Weekend Digest: The Panama Canal Edition

For our weekend business and political readers:

TB&P TV PREVIEW
On this week’s Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9 a.m. on KATV Channel 7, meet your other candidates for Governor. Libertarian Frank Gilbert and Green Party nominee Josh Drake mix it up at our political roundtable. Plus, we’ll recap the minimum wage debate this week and look back in Arkansas history at the nomination and tenure of former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

WANT A SMOKE, GO TO WALGREEN
It’s allegedly not about financial reasons, reports Forbes, although it says Walgreen has “myriad financial reasons to keep selling cigarettes.”

   But Walgreen isn’t using financial excuses as a reason it won’t stop selling cigarettes in its official corporate statement issued following CVS’ announcement that all tobacco products were removed from store shelves.

Well then what is the reason Walgreen will continue to sell smoke, in such an anti-smoking climate?  The answer is…well it’s complicated.  At least it seems to be, when you have to read the company’s statement two or three times for it to become somewhat less muddy. Read for yourself at this link.

ANALYTICS PRIMER
“In the good old days, of course, predictions were called forecasts and stodgy statisticians would torture their time series and/or molest multivariate analyses to get them,” says Harvard Business Review.

Not any more.

   By far, the safest prediction about the business future of predictive analytics is that more thought and effort will go into prediction than analytics. That’s bad news and worse management. Grasping the analytic “hows” and “whys” matters more than the promise of prediction.

   While the computational resources and techniques for prediction may be novel and astonishingly powerful, many of the human problems and organizational pathologies appear depressingly familiar. The prediction imperative frequently narrows focus rather than broadens perception.  “Predicting the future” can—in the spirit of Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational—unfortunately bring out the worst cognitive impulses in otherwise smart people.

So what is the greatest value of predictive analytics?  Go to this link to find out.

SILICON SAVANNAH
Fast Company reports, “Far from Silicon Valley, there is a place that some are calling ‘Silicon Savannah.’ It is here, constellated around Nairobi-based nonprofit collective Ushahidi, that an explosion in African tech is taking shape.”

   This month, for the first time, backers of the collective’s 2013 Kickstarter campaign, are finally getting their hands on BRCK, a long-awaited device that, in many ways, is the antithesis of Apple’s shiny products, yet potentially just as revolutionary. True to form, on the bottom of every BRCK is the declaration “Made in Kenya, Assembled in America.”

What is it and what is its potential?  Click on this link for a full summary.

THE CELEBRITY PHOTO HACK
“Violated” and a “hit to apple.”  That pretty well sums up both ends of the celebrity photo hack scandal after iCloud accounts were hacked.

Marketplace reports, “Twitter was full of celebrities tweeting about how they felt violated when nude photos from their iCloud accounts were posted online after they were apparently hacked.”

   The story led to speculation about weaknesses in iCloud security, and all this less than a week before a major announcement from Apple, likely the unveiling of an iPhone 6.

   “It’s a hit to Apple,” says Collin Gillis, a senior technology analyst at BGC Financial. He says Apple should be looking forward, and presenting consumers with new security tools like biometrics — requiring a fingerprint instead of just a password to access accounts.

For the full story, go to this link.

OBAMA’S ISIL POLITICAL STRATEGY A ‘MUDDLE’
POLITICO says, “President Barack Obama’s message on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant remains a high-profile muddle, but now he’s about to face another set of challenges: how to sell Congress and the public on his ideas for fighting the group.”

   On Wednesday, Obama and other administration officials struggled to even define the goal. At a news conference in Estonia, Obama declared that his objective was to “degrade and destroy ISIL.” Moments later, though, Obama said he’d like to pressure the group to render it “a manageable problem.”

   That sound bite fell so flat that Democrats spent the day criticizing him for it — and other administration officials insisted they really do intend to defeat the group.

So, as POLITICO puts it, “The messaging is just beginning.”

For the complete story plus analysis, follow this link.

A SENATE TIME WINDOW
The Washington Post reports, “Three decades ago, 5 of our current Senators were already in the Senate.  Eight hadn’t graduate from high school yet.”

   With November rapidly approaching and control of the Senate hinging on a handful of races, we suddenly became curious about how the sitting members of the Senate got there. The challengers in 2014’s contested races have a variety of backgrounds. 

   But what, we wondered, was the long-term path that led someone to the north side of Capitol Hill? So choosing a window of 30 years — the minimum age requirement for membership in the body — we went back and looked at what everyone was doing.

For a closer look with graphs, click on this link.

WHO IS GREG ORMAN?
He is an independent running for the Senate in Kansas, and POLITICO says, “Orman could upend the battle for the Senate and Kansas politics at once.”

But until Wednesday, few had heard of the businessman running for Senate as an independent — or regarded him as anything more than a potential spoiler in a close race.

   If Orman, 45, is able to unseat veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts — as at least one poll has indicated he could after Wednesday’s withdrawal by Democratic nominee Chad Taylor, provided the contest remains a two-man race — he could be a decisive vote for whichever party ends up controlling the Senate.

For a closer look at this race, and “a few facts about the candidate, his philosophy and his suddenly pivotal campaign,” go to this link.

A CENTURY FOR THE PANAMA CANAL
It’s called “one of the supreme engineering feats of the early 20th century,” and last month the Panama Canal turned 100.

   On August 15, 1914, the world was fixated on the dramatic first month of World War I, as the German army raced towards Paris and the fate of Europe hung in the balance. But on that day, half a world away, a ship named the SS Ancon became the first vessel to officially transit the Panama Canal — and the canal was opened for business.

Click on this link as The American takes a historical look at this marvelous achievement including the problems that had to be overcome for this boon to shipping and the world’s economy to be completed, and what strategic importance it has for the U.S.

DIFFERENT BRAIN CIRCUITS
Experts say we build different brain circuits to read tablets or smart phones. They are different than the ones we build to read books.

   Dr. Maryanne Wolf says that reading isn’t something we’re born to do — it’s something we train our brain to do.  She says we rewire parts of our brain and build new circuits as we learn to read.

   But something interesting is happening as we use new technology for the process of reading.  And some of the implications are worrisome for our ability for deep thought.

Find out why at this link from Marketplace.

WASHINGTON’S TAKE ON THE REDSKINS’ NAME CHANGE DEBATE
No surprise.  It’s partisan reports The Washington Post.

   With Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) declaration to an ESPN radio show that he didn’t think the Senate should call for a change to the name of Washington’s professional football team, an obvious pattern became even more stark. 

   Since the question of what to call the team moved to the front burner earlier this year, responses have been largely partisan and — on the Senate side of Capitol Hill, anyway — look very much like every other issue that calls for an opinion.

So what are those partisan opinions for Democrats vs. Republicans regarding the name change?  Go to this link for the breakdown.