At big bank we have a process by which we consolidate loan documents of purchased bank, digitally. It's a twenty step process, repeated 13 to 34 times each loan, approximately, requiring very little conscious effort. If one is sleep deprived or hung-over, it can be very soporific, causing one to nod off and forget one's place, often. It can also feel chilly in big bank, the longer one sits. I surmise, because the process is rote, dancing might facilitate it.
So Thursday, in the afternoon, I plugged into the Ipod, spun the Wacky Jacket Jenkins and Green Man playlists, which have been present for me lately, present as I have been for Autumn this year, in a way I haven't been the last two autumns managing a Halloween store. The women in my nook made me blush ( I am surrounded by seven women, young and older.) When they asked me what I was dancing to, I said absently, focused on the computer, consolidating loans and dancing: "Jungle Love." When they asked who sang it I couldn't remember. LOL. I kept dancing in my chair, throughout the afternoon.
By the end of the day, I had maintained my digital pace, while breaking something of a sweat. I was very happy. And some of my coworkers were looking at me in a new way. LOL.
The bus to and fro my home is an electric, the engine in back. The back seats are elevated, the seats as a cup or chalice, backs to the windows facing in. The back row is a bench.
Seated on either side of the otherwise empty bench, were the two most beautiful women I have seen at big bank.
One is of East African origin. When I asked her one morning, off the bus, what she had been reading (a small, tattered 3x4in, thin papered book falling out of the spine, in a Middle Eastern language, heavily underlined, which she reads every morning), she replied, "the Bible." I said, "it looks like a book that has been read alot," and she laughed. Speaking lyrically, she asked me what I had been reading. I said, "The Return of the Goddess." What's that about? she asked. I told her, five thousand years ago, many cultures believed in the Goddess, but the culture of the one male God, OMOG, overcame, devastating and destroying it. "Are you a Christian?" she asked.
I told her I was raised evangelical Christian, but now I say I am in service to the Goddess. She looked confused, so I said, smiling, "everybody and their mother believes in God, I'm just trying to balance things out." She laughed, but she did not tell me her name when I introduced myself. Looking at her looking up at me from the hood of her coat, was like looking into the face of a true princess, as any I have ever encountered. More like an avatar of the Goddess, I think.
I stayed off the platform.
Today, Friday, much that could go wrong with every process did, and I accomplished little, but gorging on organic instant coffee, high fructose corn syrup and aspartame. Except to realize, probably half the loans I have processed in this most recent process, and probably at least half the loans of the 50 people (approximately) working on this process the last week, will have to be reassessed. Because, inexplicably, purchased bank tech engineers obscured the process of opening half of their documents, in a perfectly inane, obscure and arbitrary way. And I was too focused on momentum and increased speed, to notice that 1-8 documents of every loan were opening up as the opening page only. Missing documents, incomplete transfer, do over. Newby contractor.
I was pretty wrecked about it, as I have always wondered about a circle of hell for engineers, and having myself cost big bank 2-3 days of my labor, (about $172-256, after taxes), and wondering about future employment. Exaggerating a little bit, on the way home, on a Friday, on the bus, off the bus. When I reached my bike, I'm pretty sure, the dusqe hue jungle woman from the other side of the back of the bus, was watching me with a stance of exaggerated concern, from a hundred meters away, at the train stop.
This week too, RE, head admin over at the Doomstead Diner, proclaimed me admin. A greater honor, personally, than DREAM JOB. As I think the Diner is the go-to place for the comprehension of ideas that are of immediate importance, across the spectrum. The leading edge of consciousness, as it were. LOL. RE mentioned a greater honor too, of which I am in awe.
Any way, I bought a pinkish leather coat like the color of the swamp milkweeds that grow throughout my garden, at The Pink Closet consignment shop, for $6.75, after I got off the bus. Very bad ass. LOL.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Lately...
How much can happen in a week?
About a week ago*, I awoke to a story on NPR about organic food. Stanford University had released a study suggesting organic foods aren't any healthier than industrial foods. I was only half shocked, as I was only partially awake.
When I walked into big bank later that morning, into the break room, BBC teevee news was reporting on a Stanford study, suggesting organic foods are no better for you than industrial foods (though I think NPR and the BBC used the word "commercial.") That was when I felt a watershed feeling, as of the last gasping breathe of a dying paradigm. Stanford, NPR, and the BBC. The commercialism of life is officially systemic, such that no authority of any kind remains, that is not suspect of bastardizing reality.
