Thursday was vivid; the sun unburdened. The trees were flowering—what a beautiful moment. Would that it would have lingered but life can move from Spring to Winter quickly and that happened to Marty and me. Deep winter.

Until yesterday we had our 5th edition of a black Labrador named Jazz and then we didn’t. We got the report mid-afternoon from the Vet. Jazz had a urinary track blockage that could not be repaired. And now she is gone. The sun was eclipsed and now I am struggling to retrieve memories—to hold on.

As we drove home from the Vet my wife and I recounted our joys and from time to time, what are now sad memories, turned poignant. None more vivid than our trip to the Vet in the New York Catskills with Jazz having been involuntarily festooned with porcupine quills. She was stoic; well what choice did she have? I suspect the scent lingered in her memory. It was her last encounter with the spiny beast.

Jazz, maybe instructed by the porcupine, liked people more than her four legged peers. At dog parks she made an inerrant path for those whose love would be reciprocated.

And boy did she love the Fall. I suspect most thick coated dogs are happy when the summer has given way. She loved trips in the field to be followed by our time together in a duck blind. The Fall’s temperatures were inviting and her eyes didn’t hesitate to go skyward as the waterfowl migration gathered force.

I’ll be telling Jazz stories until, well, I am done telling stories. She is gone but the memories will remain vivid. Expressions of love are like that!

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

In advance of Easter and Christmas I reflect on my own faith with pen in hand.

We all know what a mystery is and we are certainly drawn to a good one. The characters draw us in and the circumstances puzzle us. And a talented writer often surprises us at the end. Life is like that; there is often some distance between our plans and realities.

If we are at all reflective, we find ourselves from-time-to-time thinking about an unsolvable mystery — one that confounds and frustrates the scientists and philosophers who choose to take on the deepest mystery — how did life begin.

At the risk of brevity, let me begin with Ecclesiastes 3:11, it frames the inquiry:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

It’s that “eternity in the human heart” phrase that pulls me in. What does it mean? What does the heart have to do with it? Can we put the eternity thing aside? I can’t get the questions out of my mind. They are the most important part of the mystery in my view.

I say the most important part because it is pivotal as our life unfolds. It is something we are said to carry around. Of course if we dismiss any relationship to eternity then we do not start with Ecclesiastes. If we start there what kind of claim does eternity have on us? Conversely, if eternity is “set” in our heart, shouldn’t we try to pay attention to its voice.

Eternity’s voice is more easily comprehended as family history. We all know at least something about our family tree and we speculate on where we got our blue eyes or height or even temperament or whatever.

It is hard to think about what is in our heart without going back to the beginning and not just the beginning of my family.

I was raised in the church. Or maybe more accurately, by parents who went to the church service after they dropped me off at Sunday School. And at some point along the way I began to connect “eternity” with the here and now – today, this minute. We were urged to and I tried. Or, drawing on Ecclesiastes, “eternity in the human heart” — my heart.

In this construct, eternity had to be transcendent. No eternity, no God. And, of course, no God no transcendent benchmarks. No God; we are in charge and where do we get our inspiration? What is the source of our “soul food” if we dismiss soul?

But before going further, I want to go back to Sunday School, at least as I recall it. Decades after the fact, I wonder: was this just an indoctrination exercise drawing on the works of ancient “A” type personalities who were good at insistences? Or was I being taught lessons from God, entwined in Biblical narratives?

Now, let me fast-forward from biblical times to present time and the song “Looking For Love In All the Wrong Places,” which is a song about our time.

It begins:

Well, I spent a lifetime lookin’ for you
Single bars and good time lovers were never true
Playing a fools game, hoping’ to win
And tellin’ those sweet lies and losing’ again
I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places
Lookin’ for love in too many faces
Searching’ their eyes
Lookin’ for traces of what I’m dreaming of
Hoping to find a friend and a lover
I’ll bless the day I discover another heart
Lookin’ for love

“I’d bless the day I discover another heart looking for love”! An abiding question is whether there is any of the eternal in our earthly adventures? Is love, for example, all passion or should we be looking for qualities that foster a deeper, lasting relationship? And I am talking about all love not just the romantic version.

Mark Twain observed that “No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” Is perfect love possible?  Love in its several relationships is a puzzle. As is our comprehension of the eternal.

But, one thing seems clear to me. The eternal dimension— “eternity on our heart”—will not be a serious exploration if God is left out of the equation. To me, that is the reason I believe God exists.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

“Walking around money”, it was called. I was twelve years old and helping my Dad run for a seat on Sikeston, Missouri’s Board of Aldermen. In plain sight, I saw money being given to voters. I was told that it was not uncommon to pay somebody to go vote, and the amount of money was generally used to buy a half-pint of whiskey. Whiskey was the pegged commodity, but I suspect the quality was wanting.

