Less known than the fact that Dr. Seuss's real name was Theodore Geisel is that he and I went to Dartmouth College together (though decades apart).
Ted (who taught me to read) was less interested in classes than in doodling and writing doggrel for the Jack-o-Lantern, the Dartmouth equivalent of the Harvard Lampoon, but with less drug humor.
During a really terrible spring term my freshman year while I was busily engaged in flunking German, I had occasion to take a nap in the stacks of old Baker Library. Needing something to rest my head on, I pulled a portfolio off the shelves. It was dust covered and tattered and falling apart at the seams. In it was a manuscript which I instantly recognized as having the distinctive Seuss style along with the following cover letter.
March 6, 1925
Dear Mr. Geisel,
We at Random House are always looking for fresh approaches in the area of children's literature. However, the manuscript you sent us, "Hair Dye and Glam," is not quite what we are looking for. For one thing, one of the main characters, a Mr. Sham-I-am, seems to be rather annoying and not much fun. For another, There is no moral to it, and every good children's book has a moral.
Your drawings, however, show much promise. Might I suggest that you put this project on the shelf for a while? I'm sure you can find a better pair of words to rhyme than "Sham" and "glam." Maybe "Sam" and "Spam" or something?
In any case, please visit us when you next come down to the City. Take the subway down to Mulberry Street, and let me know if you have any interesting ideas along the way.
Sincerely,
Bennett Cerf
I turned my attention to the manuscript. The first illustration was of a smallish figure racing across the page and carrying a sign ...
Thanks to Muse, and everyone who was literally aTwitter tonight with the release of this sure to be number one single... I present to you the end of Farouk Shami's campaign. Enjoy this closing tribute, autotuned, and 100% officially sent out, paid for, and endorsed by the Shami campaign. What a ride it has been.
Some of those lyrics...
"You think he wears suits just to look handsome? Serving the community, lending a helping hand - son. He rolled up his sleeves, telling them owners to stop sending those jobs overseas. Farouk, he's on fire, and he's reppin' the state with a desire."
"Now say it, Farouk, Farouk, Farouk is on fire. Serving the community his number one desire!"
Courtesy of the Rick Perry vs The World blog which you really should go read and make a regular habit of doing so.
KBH
1.1M raised
8M spent
2.3M Cash on Hand
RIck Perry
850K raised
8.8M spent
2.5M CoH
Debra Medina
450K raised
228k spent
291K CoH
Bill White
2.2M raised
2.7M spent
5.4M CoH
Farouk Shami
1.1M raised
5M spent
1M CoH
The fact that Perry and Hutchison have blown through over $8 Million each of their warchests and all that's resulted in is Bill White improving in the head to head polls against both of them is wonderful on so many levels.
Bill White outraised every candidate in both parties. Bill White has more money on hand than every candidate in both parties.
If you didn't think it was a real race before folks, it is now. I can't wait until March 3rd.
If you haven't noticed already, the Farouk Shami campaign has more or less collapsed in on itself this week. From a bizarre debate performance, Debra Medina-esque statements about 9/11 conspiracies, to internal infighting that boiled over into the media over who was in charge of communications, and finally to the resignation of his professional political campaign staff (the second one Shami has burned through) it's really been a spectacular parade of disappointment from a man who did have an impressive personal story, quirky personality, and oversized vision of his ability to win a Democratic primary.
Farouk launched a new TV ad which you can view online here, but personally, I find the following clip much more entertaining as we prepare for Bill White to become the Democratic nominee for Governor. (read our endorsement here). After all, this $1 million dollar diamond stuffed CHI flat iron is worth about a week's worth of TV ads. And all things considered, at the end of the day at least you'll still have a $1 million dollar diamond studded CHI flat iron.
Given that there are rumors of polls showing Bill White winning upwards of 80-90% of the vote in Travis County, I have to wonder if possible that the Shami campaign will break the record for the most money spent per vote in a statewide race in Texas. Heck, if Felix Alvarado beats him and comes in second, I wouldn't even be surprised. I mean, there were 5 Farouk Shami volunteers sitting under a tree at my early vote location today, one of the lowest turnout in Travis County with less than 25 votes a day being cast at it. Oh well, at the very least, Shami's campaign has been an economic stimulas package to a few hundred Texans.
