcom and a veteran newspaper journalist. This article first ran on DBcom on Aug. 1, 2011.

View post:
Happy 9th Mavs Champs Anniversary: Oh My God, Theyre Going To Win! - Sports Illustrated

Becomes second recreational marijuana store to open

Alicia Jaimes, alicia.jaimes@pioneergroup.com

Opening in Big Rapids just last month, KKind General Manager Joe Keck said business has been steadily growing ever since. (Pioneer photo/Alicia Jaimes)

Opening in Big Rapids just last month, KKind General Manager Joe Keck said business has been steadily growing ever since. (Pioneer photo/Alicia Jaimes)

Opening in Big Rapids just last month, KKind General Manager Joe Keck said business has been steadily growing ever since. (Pioneer photo/Alicia Jaimes)

Opening in Big Rapids just last month, KKind General Manager Joe Keck said business has been steadily growing ever since. (Pioneer photo/Alicia Jaimes)

Cannabis business growing in Big Rapids

BIG RAPIDS Joe Keck, general manager of Big Rapids' newest marijuana dispensary, said business has been steadily growing since opening in the area.

Our budtenders really enjoy engaging with members of the community, and it really feels as if we are building long-lasting relationships with our customers, Keck said of the business, KKind.

All the way from Kalamazoo, KKind a state licensed cannabis provisioning center opened its second recreational store in the city of Big Rapids.

I have suffered for years of pain and anxiety, and cannabis has helped me provide myself a better quality of life most days, Keck said. I have even recently been giving my grandmother CBD Transdermal Rubs to help with her arthritis in her hands and knees, and its really been making a difference.

My dog even has his own unique blend of CBD oil provided by a local vet that has helped with his anxiety.

Enjoying having the opportunity to help people in his line of work, Keck said he considers himself a personal success story when it come to using cannabis as a holistic medicine.

We are helping people daily with pain management, anxiety, stress, depression, loss of appetite and just uplifting their spirits, he said. KKinds patient advocates have extensive training in cannabis science, including the proper dosing levels of all cannabinoids.

As well as hoping to provide relief to area residents, Keck said he hopes to hire people from the area.

We hope to provide living wage jobs for locals that we hire from the Big Rapids community, and to offer another option in town with different and new products to choose from, Keck said.

Current hours for KKind is 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday thru Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Keck said they are hoping to expand their hours soon.

Keck said KKind is also offering a limited contact curbside service.

My goal has always been to help people, whether its through music, art or cannabis, he said. I believe its our duty as cannabis professionals to educate patients on proper dosing levels, appropriate methods of use, and how our products may provide symptom relief.

If I have earned someones trust and have helped them find a way to take control of their quality of life, then Ive done my job.

Excerpt from:
Cannabis business growing in Big Rapids - The Pioneer

When Bob Zimmermann was trying to decide where he should pitch in college, he wanted to go to the school that gave him the best opportunity to go to the College World Series.

He looked at the names on the Bears' roster. He knew Bears first baseman Ryan Howard from high school and had a few conversations with him before making his choice.

"It just seemed like a good fit," Zimmermann said.

Zimmermann went on to be named the Missouri Valley Conference's Freshman of the Year in 2000 and was a first-team All-Conference selection. After his freshman year, he was elected to be a member of the USA National Team in 2001 and 2002.

For the Bears, he could start or come out of the bullpen. The team looked to him as a player whowas able to step up for his team when it needed him the most.

"The personal success is always nice, but there's nothing that can compare to when you're having team success," Zimmermann said. "It just makes things better and makes things more fun and enjoyable to be around everything. I think baseball is a sport where personal success can contribute to team success, so it was nice to have both ends.

"The teams I had my freshman and my sophomore year both teams I think we had a team that could've made a run. I feel like we got snubbed out, but we were able to use the experience to help our team my junior in 2003 that helped make that run in the postseason because of the experience."

For the second year in a row, the Bears were sent to the Lincoln Regional. This time, they would be the No. 3 seed and would open against Coastal Carolina.