The vote transaction was secured by a “driver” who would pick up the voter and take him/her to the polling place. Fast forward 70 years and you have the world’s richest man joined by other very rich Americans, left and right, supplying “walking around money”. In the just concluded election in Wisconsin it didn’t work—hoorah! Elon Musk—politics is not your sweet spot.

Wading into trying to control political spending is self-abuse. One of my heroes, John McCain, fought the good fight to control it and ultimately lost. But, this is an important intersection where our forms of government and business compete.

If I were trying to minimize money in politics, I would use artificial intelligence.  Every check written to help a candidate or cause would need to bear some sort of algorithmic signature. Beyond that there would be some upper limit, a ceiling, that could not directly or indirectly be exceeded.

The law can be written and technology can secure transparency without having hundreds of thousands of clerks checking, combining and publishing reams of paper. If I were to research how to keep track of donations so that voters could keep track of who was giving to whom, I would start at The Federal Reserve. Computer technology would, in the ultimate sense, supply the answer.

And while working toward the goal of transparency, I would consult with the best constitutional attorneys to make sure a constitutionally tight law was enacted. Money is speech and given speech’s protection great care will be needed.

The problem with money as speech is that money is allocated by a range of factors that twist and turn with economic cycles and good fortune that bears scant relationship to merit. If our system of wealth distribution, ultimately requiring societal buy-in, results in handing out billion-dollar merit badges, does Elon Musk deserve an estimated 342 of them?

But of course the bigger story is that the President and richest man in the world were not able to team up and buy or bully a win. The result in Wisconsin was a win for America.

And it is going to get worse for President Trump if he continues his erratic attempts to drum up prosperity using the tools and rhetoric of tariffs. But, one thing to keep in mind. Tariffs, to many, represent an obscure economic policy that can be made to sound rational. Forcing Canada to become America’s 51st state is simply irrational without a costume.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

I am looking out on the East River, New York City. Marty, my wife, and I lived in New York for a number of years and I had gone to the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) once. So when I needed to get rid of an old knee (bone on bone) I went back to see its impressive cast of orthopedic specialists. I have been pleased.

But this is about what makes HSS so good. The cast at HSS is an international mix blended with a number of second generation Americans and beyond. They have been talented and considerate.

The newer arrivals on our shores, strivers all, help make the operation run like a digital clock with a friendly face. The doctors and their various specialist assistants look like a cast from the United Nations. People come from all over the world for a surgical stay.

But this is not about medicine; this is about people. America offers liberty which makes strivers essential. Skill and motivation is a necessary pairing regardless of your birthplace. And when America is working best at least a modicum of humility and generosity are in the cultural stew. America is always among the top countries in voluntary giving.

When Americans go shopping we mostly look for lower prices. American shopping attitudes enabled Walmart, Amazon and a range of Dollar stores. We work hard and specialize in not wasting money when we buy goods and services.

Immigrants are often the human drive that makes this work. From lawns to construction to logistics and storage—well you name it. Sure, there are a lot of hardworking Americans in fourth and fifth generation families and beyond—many of their leaders are contractors, farmers, retail owners and the like and certainly not resting on their laurels.

America is also fortunate to have a prosperous mix of talent and research centers that lead the tech industry. Check out the last names; you won’t find many West European names. The Asian influence has been especially pronounced. All in all when markets and talent are allowed to work we do very well.

We are now throwing people out of our country—we should keep in mind the estimate of undocumented immigrants (3.5%). So as we enforce laws lets not intentionally or unintentionally think we who have been here a long time are somehow superior. I don’t know many multi-generational Americans who have learned a new language or new social patterns or had to establish themselves without help from a parent or grandparent or family name. Or, a network of friends accumulated from elementary to post-secondary schools and club settings.

Over the years I have bought a lot of stuff that immigrants have built or serviced. Rarely have I been disappointed with the work or the price. And since we are all offspring of immigrants—we shouldn’t act like we just won a merit scholarship.

So lets not misunderstand how America became great. Today’s families were at the beginning immigrants and those that came after 1788 were encouraged and protected by a profound Constitution. Yes, striving immigrants traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to find freedom. And from-time-to-time we have been especially fortunate to have a government leadership class that understood both the joys and burdens of freedom.