Then an Egyptian American coptic Christian con artist, pretending to be an Israeli Jew, released a film. An American Ambassador was killed in Libya, in an attempted kidnapping (why else would the "rioters" have rushed him to a hospital while he was still alive?), and anti-America sentiment with all the vigor and all-the-more ferocity of the Arab Spring, was released, all over the world. Meanwhile, much of China is alight with anti-Japanese fire breathing, many a Japanese automobile smashed to pieces in the street, Japanese restaurants and stores trashed, Japanese compared to dogs and demons. While one of the (debatable) Americans running for President, has been making increasingly aggressive statements against Russia, Iran, Syria and China, and at least 47% of his fellow Americans. Oh yeah, Apple released the iPhone 5. QE3?
First of all, hospitals have no incentive to lower Health Care costs. In fact, they have a financial incentive to fill the hospital, just as the prisons do. Hence, there is motive built into the system to keep people fat, unhealthy, and preferably stupid. Hence, a Federal and State policy in defense of industrial food. Second, we Americans don't get to presume we have the right to 35%+ of the world's resources, and then get uppity about the blowback, or to blame the languishing economy on poor people. Third, that attempted kidnapping that went awry can't be explained away with stories about radical Islam, as wretched as Fundamentalist Islam is, when the very private brain behind American foreign policy, the Council on Foreign Relations, is praising al Qaida for their support of the rebels in Syria; as in, don't put it past the CIA to kidnap an American Ambassador, or pay al Qaida to do it, with weapons to be used in Syria, to incite Americans to war in the Middle East, to forget about the economy - when NPR, the BBC and Stanford can't be trusted not to eviscerate the truth with mass media absurdities. Fourth, I can't tell the difference between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. How many Christian pastors stood up this week and defended Ro-money's de-humanization of half the country, with the poor put to the proverbial boot? On the whole as Religions with a capital R, Christianity, Islam and Judaism strike me as hostile to women, to the weak and to life, and bent toward world domination. The old beliefs speak of a triple Goddess arising in this world as the archetype of the maiden, the mother, and the crone. Today they are all subdued by dominant visions of the One Male God (OMG), or the One Male Omniscient God (OMOG), as a triplicate tyranny in God the Father, Yahweh and Allah.
An email came through to our department Wednesday, in big bank, that there would be a managerial walk-through at 1:30, and besides not having any personal items at our computer stations, we were required to have our keyboards on our computer trays, NOT on the desk. I didn't see the email, and no one confronted me, though I can't be sure it won't be counted against me that I had my backpack under the desk and my keyboard on the desk. It's hard to imagine any of my immediate managers insisting.
This is big bank, thinking not of my comfort or health, but of orderly appearances. This is especially obtuse, this kind of oversight, as I've waded through two hundred and fifty different big bank proffered mortgage loans in default, the last two days. Talk about government incompetence? Say, institutional. Indeed, Government facilitated these loans I'm expected to do this one thing for, highlighting HUD settlement statements, 150 loans every day the next several days, but the banks profited, big time. Nevertheless, because I have a job to do, I cleared 100 yesterday, 150 loans today, through this stage of the process.
The largest loan of the 250 was $929,000. There were three above $700,000, about 75 today from Maryland and Virginia, above $400,000. I don't generally feel too bad about my part until I see a loan under $200,000, the closer the loan gets to $100,000. The especially saddening ones are under $100,000, in rural areas, though the documents aren't necessarily indicative of refinancing for a quick cash infusion, whatever the state of the debtors. On the whole, these loans do speak of a people trying to step up in class, who overshot, who got suckered into a classic bubble, according to a commercial version of the American dream. The vaunted $25 billion dollar mortgage settlement between the big banks and the State Attorney's General, is vinyl siding and window treatments to a rotten house, a Cherrio sponge in a bucket full of sour milk. Something I may attempt to benefit from, and report on faithfully if I do, btw, as I am $50,000 under water.
For those readers who remember about my job search, an email arrived from HR, of the DREAM JOB - not just the DREAM JOB, the Job I Was Made To Do. I wasn't deemed worthy of an interview.
