Any American who has watched a few minutes of TV programming in the past couple of weeks has seen one of T. Boone Pickens’ time-for-big-change commercials. There are three TV spots out at this time. You can watch Pickens’ whiteboard presentation on his web site. I admit it. His direct speech and logic are appealing. So why the nasty subject line for this post? Can’t people change in fundamental ways? Sure. But how often do you see a man who has spent his life trampling anything that comes between himself and another dollar suddenly embrace the public good? A good rule of thumb is that if you want to see where someone is heading, look at where he’s been. I hope that I am wrong about Pickens. Before you make up your mind, look into the kinds of decisions he has made all his life and ask yourself whether what motivated him then could, in some way he is trying to obscure, be driving him now. A starting point is Scott Thill’s article on AlterNet. Give Pickens a hearing, but don’t swallow the bones with the fish.