By all means we should control our borders, but we should make sure our legal processes provide the accused with fairness. And the worst thing to do is foment ethnic hostility.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

There you go again Sam.” No, this is not the famous “Play It Again Sam”, a Bogart quip from the 1942 classic Casablanca, but Ronald Reagan reacting to Sam Donaldson, his media critic, working for ABC News.

Reagan, of course, was President Reagan and he was deflecting a media critic. Look it up, he had a smile on his face. He rather enjoyed sparing with the news media. By the way, back then, the 1980s, there was no Fox News.  There was just the big three networks—CBS, ABC, and NBC plus PBS. All employed hundreds of journalists who tended to be Democrats. As it is said, “Democrats are more likely to go to journalism school.”

Looking back it is hard to fathom today’s vengeful tones of President Donald J Trump. Perhaps unfair, but looking back I see Reagan, a secure man with self-confidence, using his theatrical skills to pair with his political ones.

Trump, too, has an acting background. But he seems insecure—indeed brittle—although tough for sure. Tough can be helpful when it gives you inner strength, but when it turns to vengeful attacks from the human embodiment of the government, it is problematic. It induces fear. The motivation is to check, not balance.

I was, in a much earlier life, a radio broadcaster. The stations were not of much financial consequence, but in each of their communities they were part of the news media and each relied on the Associated Press (AP). Yes the same news organization that is now being penalized by the President because in its style book the Gulf on the western side of Florida is called the Gulf of Mexico.

Incidentally, the Associated Press is based in the United States. Its main competitors are headquartered elsewhere—Reuters in Canada and AFP in France.

Frankly, I don’t care what the Gulf is called, but I do care that the President has chosen to kick the AP out of the newsroom because it won’t use his newly named Gulf of America. Is this censorship by exclusion?

The attack on the AP goes along with his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair penalizing CBS and ABC at Trump’s direction or approval or both. And, President Trump by Executive Order claims he can now veto FCC actions.

Mr. President think back. On The Apprentice you  expressed choice and the families of those you choose not to salute didn’t sue you for disparagement. You, of course, were not the government so you were free to discriminate—indeed it was part of the show. Now that you are the government, you might want to spend an evening with old Ronald Reagan video clips.

Civility is important. Turning neighbors against each other is toxic. You have the ultimate platform—the “bully pulpit,” as former President Theodore Roosevelt called it. “Bully” as Roosevelt used it meant ultimate. He knew and you know that each day your voice will command attention—that you have an immeasurable opportunity to shape public opinion and affect the culture.

The ultimate verdict on your presidency will not turn on  tax or foreign policies, but on how you left the country. If democracy is irreparably damaged, that will be the lead in the history books. Recall: we are the UNITED States of America.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

The Republican Party that was stood up by Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and more recently Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan no longer exists. It is no longer a Party where political rivalry evolves into strength because today’s default position is to punish dissent.

It is not premature to wonder how the Party’s voters might discern talent as Trump is succeeded. He is in his late 70s and cannot be reelected.

What will voters look back on? The pocketbook is the answer and tariffs as a vehicle to make America more prosperous is a bizarre policy. Tariffs to narrowly protect strategic industries might make sense but as an all-purpose tool, history and today’s stock market push back.

And to take on our most immediate neighbors by violating trade agreements while demeaning their leadership raises questions about competency that were asked by Republicans attacking Joe Biden.

Sure, America has a big stick, but as Teddy Roosevelt advised, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. Trump’s stick is big, although getting smaller, but he seems incapable of speaking softly. Brow-beating Vladimir Zelensky as the cameras rolled was a definitional moment.

One of the strangest moves by the President is putting Elon Musk out-front. Musk is characteristic of the Tech Bros—smart but lacking in common sense and empathy.

Musk is as bad at politics as he is good at tech ventures. Earlier this week he called Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona “a traitor” because of his support for Ukraine. Kelly, a former naval commander and astronaut is a true patriot. Perhaps Musk, a South-African-American, needs a course in patriotism. A real patriot would now say “I’m sorry.” But that is not the Trump or Musk way. And as Vice-President JD Vance demeans Zelensky he needs a tutorial in courage.

The Trump beginning has been mostly a flood tide. He has projected strength. His energy level is outstanding. He has been decisive and often in ways popular with the MAGA crowd, insisting, for example, that we change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Vladimir Putin has been eating it up—ice cream with a cherry on top. Putin, an egregious imperialist, can cite Trump’s verbal ambitions to take over Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland to justify his own conduct. And as negotiations to end the war in the Ukraine take place, Trump’s tell is a deuce of clubs in the upcoming card game.