The year before, the Bears lost in the opener to Marist before eliminating Milwaukee and Marist the following day. Their season came to an end when they played Nebraska and lost 14-3 instead of forcing a winner-take-all regional championship game.

What happened in the 2002 regional wasn't forgotten. It served as extra motivation for a team that didn't expect to be in the NCAA Tournament in the first place.

"I think going back was a good thing," Bears head coach Keith Guttin said. "Guys were familiar with the stadium and everything. It was an easy trip by bus. I think there was a little comfort there."

"I thought it was the perfect place to go," centerfielder Dant'e Brinkley said. "We needed that revenge. We had all the confidence in the world and we were ready to go. We knew that team because we had played them the year before and we didn't lose too many guys."

Brooks Colvin didn't want things to be the same as the Bears' trip to Lincoln in 2002. The situation was starting to feel too familiar when he was on deck, so he had an idea.

Colvin decided to flip over a circle that served as the batter's box. It had the Nebraska logo on it even though the Bears were playing Coastal Carolina.

"I didn't think it was that big of a deal at first," Colvin said.

That's when the grounds crew decided to get on the field and flip it back over to show the logo. Again, Colvin flipped it over.

"It didn't feel right to sit there and hit off of Nebraska's logo," Colvin said. "I just felt like they had a good team and good program so we had to do something to spice it up a little bit and get everyone hopping and going. It definitely did it."

Colvin became public enemy No. 1. Every time he batted all tournament long, fans booed. Every time a ball was hit his way, fans booed.

"It was awesome," Colvin said. "I just remember loving hearing them. It definitely got blown out of proportion but once it got there, I thought it was awesome."

"Aww, man, he was always doing everything," Brinkley said. "That's who we were. We weren't going to be a second-class citizen to no team. Him flipping over that batting circle was kind of our statement like 'we're here and we're ready to go.'"

Pitcher Chad Mulholland got the nod to start against Coastal Carolina. Back then, the team's top arm, Brad Ziegler, would typically throw the second game of a weekend series. Because of a Saturday doubleheader that featured a seven-inning game before a nine, starting the No. 1 pitcher in the seven-inning game would help ease the stress on bullpens.

But Mullholland was noslouch either. He finished the year 10-4 with a 3.08 ERA in 119.2 innings pitched as the team's Friday starter.

"Chad Mullholland was pretty damn good," SMS pitching coach Paul Evans said. "He was a workhorse."

Against Coastal Carolina, Mullholland got behind early. Heallowed two home runs. His five innings made for his shortest outing since the second game of the regular season.

Southwest Missouri State trailed 3-2 after four innings but the Bears kept their composure.

Three walks, including one with the bases loaded, aided the rally. Brinkley and catcher Tony Piazza had RBI singles and Clay Wheeler hit a sacrifice fly to knock Coastal Carolina's starter out of the game.

"There was talk going into that Coastal Carolina game that they had two lefties who were going to shut us down and we took it personally," Brinkley said. "It was like 'Hey, you guys aren't going to take our dream away from us' and our dream was to win that regional. We never looked past where we were. Weren't looking to the College World Series or the Super Regional. We wanted to win the Regional."

The Bears' dream of winning the regional got off to a good start after the team pulled away for an 8-3 win over Coastal Carolina in the regional opener. Brinkley helped SMS in the rally by hitting a pair of home runs.

Not only did the win advance the Bears closer to their first regional championship in program history but it also set up a chance at revenge againstNebraska whichwas then the No. 9 team in the country.

Southwest Missouri State was going to have its ace, Brad Ziegler, on the mound but Nebraska was going to bring its big gun too.

The Cornhuskers were going with Aaron Marsden. He was just named the Big 12's Pitcher of the Year after allowing three runs or fewer in 19 of his 20 appearances.

"I remember having to have that mindset that I wasn't facing him and that I was facing the hitters," Ziegler said. "Our hitters are going to have to face him, but I don't. I'm facing their hitters and it's my job to get guys out and not worry about what he's doing on the mound."

That mindset worked.

