It takes a lot to leave me speechless. But yesterday in the midst of a spirited conversation about potential employment–an opportunity that I sadly don’t actually get much of these days–I was asked “What is your favorite Excel formula”? Seriously.
I sputtered to give something that resembled an honest answer, because I’ve never spent a waking moment even contemplating such an issue. I’m not sure I believed what came out of mouth and I’m leery if the asker did, either. But what became crystal clear is that this person–despite their stirring assertion that he was all for evolution and modernization of processes was very, very much focused on maintaining a status quo when it came to the tools that those processes were employing. And much as I would covet and indeed need this opportunity to become a reality, it became crushingly and downright depressingly crystal clear that this will most likely result in yet another rejection. To say that I’m conflicted and even a little sick about it would be an understatement.
But given what we I saw unfolding elsewhere yesterday once my appetite for LOVE ISLAND USA had been satiated I took a little solace in the realization that my experience was effectively what was being played out in executive suites and voting stations from coast to coast. Significant constituencies very much desiring to maintain what has been, and equally significant opposing forces hell bent on changing them.
Nowhere has this been truer than right here in LA, where while the final verdicts are yet to be reached at this writing it has become clear that both the gubernatorial and mayoral races are headed for November runoffs that will squarely put establishment versus insurgent. THE WRAP’s Tess Patton weighted in on the former late last night:
Former Biden Cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra and Fox News commentator Steve Hilton emerged as the early leading candidates in the race for California governor with over half of the vote reported. These two may go head-to-head in a runoff in the November general election. With half of the vote counted, the Republican Brit lead with 27% of the vote with the former Calif. attorney general closely behind with 26% of the vote, according to AP. Billionaire businessman Tom Steyer trailed behind with just 20% of the reported vote.
Becerra, the former health and human services secretary, has the most political experience of the frontrunners. In fact, Becerra previously served as the California attorney general from 2017 to 2021 and a U.S. representative for the state from 1993 to 2017…(Hilton), (t)he former British political strategist has emerged as the leading Republican candidate, ousting his rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, after President Donald Trump endorsed him in April. Hilton immigrated to California from the U.K. in 2012, where he was previously the aide of Prime Minister David Cameron.\
Her colleague Alyssa Ray recapped the even more strikingly polar opposites that surged to the front of the city’s top job contest:
Spencer Pratt celebrated his early lead ahead of Nithya Raman in the Los Angeles Mayor race on Tuesday, as “The Hills” star and incumbent Mayor Karen Bass emerged as frontrunners. (Bass was already confirmed as advancing in the runoff Tuesday evening.) While speaking to press outside his election night party, the former reality star boasted his successful mayoral bid, noting, “The communists already lost.”…Meanwhile, despite trailing by approximately 35,000 votes on election night, the mood at the (Nithya) Raman election party was upbeat. Several attendees told TheWrap they are hopeful that the mail-in ballots that are still to be counted, and which historically have skewed left, will help the city councilmember advance to a runoff with Mayor Karen Bass in November.
This wasn’t limited to my place of resident. In my sister’s backyard this revolutionary moment unfolded which TRT WORLD picked up on this morning:
Adam Hamawy, a retired US Army combat surgeon, vocal critic of Israel and supporter of Palestinians, is projected to win the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, according to CNN’s Decision Desk. Born in Egypt and raised in the United States, the Muslim veteran emerged ahead of a crowded field of roughly a dozen candidates in the safely Democratic seat previously held by retiring Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman. Hamawy built a broad progressive coalition during the campaign and secured significant backing from the American Priorities, a political lobby group, which supports pro-Palestinian causes and spent more than $1.5 million in his favour. He also received endorsements from independent Senator Bernie Sanders and several members of the US House progressive “Squad,” including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and others.
Per WHYY’s David Matthau, here’s who Hamawy can look forward to in his own fall CTJ moment:
Gregg Mele is an attorney practicing corporate law, contracts, securities, real estate and estate planning. He previously worked on Wall Street and has taught graduate-level courses in law and economics.His campaign has focused on lowering taxes, ensuring personal and medical freedom over mandates, supporting small businesses, expanding school choice and working to make legal gun ownership easier. He has also publicly supported calls to strengthen border security.He said his campaign aims to encourage self-sufficiency.
Establishment vs. Change, with Blow It All Up still stubbornly hanging in.
Effectively what played out at CBS NEWS on Monday when the 60 MINUTES team had its first face-to-face confrontation between new sheriff Nick Bilton. Suffice to say, it didn’t go well for either party. With expected yet shockingly shift action, the end result dwarfed these political nuggets. The ASSOCIATED PRESS’ Hannah Schoenbaum took a rare byline with this report:
CBS News fired longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley on Tuesday, a day after he reportedly said Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was “murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender qualifications” for the job…Pelley, 68, criticized management Monday during a fiery staff meeting with Nick Bilton, the program’s new executive producer installed by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website.
In a termination notice obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press, Bilton, a technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, accused Pelley of carrying out an “ambush” against him. “Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt,” the letter states.
And just to be doubly sure said incivility and contempt was reinforced Pelley kept the likes of DEADLINE’s Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson working overtime with this Macarthur-like farewell to arms:
The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable,” Scott Pelley said late Tuesday just hours after being fired from CBS News after almost 40 years at the network. “The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well,” the former CBS Evening News anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent added in a scathing parting salvo to CBS News boss Bari Weiss, newly minted 60 EP Nick Bilton and Paramount CEO David Ellison…Revealing that “new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” Pelley stated “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.” Throwing Free Press founder Weiss well under the bus in a chaotic news division now in open revolt I hear, Pelley continued: “In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”
Pelley is being lauded as a hero and champion for the status quo. He’s also in the enviable position of being seasoned and frankly financially secure enough to be able to be one. Johnson and Patten added that he’s likely to be even more ensconched in that echelon:
As Deadline exclusively reported tonight, Pelley and his team have had conversations with Hollywood litigator Bryan Freedman. The lawyer, best known of late for representing Justin Baldoni in his It Ends With Us battle with Blake Lively, had already been retained by ex-60 Minutes reporter Sharyn Alfonsi — who was cut in a purge at the news magazine over the past few days. Freedman was instrumental in big payouts to the likes of Megyn Kelly, Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson in dust-ups and exits from their respective legacy media perches.
When Change and Blow It All Up are being supported by the impressive financial chops of the Ellison family–with the far greater stakes of government contracts for said knee-bending allegedly on the line–who can blame Pelley for wrangling a few more shekels to head into retirement? So maybe his principles weren’t quite as pristine as he’d like to have us believe?
At least he’s in a position to have his own take. I so wish I was. I really, truly wish I was in a position to be questioned on my track record and ability to deliver results, not whether or not I lay up at night thinking about better ways to produce a deliverable that might not achieve them. As you can see, I’ve got different reasons for my insomnia.
I guess this means I’m a little closer to the Quid Pro than the Status Quo than I might otherwise wish you’d believe. Or me, for that matter. I suppose I should let this interviewer know that–perhaps in a slightly less scorched Earth manner than Pelley. Right now, I’m way too frustrated to find the words or the energy to do that.
So I’ll put that out there to the universe as one of two burning questions I have. How do I move forward? And what’s YOUR favorite Excel program?
Until next time…