Flood tides turn and low tides reveal. President Trump is now saying that we might have to endure a recession to get to his holy grail. Well if you are worth billions of dollars downturns are not all that difficult, but reflect on this: the Wall Street Journal has cited recent data that show 10% of Americans consume 50% of annual consumption. In short, the great majority of people have to work very hard to make ends meet.

Social issues have been very helpful to Republicans as Democrats have often turned on traditional morality. But, political history shows that kitchen table issues prove to be more pivotal.

So what does the low tide reveal: a political version of dead fish and rotting seaweed.

• Assaults on free speech
• Infantilizing Congress with Executive Orders that undermine it while empowering courts
• Appointing ill-prepared loyalists to key posts that need seasoned leaders
• Degrading America’s position as the most important global leader while trying to assert it
• Joining Russia, China, North Korea and Iran in symbolic UN vote
• Insisting the obvious did not happen including 2020 election results, invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and re-characterizing the attack on the Capitol as a patriotic event.
• Attempts to defy the law of economics (rising prices) using tariffs

Among America’s greatest assets is our well-established constitutional democracy and adherence to the rule of law. On the economic side our size, scale, dollar dominance, and centrality in the international supply chain come quickly to mind.

But America can be defeated. While our constitutional principles are profound, our human leadership is not.

I tell my Republican friends who have decided to stick with Trump and work within the Party to improve its future  that internal reform is likely a fool’s errand. Yes, it will eventually happen, but only after a blood bath.

And believing that friendship is way more important than politics, I enjoy talking to my friends who are Democrats. I reflect that we are spending way too much money on programs that have barely moved the dial after decades of trial. I add, to some discomfort, that attempting to re-work social standards through tradition busting laws will not work. Identity politics is just one more version of yielding to the loudest voices or the biggest bank accounts.

But let me not leave it there. To the glue-sniffers in the Republican Party, Trump won because President Biden  and his cast of reality deniers handed him the election. He should govern with some measure of humility. He will not; hubris eventually loses.

Now to a brief coda. Americans faith in the Supreme Court has suffered. The Court’s integrity can be revived if it reasserts our Constitutional foundation. Most importantly its upcoming decisions, interpreted, should be “Congress, get your house in order; you have important work to do.”

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Writing in 2025 comes with major challenges. In the radically changed communications world in which we live where is the tipping point? How many words on any given subject will be a turn-off? So here are some quick takes on disparate subjects that briefly made the headlines last week.

“Big, Beautiful Bill”

President Donald J. Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to add $2.5 trillion to the national debt over ten years. We need to subtract, not add, and adding to the national debt is not conservative.

Winner of Five Oscars

The film Anora just won five Oscars. One critic has described it as genre-bending. Parts of it are riotously frantic and funny. But for those who are considering watching it, the film also incinerates guardrails that have previously protected or deflected audiences from the visceral side of sex clubs.

Under the Bus

DJT did not get elected to end US support for Ukraine. Nor, to join in voting at the United Nations with the tyrannical set of nations targeting the US in world affairs—Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. This abrupt departure of geopolitical sense has and will continue to cause harm to the US and compromise Ukraine by shoving them not to the table but under a very big bus.

The National Pastime

Baseball is struggling. On the major league side, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a talent payroll of $303.9 million, while the Miami Marlins spend $43.63 million. The mean is $152.7. And comparatively, the game moves more slowly than other pleasant distractions.

Baseball’s leadership is now trying new gymnastic moves in an effort to protect the financial well-being of its product and its owners. Wake up; baseball needs fewer games and more intra-season suspense. The current schedule is for 162 games. My suggestion: divide the season up into four 40-game series, with the winners from those series playing each other in a year-end World Series face-off.

Crypto-Currencies

Finally, President Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve. According to press reports, the president has a $20 million investment in cryptocurrencies.

If crypto-currencies are to receive the imprimatur of the White House, there should be a substantial effort to enlighten the public on this move and, more broadly, what role these currencies will play in our country’s financial strength.

Conclusion

Finally, here’s an invitation: Pile on, post to one or more subjects of interest, and tell the Spy what you would do.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

It’s really quite extraordinary. Congress is inert, impotent, and powerless. Five hundred and thirty-five aggressive men and women elected to the House of Representatives or the Senate to do good are doing almost nothing.

In the meantime, President Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk, have deployed high-risk organizational moves against an organization’s most important asset: its people.

I actually led a government agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and found a mix of employees. Some were gifted and dedicated; others were just happy to have a job and did what was needed to keep it. And, of course, there were variations. But, on day one or for that matter day sixty-one my management team and I were still learning about the employees of the Commission which I chaired.