Brinkley and Colvin hit back-to-back doubles in the fifth to break a 1-1 tie. Wheeler followed with a two-out single to give SMS a 3-1 lead.

The Huskers came back with a run in the top of the sixth, aided by a balk call on Ziegler that moved a runner over to second. Nebraska later scored on a two-out single to bring the game within one.

Ziegler worked six innings and allowed a lead-off double to start the seventh before handing the ball over to closer Shaun Marcum.

Things didn't start off well for Marcum as he tossed a wild pitch to advance the runner to third before he walked his first batter with no outs.

Marcum forced the next two batters into flyouts while both runners stayed put. Perhaps the biggest play of the game followed when Piazza caught the runner at first napping and picked him off to end the inning.

SMS was able to hold on to give Ziegler the school record for single-season victories.

"We just walked out of there having beaten the home team on their field, and because of the mindset of thinking that we're not going to get in the tournament and then when we got in, we felt like we had nothing to lose," Ziegler said. "We weren't supposed to be there in our minds. Everything we got after that was a bonus. We were able to play free and not care if we got beat. Everyone expected us to get beat so it wouldn't have been that big of a deal."

Later in the day, Nebraska bounced back with an 18-2 win over Eastern Michigan to stay alive and force a rematch with the Bears. The Huskers would have to win two-straight to win the regional, while the Bears just had to win one.

Nebraska scored six runs in the second inning after the Bears failed to record an out on two sacrifice bunt plays. Both times the Bears unsuccessfully attempted to get the lead runner.

SMS was able to cut the lead in half after a Wheeler RBI single and a two-run single by Marcum but it was still too much to overcome.

In the bullpen, Zimmermann found himself warming up until things started to spiral out of control. The Bears knew he was going to be needed for a winner-take-all game, so they sat him down.

"Sometimes in those situations when it's do-or-die, you have to punt and not use your guys as much as you don't want to lose," Evans said. "Sometimes you have to say 'we have another game to win, let's save our bullets' and Bob was certainly a bullet for Nebraska that day."

Southwest Missouri State lost the game 9-5 to force a winner-take-all contest. Either the Bears would leave Lincoln with their first regional title ever or they would go home.

"We just got beat," Guttin said. "Nebraska's at home and they're good. It was really, really hot and they had a place for us between games. We had some food and some cool drinks. We chilled for a little bit and chatted just a little. There was no 'rah, rah' speech. We just said that "this is who we are.'"

Zimmermann was going to get the start for the championship game and he usually starts warming up about 45 minutes before the game but this one was different.

He and Piazza found a spot in the clubhouse where they were able to take a quick 10-minute nap. The next thing Zimmermann remembers was a teammate walking in and saying that the game started in 15 minutes.

Show caption Hide caption Southwest Missouri State pitcher Bob Zimmermann, right, and teammate Dante Brinkley hug after defeating Nebraska 7-0 in an NCAA regional game in Lincoln, Neb., on... Southwest Missouri State pitcher Bob Zimmermann, right, and teammate Dante Brinkley hug after defeating Nebraska 7-0 in an NCAA regional game in Lincoln, Neb., on Sunday, June 1, 2003. With the win Southwest Missouri State advanced to the Super Regionals.Nati Harnik

"We were both like 'aw, crap' and had to get our uniforms on," Zimmermann said. "Starting there and having that rush to not think about the things going on may have made it a little easier to react and be athletic as opposed to overthinking things. Pitchers can get into big trouble when they're overthinking."

Zimmermann admitted that he had nerves, but he knew what he was capable of. He felt he could shut them down.

And he did.

"My fastball command was really good that day," Zimmermann said. "It makes things a lot easier when your fastball is working for you. I feel like it was strike-one to every single hitter. I never started out with a ball and I got ahead and had that feeling that I could throw anywhere."

"He was really on that day," Evans said. "He was a guy who feeds off emotion. He was kind of our wildcard a guy you can use in so many different ways. He and Tony were really clicking. I just remember we were going away, away, away, away and Bob had a good arm with a good fastball. His breaking ball was OK and he was just feeding it, man. He was just going right at him and attacking and they didn't have much success."