I'm not surprised, nor am I wrecked about it either. Big Bank is not my first choice, but big bank is a kind of blessing in disguise, lipstick on a pig maybe, but a blessing for me now, for sure. A paycheck every week! Though my sister made more in one night serving drinks last week, than I made in my 40 hrs of service to Big Bank. That was sobering. Turns out people don't drink less when the economy is shitty. Tough work though, hard on the body, slinging drinks. Tough I can't imagine staring at mortgage documents years on end (though defaults are sure to continue in abundance into the forseeable future, notwithstanding the wish making of the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg et al.) The benefits have abounded, for me; my house is cleaner than it has been in awhile, I've brought a lunch every day since I started, most of it from my garden, and I'm encouraged to think about orderly progress on the house and garden. There is much to do, including turning the garage into a greenhouse, tearing up more of the driveway, a paver patio by the pond, insulating boards for the windows, besides putting the garden to bed for the winter, and the full harvest of course. I get up every weekday at 5am with the alarm. I've economised somehow and my best dreams seem to come around 2am.
I wish I could show you pictures of my garden, though no image or series of images or words would suffice to capture the beauty of my garden, after a rain, in the twilight, in the fall. My garden is a lush, abundant, enchanted food and medicinal forest, compared to my neighbor's consensual, bleak, burned out yards of sod. There is a spontaneous landscape artist on the corner right now (with an easel,) painting the sunflowers in the front, which stand ten feet tall, next to the equally tall broom grass, and the heavenly blue morning glory's on the fifteen-foot, dead, spiraled lilac trunk I propped up right at the corner. Surrounded by cosmos, hyssop, New-England aster, tomatoes, cabbages, melons and sapling fruit trees.
I finished reading a book this week, called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. Leonard Shlain's basic premise is, five thousand years ago, everywhere in many cultures the Great Mother was supplanted by a Violent Male God, wherever there is evidence of the emergence of the written word. The word, he claims, is linear, abstract, and analytical, which is the purview of the left hemisphere of the brain, which is associated with the right side of the body. The right brain is about emotion, connection, image and sound, intuition, art and dancing. The written word literally rewired our brains to be left brain dominant, hence the imbalance in the world, the right angles, the general aggressiveness, incongruous attitudes about life, economy, the earth and universal processes. The world is in process toward re-balance, a return to wholeness and equanimity between the opposites of our being, as evidenced by the re-emergence of the image, Shlain contends. Teevee isn't so bad, in this sense, insofar as the near universality of the image has primed the human brain toward a greater openness to right brained activity, a greater expansion in the feminine. Shlain believes we are on the verge of a golden age, in which the masculine and the feminine are in greater balance. He wrote his book in the Ninties, before 9/ll, though I don't think he would be surprised necessarily by the resurgenge everywhere of mysogyny, whether that be fundamentalist Islam or the white male American Republican obsession with controlling the womb. Like I said, the watershed, the final thrust, of a dying paradigm.
I gave the painter a watermelon. I've made juice from three kinds of grapes that grow here. I've made salsa, and I've canned tomatoes and peppers. And while I have the urge to store, preeminent, or at least evident, is a desire to share. I measure the true abundance of this garden by what I will keep and what I will give away. Trusting, when I remember, that what I give will come back.
Shlain though contends, it is not to do away with the word, with Logos, with the analytical and science, but to embrace the spontaneous, life as Art and the joy of being alive, emotion, connection and the relation in every aspect to all things. Because therein arises the essence of the next stage of our evolution, the dis-illusion of duality and the unification of opposites. Arising above all out of the body, as it is a fount of universal energies, to the degree we open up to it.
*er, two. LOL
About a week ago*, I awoke to a story on NPR about organic food. Stanford University had released a study suggesting organic foods aren't any healthier than industrial foods. I was only half shocked, as I was only partially awake.
When I walked into big bank later that morning, into the break room, BBC teevee news was reporting on a Stanford study, suggesting organic foods are no better for you than industrial foods (though I think NPR and the BBC used the word "commercial.") That was when I felt a watershed feeling, as of the last gasping breathe of a dying paradigm. Stanford, NPR, and the BBC. The commercialism of life is officially systemic, such that no authority of any kind remains, that is not suspect of bastardizing reality.
