Cracked Window

How can the $165 million that AGI is paying employees be considered bonuses if awarded for failure and not success? And that’s just the start. The bonuses are part of $450 million to be doled out.

Some of my vanished retirement money came from annual bonuses while working at two Fortune 500 companies. Every manager knew never to count on anything extra until the checks were in hand. Why? The bonuses were tied directly to performance: performance of the company, performance of the business unit, and performance of the individual.

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Not posting to my blog for two days feels a bit like neglecting my toddler. Say, not giving him breakfast or lunch. Resuming with a chorus-of-snores subject — health insurance — is almost as neglectful.

But health insurance came to mind today when I read that President-elect Barack Obama is resigning his U.S. Senate seat, effective Sunday. Does it mean he has to pay the full cost of his premiums, including the share his employer paid? That’s what my wife and I have had to do under the so-called COBRA bridge plan.

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After closely following the mainstream media’s superficial coverage of the presidential campaign, I’m not surprised that much in Rolling Stone’s damning new portrayal of John McCain’s life and career isn’t widely known.

The piece feels like a hatchet job but only because the sheer volume of negative information is so shocking. I’ve read some of it elsewhere but mostly in bits. To see it aggregated in a single piece is jaw dropping.

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Long after midnight, I heard sea lions barking. The sound echoed off Yaquina Bay, exotic at first as if I was on an isolated Pacific atoll, alone except for the abundant wildlife. After awhile I craved stillness and had to step inside from my perch on a condo balcony to escape the incessant cacophony.

The next evening along the Newport waterfront, I saw the sea lions sprawled on a floating dock beneath the pier where I stood. They were quiet except for an occasional honk. Not so of their comrades on a nearby jetty. They swayed on the rocks as they called out all at once.

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