Zimmermann threw the game of his life and ultimately put together one of the great performances in program history when he threw a five-hit shutout to help the Bears defeat Nebraska 7-0 and give SMS its first-ever NCAA Division I Regional Championship.

"I would say it's at or near the top certainly with what was on the line," Guttin said of where Zimmermann's performance ranks in Bears baseball history. "He was just phenomenal. Unbelievable amount of first-pitch strikes and putting guys away. It was a great win."

"I was confident but you could've given me a million-to-one odds and I wouldn't have bet a single dollar that he was going to pitch a complete-game shutout," Ziegler said. "That was a big ol' burly man who decided he was going to put the team on his back."

When the final out was recorded and the Regional was won, there was no celebration.

There was no dogpile or Gatorade being dumped on Guttins' head. Nothing.

For a team that didn't think it was going to make the NCAA Tournament in the first place, avenging its loss from the year before and winning the first Regional in program history was somehow expected.

"It wasn't anything to celebrate," Brinkley said. "We expected to win. For me, I'm a different kind of example and I'm never satisfied. I never have to outright celebrate something that I should be doing and that was something that we should've been doing. We knew our fight wasn't over and that's just what it was and then it was on to the next."

Show caption Hide caption Southwest Missouri State's Adam Pummill, center, celebrates after scoring against Nebraska in the fourth inning of an NCAA regional game in Lincoln, Neb., Sunday, June... Southwest Missouri State's Adam Pummill, center, celebrates after scoring against Nebraska in the fourth inning of an NCAA regional game in Lincoln, Neb., Sunday, June 1, 2003. Southwest Missouri State defeated Nebraska 7-0 and advanced to the super-regional round of the NCAA baseball tournament for the first time.Nati Harnik, AP

"Our thing was 'let's act like we're supposed to be the winners,'" Zimmermann laughed. "We're supposed to be here and not showing our ass basically hooting and hollering. We have more business. We wanted a really professional win and then take the work on to the Super Regional that we weren't finished and not just content with winning a Regional."

"That was their thing," Guttin said. "They came up to take care of business. They did their celebrating off the field, I can tell you that. It's a lot easier to say that 17 years later."

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email atwwheeler@news-leader.comor join the conversation on Twitter where his handle is@WyattWheeler_NL. You can also sign up for his free "Bears Beat" newsletter by subscribing on News-Leader.com.

See original here:
The Bears' first Regional Championship 'wasn't anything to celebrate' - News-Leader

Rigged

America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference

by David Shimer

In the bleak midwinter of a political year in Washington, a top out-of-power partisan contacts a Russian diplomat at the embassy in Washington.

The topic of discussion: What their governments might do for each other in the coming administration.

This scene may sound familiar, only it wasn't former national security adviser Mike Flynn. The American political figure was former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, who went up to the Soviet embassy in January of 1960 to see Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov.

After "caviar, fruits and drinks," his excellency the ambassador produced a message from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

"We are concerned with the future, and that America has the right president," the Soviet leader wrote, per Stevenson's later recollection. Moscow wanted to get behind him against what it considered a distasteful hardliner: Vice President Richard Nixon. "Because we know the ideas of Mr. Stevenson, we in our hearts all favor him," Khrushchev wrote. Continued the letter:

"Could the Soviet press assist Mr. Stevenson's personal success? How? Should the press praise him, and if so, for what? We can always find many things to criticize Mr. Stevenson for because he has said many harsh and critical things about the Soviet Union and communism! Mr. Stevenson will know best what would help him."

This overture which Stevenson rebuffed is one of many gems unearthed by David Shimer in his important new history, Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference.

Stevenson's encounter encapsulates the essence of a very old game.

If Russia's attack on the 2016 election and other elections in Great Britain and Western Europe seemed like bolts from the blue, they shouldn't. Shimer's authoritative book places them in their proper context as only the latest installments in the long-running and sometimes grim practice of statecraft.