A large segment of FCC employees were engineers specializing in frequency-related science and communications applications from earthly to celestial. The networks they authorized and monitored have been the best in the world.

Musk’s DOGE team is involved in body count. I presume there is an employment floor based on dollar counts, and they are using a variety of techniques to reach it. One might ask how the floor has been established and whether employees are commodities that can be embraced or whacked according to numerical goals. But, back to Congress.

The Congress makes laws and appropriates the dollars to fulfill the intent. It then operates a bit like a board of directors using hearings and investigations to monitor compliance. There is a natural tension with the Executive Branch when Congress is doing its job right.

But Congress only does its job right when its leaders are patriots not showboats. Where are the most effective leaders in Congress? Where are the leaders who are willing to go beyond partisan volleys? And who are the leaders who believe the health of the United States of America is more important than their reelection? I ask these questions of the Republican contingent because the Democrats do not own the government and their criticisms are mostly brushed off as political.

If we have learned nothing in the last month we have learned that Trump and Musk do not want feedback, unless it is positive. We have learned that numbers not issues drive their daily work. We have learned that their immense egos and maniacal styles are in fact dangerous. And I expect when an audit of this saga is completed we will find that the most effective employees are no longer working for our government.

It is time for Republicans who have been elected to high office to show some backbone. I, for one, considered disruption necessary but what we got was chaos. Is this Congress unconcerned that its prerogatives are being canceled or undermined by chaos?

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

“The Tech Ecosystem that surrounds today’s teens is fueling loneliness.” Axios AM

The Thesaurus translates loneliness: as “deserted, forsaken.” I type just having come back from church, while recognizing that fewer and fewer of us return from churches or any religious venue these days. Many, not just teens, are more likely to get swallowed up by the “Tech Ecosystem.”

Today’s church service theme was “eternal happiness”. My wife and I were at Holy Trinity in Oxford, Maryland. In a broader sense the religious pulpit invites variations on this theme each week.

While religious leaders across the full spectrum of the world’s religions underscore eternal happiness, the Tech Ecosystem deals more pointedly with happiness. Google, for example, has a detailed profile of our “likes” and especially weaknesses as too many think their interface is a private affair. It now pinpoints advertising, as our online activity reveals our interests. And to promote happiness many of the ads sell pills.

Google and its peers are not selling eternal happiness—their operating system is organized around profit. Hourly and then daily and, well it all gets rolled up in the quarterly report to Wall Street.

The longer and more profound search should be for “eternal happiness”—a by-product, “internal happiness.” Of course, we can have brief moments of happiness without being concerned with continuity, but is that what we want?

And we can enjoy the fruits of friendship without considering it to be other than in the moment. But, is real friendship on offer?

While I am not a student of the world’s religions, I am led to believe by those who are that sharing our good fortune with others is thematically similar from faith to faith. In my life I have been fortunate to know persons who are generous, and not just at the end of the year when tax calculations are at hand. I cannot think of anyone in the generous category who seems lonely or feels deserted.

And reflecting, it has been my experience that having internalized generosity the downturns in life are much shorter. This is especially true for those whose faith provides an eternal buffer against both the shortness of life and its sometimes bruising offerings.

Most, I guess responding to the secular theme that all truth is relative, find themselves looking for some formula. After all, most prefer happiness to its opposite. The formula seems elusive, maybe it’s because we make it that way.

In the last several years I have seen “He Gets Us” commercials. The He is Jesus. Whether you think him divine or not his teachings lead to ultimate truths, not just situational ones. My take: only ultimate truths will overcome our quite understandable nausea with a culture that deploys artificial intelligence to overwhelm us.
The Counsel of the centuries is free.

Presidents Day

I can recall, although somewhat vaguely when George Washington’s Birthday was changed to Presidents’ Day in 1971. Some argued that Washington was a singular figure and should be recognized accordingly. Others thought all Presidents should be recognized
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Borrowing on sports, we have several Halls of Fame; most players are not recognized. And historians would certainly agree that all Presidents should not be spotlighted.
This year as Donald J Trump’s Vice-President suggests Trump is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time), we need to re-think our cancellation of history. Historical literacy has suffered as fewer are taught and social scolds seek to disparage former presidents because they succumbed in some way to the culture of their times.

George Washington was indeed a singular figure and once a year we should all be encouraged to find out why. Likewise, Abraham Lincoln. Nor should we let either celebration of the best to get entangled with days off from work.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.