Farouk Shami, the millionaire hair care products maker who's running, said he doesn't find many white people willing to work, so he says he hires Hispanics and blacks instead.
[...]
Asked to explain what he meant about not hiring many whites, he said they want special treatment. “A majority of the people are going to be Hispanic and African-American. You don't find white people who are willing to work in factories. And our history proves, you know, lots of time when they, you know, the white people come to work in a factory they either want to be supervisors or they want to be, you know, paid more than the average person. And unfortunately they exit.”
So Farouk -- what about all those white people in your ads?
Not only that -- but after yesterday, how did he not know how to answer this?!?!
And then just a day after Medina, didn't reject the notion that the government was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Shami didn't either. “I'm not sure. I am not going to really judge or answer about something I'm not really sure about. But the rumors are there that there was a conspiracy. True or not? It's hard to believe, you know, what happened. It's really hard to comprehend what happened. Maybe. I'm not sure.”
With early voting a mere four days away and less than a month to go until primary day, Texas gubernatorial polls are coming out fast and furious. Here's an overview of some recent polling released in the past week. Note that nearly all were in the field entirely or largely before Medina's "9/11 Truther" flap on Glenn Beck yesterday.
While there's certainly some wiggle room here, overall the polls show Perry with a decent lead over Hutchison and Medina; however, with the incumbent failing to clear 50% in any of them a run-off seems likely. The big question remains who finishes second. As we've discussed lately, it's Medina who has seen the big momentum swing in her direction. It is unclear, however, if she has any more room to grow, or--as Phillip suggested yesterday--Perry and cronies have decided to take her out.
Not to sound like too much of a "Poll"-yanna here, but I think White should be able to avoid the run-off. These polls were entirely conducted before the 2/8 debate in which Shami was resoundingly destroyed by White, when the voters got a real look at White's competency and skills. Furthermore, as White's TV ad continues in rotation and field campaigns crank up the output I think White should be able to avoid a run-off against Shami or any of the single-digit also-rans.
Update 3:51 PM: Added TCUL poll to Democratic numbers.
Following a meeting on Saturday morning, the Mexican American Democrats (MAD) announced the group's endorsement of Texas Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Farouk Shami.
Steve Salazar, State Chair for the Mexican American Democrats of Texas, said that Farouk Shami's "willingness to sit down and listen, to talk to people about issues that affect us as a group-not only the economy and jobs, but also immigration and crime-led us to make this endorsement. He is inclusive of all people from all walks of life and can identify with those of us who were not born in the United States." Salazar added that the group felt Shami "represents to a lot of us what the American Dream is about: hard work, dedication to the community, and willingness to serve."
"I am proud to have the endorsement of the Mexican American Democrats," said Shami. "I fully identify with its mission and vision and hope to work with them often in the near future."
Given the influence of Hispanic turnout in Democratic primaries, such an endorsement is a boon to Shami, though it is one of few, if not the only major statewide endorsement he has received.
If Farouk is such a red hot "CEO" already, what does he need with being Governor?
If he has 100,000 private sector jobs in his back pocket, why will the title "Governor" get those jobs filled faster?
Does Farouk plan to have Texas taxpayers subsidize his commercial ventures? If not, then what is he waiting for? JUST DO IT, Farouk, if you can.
Farouk knows how to market low tech hair dryers to vain ladies in a niche market. Does that mean he knows how to put everyone to work making solar panels?
Are we to believe that Farouk alone holds the keys to the mysteries of the "Green Economy?"
As we did with the Republican debates, we will be liveblogging the Texas Democratic gubernatorial debate tonight. You can follow along with our liveblog here.
Additionally, the Bill White campaign has asked that we join in the conversation with them, so you can also follow along at Bill White's website, at http://www.billwhitefortexas.com/txdebate.html
This past week, they have featured Bill White and Farouk Shami in a compelling set of stories that, when read together, provide tremendous insight and allow the reader to develop a strong side-by-side comparison of the two candidates.
The series is quite remarkable. If you put it aside this week, or just missed it, or especially if you are in the majority of our readership that live outside Austin, please click on the links above and read the articles in full to get the full side-by-side comparison of the candidates.