To be clear, the experiences of 2016 and since were novel in key ways, of which more below, but the premise of the work the goal of a nation to bring about a desired outcome within the politics of another was not.

Comrade Lenin

The Russians, Shimer argues, had a head start, one that derives from the ambitious and paranoid aspects of early Communism in the Soviet Union and its progenitor, Vladimir Lenin.

They also had a standing, peacetime secret intelligence service, which the United States, in the 19-teens, did not. Lenin and his successors made foundation stones of the agencies that became and then evolved from the KGB and the army's GRU.

Washington tried to catch up.

After World War II, it and the then-new CIA also got into the business of trying to change the course of events within nations around the world.

This work made the CIA infamous in many places, but Shimer focuses his attention in Rigged specifically on the influence of democratic elections, not on coups or armed operations.

The American stories haven't been excavated as often and make for fascinating reading, as when President Harry Truman ordered the CIA to help defeat communists in Italy's 1948 election. It did many things, including infuse a lot of cash.

"We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," as Shimer quotes one CIA officer.

But election influence also wasn't that simple: Much of the American suasion in the Italian election was as plain as day and wielded in the open.

The inside game vs. the outside game

Washington threatened to withhold post-WWII aid if Rome went communist; Italian-Americans wrote letters to relatives in the old country urging them to spurn the communists; Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio contributed radio broadcasts.

History records that Italians elected the Christian democrats who were Washington's preferred interlocutors and kept the communists out of power.

So how much of that was thanks to the public messaging from the United States and how much because of the CIA's hidden hand? This question about causality and efficacy will linger.

Inside the Agency and around Washington, however, the answer was obvious. Shimer's research and reporting shine in sections like this one, in which he characterizes the sentiment about how much the CIA believed its own work: He quotes one official saying it, then a second, and then a third.

Although the efficacy of covert action might never be provable definitively, leaders in Washington and Moscow continued to believe in the value of this kind of work through the Cold War and beyond. Then-deputy CIA Director Robert Gates was reporting to Congress in secret about Soviet election interference in the 1980s.

And President Bill Clinton whom Shimer interviewed for this book described his desire to put Uncle Sam's thumb on the scales in the 2000 election in Serbia that ousted its infamous president Slobodan Miloevi. The State Department helped opponents and civic organizations and trained activists to monitor polling places.

"For Washington, overt democracy promotion, rather than covert electoral interference, had become the rule," Shimer writes.

Comrade Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin was watching. He complained to Clinton about the American military operations in the former Yugoslavia and appears never to have dropped his belief that the United States was worming into elections around the world and especially in his front yard.

Meanwhile, the world moved online. That not only made individual American political targets vulnerable to foreign cyberattackers but also millions of people available, in a new, "neutral" medium, to the very old arts of persuasion or agitation.

In the old days, a group with a name such as "the World Peace Council" might have circulated pamphlets. Or an explicitly communist group might have made a straight-ahead case for world revolution, as Shimer writes.

By 2016, an influence specialist in Saint Petersburg, posing as a fellow citizen, could metaphorically tap an individual American on the shoulder. They formed groups. They shared memes. They organized rallies that took place in the real world.

And in key cases, as, for example, with black voters, they hammered a message: "We" Russians pretending to be black American citizens can't win with either of these candidates, so "we" real black voters must stay home.

And so on.

Disinformation is consequential. Based on nothing more than the apparently comforting or affirming nonsense they've been told by a stranger, people will take action. Some even will take actions that endanger their own children, and others, by keeping them from being vaccinated.

Many people, even most people, may not respond to these kinds of suggestions in this way. But in an American election that can be decided by small margins fewer people than fit into Michigan Stadium on a typical autumn Saturday to see the Wolverines reaching and changing individual minds isn't nothing.

If you could get a message to 100 million people and affect the behavior of 1 percent of them, that could do the trick.

What difference does it make

Does that mean that Russia elected Trump in 2016?

Shimer recounts the story in ample detail and includes the views of both those who think it was determinative and those who believe it wasn't. His section about the torturous deliberations within President Obama's administration about how to respond to Russia's active measures is comprehensive to the point of encyclopedic.

