/* populates feature box with latest post excerpt :: change category name to taste*/

function featurecontent() { ?>

<div id=”my-feature-box”>

// start loop with query for specific category of post & desired number to display
<?php $my_query = new WP_Query(‘category_name=video&showposts=1′); while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); $do_not_duplicate = $post->ID;?>

// set title of displayed post to display as h2 and supply permalink to full article
<h2><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark” title=”<?php the_title(); ?>”><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>

// display the content or change to the_excerpt if desired
<?php the_content(); ?>

// offer link to the rest of the article if using an excerpt
<div class=”featurereadmore”>
<a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark” title=”Read the full article”>Read the full article &rarr;</a>
</div>

// end the loop
<?php endwhile; ?>
</div>
<?php
}

add_action(‘thesis_hook_feature_box’, ‘featurecontent’);

/* Remove Thesis attribution, add footer nav */
remove_action(‘thesis_hook_footer’, ‘thesis_attribution’);
add_action(‘thesis_hook_footer’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);

// Custom footer
add_action('thesis_hook_footer', 'custom_footer');

function custom_footer() {
?>
<div id="footer_right">&copy; < ?= date( 'Y' ) ?>, Company name &bull; site by HDG, inc.</div>
<div id="footer_left">
<ul class="menu">
<li>HOME</li>
<li>About us</li>
<li>Services</li>
<li>News</li>
<li>Affiliations</li>
<li>Contact Us</li>
</ul>
</div>
< ?php
}

Steffy: BP pays less for CEO failure than U.S. firms

By LOREN STEFFY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

Aug. 3, 2010, 10:06PM

As a British corporation, BP pays less for failure.
BP’s board offered ousted CEO Tony Hayward a parachute on his way out, but it’s not all that golden compared with the premium that U.S. companies put on executive failure.

It’s a safe bet that if BP has been an American company, Hayward’s wallet would be much fatter as he departs. Great Britain, though, cracked down on golden parachutes in the 1990s.

Hayward’s severance is basically a year’s salary, which is $1.6 million, and his pension benefits, which total about $17.5 million.

That, by most measures, is a lot of money. If BP were based in Houston, the combination would put him at No. 6 on the Chronicle’s list of highest-paid public company executives, published Sunday.

But even counting his pension payments, which are benefits earned over a 28-year career as opposed to a reward for his brief tenure as CEO, Hayward’s severance is modest among other failed executives.

It’s less than a tenth of what Robert Nardelli got for leaving Home Depot, a company that is far smaller, easier to manage and less prone to catastrophic disaster. If a guy runs a chain of hardware stores into the ground and gets $210 million, then under the Nardelli Principle what should be the reward for an executive who spills oil all over the Gulf of Mexico?

Then there’s the Wall Street crowd, led by Merrill Lynch’s Stan O’Neal, who laid waste to the firm and walked away with $161.5 million, and Ken Lewis, who bought Merrill after O’Neal was done with it, misled shareholders about its losses, and still got $125 million for leaving. Charles Prince oversaw huge write-downs at Citigroup related to subprime mortgages and was given $42 million in defeat.

‘The right gesture’?

We’ve seen this pattern so many times, we’ve come to expect it. Indeed, some lawmakers have called for Hayward to forfeit his severance because of the magnitude of the disaster that occurred on his watch.

Les Csorba, who runs the Houston office of Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, said Hayward should consider that on his own.

“If I were him, I might set up a foundation in my retirement in which those proceeds would support organizations that are involved in cleaning up the Gulf,” he said. “That might be the right gesture.”

Looking at the lives that have been upended on the Gulf Coast and in the oil industry as a result of the latest BP disaster, it’s natural to question why Hayward deserves anything.

Corporate boards, though, also have to think about hiring the next CEO.

“You have to send the right signal to the market that you’re still willing to be competitive,” Csorba said.

If Hayward, who largely inherited BP’s broken culture, leaves with nothing, who would be willing to step into the job? If leading a giant corporation becomes a zero-sum game — succeed and you bask in riches, fail and you get nothing, who would want the job?

The trick for corporate boards is striking a balance, creating proper incentives for success and not making the punishment for failure so stifling CEOs are afraid to take risks.

In addition to the salary and pension, Hayward has BP stock options, but they’re virtually worthless and probably will remain so. BP’s shares have recovered since Hayward’s departure, but they’re still 34 percent below where they traded in April.

Unlike so many U.S. boards, BP directors haven’t attempted to issue additional shares or reprice options to make Hayward whole.

Hayward was on track to receive millions more in bonus shares under a plan adopted before the Gulf disaster, but aren’t likely to be granted now.

BP has done so much wrong in handling its latest crisis, but its handling of Hayward’s departure should serve as an example for U.S. companies that still pay way too much for failure.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle’s business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at loren.steffy@chron.com. His blog is at http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/.

Cry me a freaking river. Anyone else who screws up in their job gets fired, no severance, no pension, and quite often they’re frog-marched to the door with their personal shit in a box. You may even be blackballed in your own profession.

But if you’re a CEO who’s screwed up massively – disrupting the lives of thousands of employees – they kiss your ass, hand you ten of millions of dollars on your way out the door, and meet you next weekend for another sailboat race?

You’re kidding, right?. Suck it up, rich boys, and take responsibility for the problems your massive egos have caused.

Switch Nav position in Thesis

/* Switch Nav Position PHP */
remove_action('thesis_hook_before_header', 'thesis_nav_menu');
add_action('thesis_hook_after_header', 'thesis_nav_menu');

Complex Custom Footer in Thesis

An easier way would be to put this in custom_functions.php:
add_action('thesis_hook_footer', 'thesis_nav_menu');
but that only works if you want the header and footer nav content to match.

/* Custom footer */
add_action('thesis_hook_footer', 'custom_footer');
function custom_footer() {
?>
<div id="footer_right">&copy; < ?= date( 'Y' ) ?>, Company Name &bull; Site by the <a href="http://www.mediacellar.com">media cellar, inc.</a></div>
<div id="footer_left">
<a href="index.php">HOME</a> &bull;
<a href="/page1">PAGE1</a> &bull;
<a href="/page2">PAGE2</a> &bull;
<a href="/building-blocks">EXTERNAL LINK</a> &bull;
<a href="/contact-us">CONTACT</a> &bull;
<a href="/privacy-policy">PRIVACY POLICY</a>
</div>
<div id="footer_note">footernote</div>
< ?php
}

Plenty more to come. Be excited, you know you love this stuff.

Big Butter Jesus went down in a creamy conflagration last night. All that’s left is the metal skeleton, prompting the new name of Terminator Jesus, used all over town today. His raised right hand was struck by lightning, and lo and behold, styrofoam covered in fiberglass burns real good. The statue and adjoining building both had lightning rods, but, well, it’s lightning. The church plans to rebuild Touchdown Jesus, and I say rebuild it 10 feet higher….otherwise, God wins. From the “Ironic, don’t cha think” department, the giant Hustler Hollywood sign across the highway was untouched.

Apparently they call this a “hot fire”. Good to know.

There’s no shame in these people at all, is there?