One month ago today, I praised the filing day coverage of the Dallas Morning News as "Incredible Journalism." At the time, I wrote:
The Dallas Morning News, without question, has shown up for the 2010 election season with the best political coverage in the state. Between now and the primary, everyone else is playing catch up. They laid the gauntlet down on Day One, and it's going to take some seriously impressive efforts from other news organizations to match what the DMN has put forth on their first day.
Today marks the start of the second month of the 2010 campaign season in Texas. The Morning News may have thrown the gauntlet down, but right now it's the Statesman that is delivering the strongest coverage. Between the Gubernatorial Profile series and their excellent new PolitFact feature, they are doing tremendous with with this election cycle, and I look forward to more of it in the coming days, weeks, and months.
On our end, more on the Governor's race is forthcoming as we prepare for Monday's gubernatorial debate. For now, though, here are some highlights of the Statesman series -- for those looking to glimpse the key parts of each particular section:
White developed an interest in government, sparked in part, he says, by "the horrors of Selma and Birmingham and the awakening of the civil rights movement."
"That interested me, engaged me, when I saw that laws could make a difference," he said, "and where there was a stark choice between some who felt we needed to defer making good on the promises made in our founding documents and others who thought, as did my parents ... that every person is made in the image of God."
In 1955, some of Farouk's brothers and cousins were playing with a bomb left behind after a battle between Israelis and the Jordanian army near the family's house. It exploded. Three of his brothers and two of his cousins were killed.
"It's hard to remember it," he says softly. "I saw my brothers torn into pieces."
He was 12. With the loss of Faheem, 11, Kareem, 10, and Haleem, 7, six brothers became three. After that, everything changed. Jamil Shami said that from that moment, he and Farouk were driven to succeed as a way of compensating their parents for what was lost. And because of the violent incident, the family moved into the city of Ramallah. The Friends School offered Farouk and Jamil scholarships. "It was a disaster, but I was fortunate to go to the best school in the country," Farouk Shami said. "There's always an opportunity in a disaster."
White's career in the upper echelons of law, business and government gives him a perspective that influences his approach to everything from problem-solving (identify solutions, delegate tasks, hold people accountable and change course as needed) to his meetings with the oil executives.
"I believed senior management wanted to be good neighbors and citizens," White said. "They don't want to be treated differently than their competitor, and they want some predictability, and they are all concerned about the image of their industry."
Since the 1990s, Shami's company has been involved in more than 80 lawsuits, according to district and federal court records available online.
The lawsuits, which range from dissolved partnerships to trademark and contractual disputes to sexual harassment claims, mark the challenges Shami has encountered in his climb to become founder and head of Farouk Systems Inc., which sells the popular CHI hair-straightening iron and BioSilk hair care line. Its executives say the privately held company is valued at $1 billion and employs 2,800 people. [...]
In one month, Shami remembers getting a legal bill for $500,000. But generally, he estimates legal bills at close to $1 million annually. Shami said his company has many outside lawyers and an internal legal department, though he couldn't say how many people work there.
"I have plenty of them, plenty of them," Shami said, laughing. "You can't do business without lawyers now."
A cyclist who loves the outdoors, White sometimes wears an athletic-style watch even when he's in a suit. He shows personality with patterned or colorful ties, but his suits tend to be so big that he looks like someone who lost weight but has hung on to his old clothes.
White's appearance gives the impression that he's too busy worrying about business to fuss over his clothes. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he wore pocketed khaki shirts that made him look like a safari tour guide.
But at a time when the task at hand was managing the influx of more than 200,000 refugees — work that earned White a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award — it was no time for him to start looking like a movie star.
With his slicked-back hair, impeccably tailored suits and paisley ties, Shami cuts a contrast to the ho-hum, button-down-shirt-and-jeans uniform favored by Austin Democrats. This is a man who is not afraid to wear pinstripes, prints or vibrant reds, purples and yellows, and he hasn't toned down his clothes for the campaign. [...]
Shami sees himself as something of a ladies' man. He's tried flattering female reporters by telling them they look like teenagers, and he has said he expects to do better with female voters because they have more sense.
