I’ll tell you why. Because here in the United States we are not as smart as the French! What you say? I can hear my good friend Charlie Dent now, “Al, come on you’re the ugliest American I’ve ever known.” (Charlie by the way, is a well known Socialist who comments on these posts on a regular basis and runs a company called Precedent Marketing in Derry, NH).

But the French have learned that nuclear power is the way to independence from the Sheiks in Saudi Arabia. The French produce almost 76% of their electricity needs from nuclear power. Check out this article on pbs.org. In the good old US of A we produce about 20% of our power from nuclear energy.

So what is wrong with this picture? In my opinion it’s a lack of political will and courage. We talk about lessening our dependence on foreign oil yet we have imported more and more every year for the last 20 plus years. Every energy source has a risk–including nuclear–but because of the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) folks we have not put a new reactor on line in many years. So does that make the French smarter than us? I doubt it! But what I do think is their government had the political courage to do the smart thing and not worry about the Greenpeace folks of the world. For once I think we should look at the French (after all, they do have a conservative President now).

This was just too easy! If you had not heard, at an election held last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts the folks who run that “city” decided that the boxes put out by BOY SCOUTS to collect toiletries for our troops in Iraq were–are you sitting down–a pro-war sentiment being expressed in their city.

Hey, I don’t make these things up. Evidently the Politically Correct Police were very vigilant in protecting the values (sic) of the Republic of Cambridge…whatever those values might be.

I for one, along with many others, think that maybe the Republic of Cambridge should leave the environs of the good old US of A and find another country to attach itself to. Let’s see, maybe Venezuela and their buddy Hugo Chavez. Or how about city of Cambridge and the state of Vermont create their own country? That would be even better. They deserve each other and Bernie Sanders, the Socialist United States Senator from Vermont, could represent them all.

Come on people. Get a real life. It’s not the war it’s the warriors. Yes, we all know it’s an unpopular war but get your head out of your asses for heaven’s sake. It’s the BOY SCOUTS not the CIA, FBI or any other United States government agency that those in Cambridge abhor.

Be sure to visit the following link to read a humorous, but all too real, summation of Cambridge. And then take a look at what the locals think at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/homepage/x799506901. Maybe there is some hope for Cambridge after all.

It’s truly sad to see the state of Political Correctness running amuck in our country. We need to get some spine and it should start in places like Cambridge, Massachusetts. But I’m not going to hold my breath…hell that might be illegal in Cambridge.

Yup, we did: a new, big one that we have had for less than three months. Why did we lose it? For several reasons, some our fault and some the client’s.

The number one reason we lost the account…we never should nave taken it. We all take on new business because; well that’s what we do. But in some cases you should walk away when it doesn’t feel right. This time it did feel right but it did not work. This leads me to the second reason my agency lost the business…me and my big mouth. During a recent conference call I pushed this client back a little on some of his comments. It was quickly apparent I had hurt his feelings. So I tried to smooth it over by reminding him that I had promised him we were going to tell him what he needed to hear–no matter what. I did and we got fired.

The third reason we got fired is the client did not know what he wanted from an agency. What he did know was that he wanted us to be the silver bullet and help him stem a double-digit decline in an industry that we have years of experience in. He did not like our suggestions (hey, it’s his money) and he did not like it when we challenged his assumptions.

What I have learned is that no matter what I tell potential clients when they sign a contract, they just don’t believe that my staff and I will speak our minds. Perhaps we both should have read this PDF by The Hayes Company before we got married. I’m sorry to see the business go because it now means I owe my staff lunch…once for getting the account and now for losing the account. It is always my goal to have at least 10 years between the celebratory and parting lunches, but not this time.