HISTORY LESSONS For days global and national news has consisted of rioting, arrests, and killings in Iran, as demonstrators showed outrage at questionable election results. Hundreds were arrested as voters for reform mobbed the city of Tehran.

40 years ago I was in Iran as part of a small delegation of White House Fellows who spent five weeks in the Middle East visiting and interviewing leaders in Iran, Egypt, and Israel. White House national security advisor Henry Kissinger put together a small group of individuals who could access decision-makers in these three countries, but who would not attract attention. With Mike Armacost as our coordinator, this team of ten worked the corridors of power in a part of the world where tension and conflicts were, as are now, present. Just two years after the '67 War, the tensions were between Israel and Egypt. Iran appeared deceptively calm under the control of the Shah of Iran as we met quietly with senior government officials.

Overthrown in subsequent years, the Shah, a seemingly invincible leader was clearly in charge. During those meetings, we took notes to report back to the senior staff of the National Security Council. We had to do a layover"in Greece for reasons undisclosed to us - apparently a decision by the two antagonistic nations with weapons. The ability to communicate through Twitter and Facebook at this period would have been impossible to fathom!


TOUGH TIMES

Let us travel forward to Maryland’s tough times with three recent headlines in a single issue of the reliable Baltimore Business Journal.

"Streuver Stops Work on City Projects"

Bill Streuver's respected Streuver Brothers, Eccles & Rouse has suspended plans for a business park in Locust Point and development of a "Digital Harbor" office and residential complex in the Inner Harbor, former location of an Allied Signal chrome plant due to lack of financing.

"Public Service Commission Advised to Assert Authority of Constellation Deal"

This is a classic conflict to keep an international corporation's role in acquiring Constellation Holdings to a level not dissimilar to that of large auto corporations structured to permit government intervention and regulation. What will happen to customer utility rates that have grown under the once locally managed Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE)? What will happen to the nearly $60 million bonus being proffered to Constellation's CEO as part of the ownership control to the international EDF Group?

“Baltimore Convention and Visitors Center Tries to Recoup Loss of Rite Aid"

Here, financial pressures have forced Rite Aid Corp. to back off from a “massive convention” that would have attracted 3,000 visitors and filled hotel rooms in Baltimore.

“O'Malley v. Constellation Holdings”

I am not often in accord with the Sunpapers's editorials, but a recent commentary on the seemingly unending battle between State government and holding company Constellation Energy seems to be on target with its article: "Separate politics, power" (June 15). The O'Malley Administration seems in favor of the Constellation deal, to sell half of its nuclear business to Electricite de France on the grounds that EDF could have the power to directly influence its new subsidiary, Baltimore Gas & Electric. Where does this leave the customers who face monthly uncertainties from the meter readers who check homes and businesses? Whatever happened to the 2006 campaign rhetoric that utility rates would be kept rational? No semblance of reality has occurred since. And, to boot, a prospective $87 million severance package for Constellation CEO Shattuck could be in the offing.

"INNOVATION: THE KEY TO PROSPERITY".

I recently had the opportunity to attend a Baltimore Museum of Industry luncheon honoring "Industrialist of the Year" Aris Melissaratos, former Westinghouse executive and Maryland Secretary of Economic Development (as good as State government has ever had) and now Senior Advisor to the Johns Hopkins University President. Aris' current responsibilities fall into the must happen category: technology transfer, corporate partnerships, and enterprise development. Aris is truly carrying forward the vision of my boss, Milton Eisenhower. An earlier President of Hopkins, Eisenhower often said that that "the primary constant in management is to recognize, understand change and put it to work".

Aris is following "Dr. Milton's" advice and has completed a new book which may make the case, "Innovation: The Key to Prosperity".

Technology and America's Role in the 21st Century Global Economy

During informal conversations at this award event with two former Maryland Governors, Bob Erhlich and Marvin Mandel, we came to a unified conclusion: Aris will cut through the B.S. with this book. I make that observation with two points made in the opening chapter:

1."How We Lost Our Technological Nerve"

The U.S. enters the 21st century as hostage to interests controlling fuels for obsolete technologies. It is a mistake to believe the myth of technological inevitability.

2."The Coming Together of All Sciences"

The positive energies of scientific and technological innovation must be seen as an integrated enterprise rather than a fragmentary collection of projects. Computer science is a new "lingua franca" among technologies and sciences.

I am a political scientist by academic training, an entrepreneur by instinct, and a participant in the interaction between free enterprise and government. Aris' exciting new book will open doors to testing these areas of interest and experience as I read by the lake at the Wills camp on Maine's Pemaquid Pond. Combined with my passion for creating coastal Maine watercolors, kayaking and swimming with grandkids, Aris Melissaratos will contribute to a super summer!  8:57 AM •  0 Comments •

SPRING CLEANING Maryland's spendthrift Comptroller Peter Franchot complains that the number of taxpaying millionaires are "disappearing", meaning fewer collections of the new 6.5 % tax bracket than anticipated. The Mike Miller/Martin O'Malley team pushed the tax increase through the Legislature, after repeal of the computer service tax 1 year ago. Brad Wills and I had the professional and personal pleasure of helping the computer services executive Tom Loveland and his Maryland Computer Services Association, a statewide coalition of small businesses that took on the task of repealing that discriminatory tax.

What's next? Fiscal discipline!

Maryland's Comptroller cannot continue to mourn the exit of taxpayers from Maryland. The real need is to act, per sound advice recently given by the Baltimore Business Journal and the Daily Record. From the Daily Record: "Instead of addressing Maryland's long term, structural fiscal issues, the General Assembly applied a giant Band-Aid in the form of $4 billion in federal stimulus money, crossed their collective fingers and gambled that state revenues will rebound before the day of reckoning."

The commentary concludes by contrasting the Governor's finger-crossing with Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith's putting a rein on his local government's 2008 budget by a hard choice: limits on cost of living and benefits increases of County employees. One year later, much needed teacher salary increases of 3.5 % in Baltimore County were made possible by budget restraint where needed. Franchot should take a lesson from Smith.


Good News

As we look ahead to summer heat, there are some "good news" items to appreciate.

1. The Chesapeake Bay: Long overdue, Maryland and Virginia are taking a stronger regional approach to block continued passivity to serious cleaning up of the pollution of America's greatest watershed. In no small measure, much is owed to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's pushing, prodding and use of a lawsuit for more direct EPA work on environmental problems having a ripple effect on people in the mid-Atlantic region.

2. The Arts: A coalition to increase support for the arts got moving this year. As one with strong interest in arts education, I have been moved by the work of an after-school program in east Baltimore. The Club at Collington Square brings painting lessons related to history to needy children through the leadership of an honors graduate of MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). This program director Julia DiBussolo gives meaning to the words "community art".

3. Public Broadcasting: We all can be proud of Maryland Public Television and its mission of programming that informs - from "The American Experience" series to last week's two hour documentary of "Humor History", funny stuff from W.C. Fields of long ago, followed by Bob Hope and, of recent vintage, Tina Fay as Sarah Palin !

Despite the need for "housecleaning", these three "good news" reports do prove that spring has really sprung!  11:18 AM •  0 Comments •