Before there was Zappos there was Ben Stein

Ben Stein recently wrote this New York Times piece about the art of sales. I personally think there's actually more here about marketing than sales.

He writes about his first job in shoe sales which, as he says, "entailed selling shoes." It's not always glorious is it? But the way Ben describes it, he remembers it with a certain penchant for getting back to the drama/ballet/high-wire act of selling those shoes.

Interestingly, along with being a lawyer, writer, actor and economist, Mr. Stein is also a highly regarded commencement speaker.

Free Speech in a Flat World

In the wake of international scrutiny China has lowered the firewall for its citizens to access the English version of Wikipedia - with some sensitive pages blocked. Sounds like a step in the right direction. I would expect the "olympics" page is one that may be blocked or unblocked on a daily basis.

How's freedom of speech doing in the U.S.? Are there questions you can't ask? Positions you shouldn't hold? If you look very far on the web, it would appear there aren't many things you can't say.

In American academia though, challenging Darwinian dogma is the new taboo. And Ben Stein is being decried as a "willful ignoramus" who "must have lost his mind" and now risks being Expelled on or about April 18 when his controversial movie is released.

Stein apparently implies that scientific bias can be a result of, and a justification for, a preferred worldview. Is he allowed to say that? We'll find out in a couple weeks.

Marketing Darwin and Ben Stein

Thirty years ago, we remembered this as Abraham Lincoln's birthday and every year we cut out silhouettes of the president who guided us through one of our nation's most troubled times. Now the 12th of February is being marketed as "Darwin Day" by several groups in the US, such as PETA.

I have a wonderful dog (boxer) and of course I view dogs as far superior to cats, but I have a tough time grasping PETA president Ingrid Newkirk's claim that "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." (In fact, I have to wonder if she has ever had a dog.) There are at least a few, like the author Aldous Huxley in "Ends and Means," who admit that they embrace this kind of worldview without any deeper meaning, "because it frees me to my own...pursuits."

But not former presidential speechwriter (and game show host, lawyer, professor, etc.) Ben Stein. The trailer for his new movie "Expelled" came out today, not coincidentally. An interesting new/old challenge for the 21st century's egalitarian claims in the marketplace of ideas. Every generation has its rebel - see what you think.