Shimer's purpose is less to answer the question after all, the spies and diplomats still don't all agree about the U.S. efforts in Italy in 1948 than to establish that after roughly a century of dirty tricks and active measures, the reach afforded by Facebook and Twitter changed the old game for malefactors such as Russia's "Internet Research Agency."

"The CIA focused on manipulating the psyches of Italian voters," Shimer writes. "Today, billions of people have uploaded their psyches to the Internet, exposing them to targeted manipulation. The platform is new, but the goal of shaping people's views is not."

Later, in assessing 2016, he writes: "What must be beyond debate is that the IRA influenced the minds of unsuspecting voters. Its divisive content spread far and wide, reaching more than 100 million Americans," he writes.

That also has brought a new default kind of practice in statecraft and politics.

Political campaigns must be on guard for attacks, as must elections officials across America's thousands of individual voting jurisdictions, as must spies and security officials and Washington. Political cyberattacks continue apace.

The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy new machines, upgrade IT systems and change its practices to try to protect ballots from interception, sabotage or other mischief.

But as Shimer writes in his painstaking book, this game has seldom been about changing ballots as much as it has been about changing minds.

View post:
In 'Rigged,' A Comprehensive Account Of Decades Of Election Interference - NPR

5 min read1,507 views and 142 shares Posted June 9, 2020

This column was submitted to LebTown. Read our submission policy here.

There is seldom room for stories of love within the brutal world of politics. We seem to have a compulsion to focus only on the scandals as we feed the cynical side of our nature. But if we examine our history delicately the stories of love and devotion do exist.

Right here, in our town, there exists a love story of historic proportions. It is the tragic love story of President James Buchanan and his betrothed, Ann Caroline Coleman. This was a deeply heartbreaking story of regret and lost love that would be carried by James Buchanan until the day he dies.

Long before James Buchanan took the oath of office as our 15th President, he began his career as a young lawyer in Lancaster, the state capital at that time. James had graduated from Dickinson Law School, with honors in 1809. At the time, some who knew him were surprised that he graduated at all given the fact that he was expelled once and had a reputation as a rowdy young man that frequented taverns.

After being admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1812, James struggled financially in the first year of his law practice. He considered it fortunate when he was appointed prosecutor for the newly created Lebanon County. As time passed, he proved himself to be a successful lawyer and also served two terms in the State Assembly. This handsome, blond, six footer was becoming one of the most desirable and eligible young bachelors in Lancaster.

Read More: This Presidents Day, remembering Lebanons links to our countrys highest elected office

Every day as Buchanan walked from his law office to the court house, he passed the lavish residence of ironmaster Robert Coleman, reputed to be the richest man in Pennsylvania. It was 1819 that Buchanan became smitten by Robert Colemans daughter, 23 year old Ann Caroline Coleman. Ann was recognized as the outstanding catch. At first sight, this slim, dark haired beauty with dazzling eyes became the sole object of Buchanan affection. Her father, Robert Coleman, seemed to have more mansions than kings had castles and frequently Buchanan would visit Ann at their Cornwall Mansion in Lebanon County.

By 1819, Buchanan had built a solid reputation having success in both politics and law. His precise legal arguments had brought him esteem and increased his fees for services. Given Buchanans common and unremarkable family background, his personal success allowed him to court the daughter of Pennsylvanias most powerful industrialist.

By the summer of 1819, James and Ann became engaged. There is every indication that Anns father, as a trustee of Dickinson College, was keenly aware of Buchanans past reputation. Adding to the fact that Buchanan came from an ordinary family, Robert Coleman had hoped for a better match for Ann within the Philadelphia aristocracy.

In the autumn of 1819, a financial panic had reached its peak and came to dominate business transactions. As a respected lawyer, James began to spend a considerable amount of time in Philadelphia. He had taken on one of the most important contemporary lawsuits that involved the continued existence of the Columbia Bridge Company in which many Lancastrians had financial interest.

Buchanan, being driven and conscientious, did not spend sufficient time on his courtship during the months of October and November. Consumed by his work, James did not pause to recognize the impact on Ann. She became distressed by the gossip that began to spread as the couple had become the main topic of local conversation within Anns social circle. There was a growing belief that James was not interested in winning Anns affection at all, it was her fathers fortune that drew him.

The tension Ann was feeling was heightened by her parents warning that James was somewhat of a philanderer. Anns suspicion began to take shape when James did not write her during a stay in Philadelphia on business.

Upon Buchanans return from Philadelphia, James stopped first at the home of his client, William Jenkins, president of the Farmers Bank. During the Panic of 1819, the solvency of his bank depended on Buchanans legal dealings. As it turned out, Mrs. Jenkins two nieces, the Hubley sisters, were visiting. One of the sisters, Grace Hubley, had accompanied James in the past to parties and events. Without Buchanans knowledge, she underhandedly rushed off a message to Ann that James had visited her first.

When Buchanan finally arrived at Anns home, the servant informed him that Ann did not desire to see him. Later she sent an angry letter to James terminating their engagement. The next day, at the urging of her parents, Ann set out to visit her sister, Margaret, in Philadelphia to quell her anxiety over the breakup. The new scenery did nothing to sooth her feelings of loss, on the contrary, her sorrow was overwhelming.

At that time, a woman exhibiting signs of anxiety or stress was often diagnosed by her doctor with what was known as female hysteria. The accepted treatment for female hysteria was Laudanum, a medication that contained approximately 10% opium by weight. Ann took such a dose on the night of December 9, 1819, the night she died.

There is no way to determine if the lethal dose of Laudanum was an act of suicide or simply a mistake in dosage. But there were those that settled on the theory that Ann died of a deliberate overdose. We will never know for sure. But we do know who was blamed and that was her fiance James Buchanan.

When James received the news of Anns death he was overcome with grief. He immediately wrote an emotional note to Mr. Coleman pleading to see Anns body and walk with her one more time in the funeral procession. In his note he also expressed the fact that she, as well as himself, had been the victims of much abuse. With great conviction, James also stated to Anns father, happiness has fled from me forever. Despite this emotional plea, Anns father refused his request and Ann was buried at St James Episcopal Church on North Duke Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Quote whenever James Buchanan was asked why he did not marry: Marry I will not, for my affections were buried in the grave.

James Buchanan lingered in the horrible tragedy of Anns death as rumors spread around him that he was not only responsible for Anns death, but her murderer. James friends, realizing the unbearable accusations James was facing decided that it was best to get him out of town. They then nominated him for Congress and, beginning in 1821, his political career blossomed. Buchanans career would keep him in Washington for the next 40 years, ending with his term as President.

While in Washington, Buchanan had many suitors, but he never married. He was content to be the Bachelor Father to his nieces and nephews that were orphaned by the death of their parents. He raised them, paid for their education, and ensured their financial security.

After serving his tumultuous term as President, he retired to his Wheatland home in Lancaster where he spent the remainder of his life. In May of 1868, he became gravely ill and at the age of 77 died of respiratory failure.

There is much mystery and uncertainty regarding many aspects of the life of James Buchanan and we will probably never know what was in his heart. But there was one final act that sheds light on his tragic life. Upon his death he directed that his nieces and nephews retrieve a packet of letters that he had lovingly tied with a pink ribbon. These were the love letters from Ann, his one and only love, and he kept her letters all his life as his only precious memory. On the ribbon, in his own handwriting, was a message that upon his death the letters should be burned without anyone reading them. His last request was honored and the letters were burned.

Sometimes, the last thing we choose to do in life tells the real truth of our existence, what was truly important to us, and what we want to be remembered for. In the case of James Buchanan, in the end, the only message he left behind for all eternity was I love you Ann and I stayed faithful to the end.

Robert Griffiths is a former educator and a current educational consultant and Cornwall-Lebanon School District board member. He lives in South Lebanon.

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[Column] Our town: A love story lost in time - LebTown