Then an Egyptian American coptic Christian con artist, pretending to be an Israeli Jew, released a film. An American Ambassador was killed in Libya, in an attempted kidnapping (why else would the "rioters" have rushed him to a hospital while he was still alive?), and anti-America sentiment with all the vigor and all-the-more ferocity of the Arab Spring, was released, all over the world. Meanwhile, much of China is alight with anti-Japanese fire breathing, many a Japanese automobile smashed to pieces in the street, Japanese restaurants and stores trashed, Japanese compared to dogs and demons. While one of the (debatable) Americans running for President, has been making increasingly aggressive statements against Russia, Iran, Syria and China, and at least 47% of his fellow Americans. Oh yeah, Apple released the iPhone 5. QE3?
First of all, hospitals have no incentive to lower Health Care costs. In fact, they have a financial incentive to fill the hospital, just as the prisons do. Hence, there is motive built into the system to keep people fat, unhealthy, and preferably stupid. Hence, a Federal and State policy in defense of industrial food. Second, we Americans don't get to presume we have the right to 35%+ of the world's resources, and then get uppity about the blowback, or to blame the languishing economy on poor people. Third, that attempted kidnapping that went awry can't be explained away with stories about radical Islam, as wretched as Fundamentalist Islam is, when the very private brain behind American foreign policy, the Council on Foreign Relations, is praising al Qaida for their support of the rebels in Syria; as in, don't put it past the CIA to kidnap an American Ambassador, or pay al Qaida to do it, with weapons to be used in Syria, to incite Americans to war in the Middle East, to forget about the economy - when NPR, the BBC and Stanford can't be trusted not to eviscerate the truth with mass media absurdities. Fourth, I can't tell the difference between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. How many Christian pastors stood up this week and defended Ro-money's de-humanization of half the country, with the poor put to the proverbial boot? On the whole as Religions with a capital R, Christianity, Islam and Judaism strike me as hostile to women, to the weak and to life, and bent toward world domination. The old beliefs speak of a triple Goddess arising in this world as the archetype of the maiden, the mother, and the crone. Today they are all subdued by dominant visions of the One Male God (OMG), or the One Male Omniscient God (OMOG), as a triplicate tyranny in God the Father, Yahweh and Allah.
An email came through to our department Wednesday, in big bank, that there would be a managerial walk-through at 1:30, and besides not having any personal items at our computer stations, we were required to have our keyboards on our computer trays, NOT on the desk. I didn't see the email, and no one confronted me, though I can't be sure it won't be counted against me that I had my backpack under the desk and my keyboard on the desk. It's hard to imagine any of my immediate managers insisting.
This is big bank, thinking not of my comfort or health, but of orderly appearances. This is especially obtuse, this kind of oversight, as I've waded through two hundred and fifty different big bank proffered mortgage loans in default, the last two days. Talk about government incompetence? Say, institutional. Indeed, Government facilitated these loans I'm expected to do this one thing for, highlighting HUD settlement statements, 150 loans every day the next several days, but the banks profited, big time. Nevertheless, because I have a job to do, I cleared 100 yesterday, 150 loans today, through this stage of the process.
The largest loan of the 250 was $929,000. There were three above $700,000, about 75 today from Maryland and Virginia, above $400,000. I don't generally feel too bad about my part until I see a loan under $200,000, the closer the loan gets to $100,000. The especially saddening ones are under $100,000, in rural areas, though the documents aren't necessarily indicative of refinancing for a quick cash infusion, whatever the state of the debtors. On the whole, these loans do speak of a people trying to step up in class, who overshot, who got suckered into a classic bubble, according to a commercial version of the American dream. The vaunted $25 billion dollar mortgage settlement between the big banks and the State Attorney's General, is vinyl siding and window treatments to a rotten house, a Cherrio sponge in a bucket full of sour milk. Something I may attempt to benefit from, and report on faithfully if I do, btw, as I am $50,000 under water.
For those readers who remember about my job search, an email arrived from HR, of the DREAM JOB - not just the DREAM JOB, the Job I Was Made To Do. I wasn't deemed worthy of an interview.
I'm not surprised, nor am I wrecked about it either. Big Bank is not my first choice, but big bank is a kind of blessing in disguise, lipstick on a pig maybe, but a blessing for me now, for sure. A paycheck every week! Though my sister made more in one night serving drinks last week, than I made in my 40 hrs of service to Big Bank. That was sobering. Turns out people don't drink less when the economy is shitty. Tough work though, hard on the body, slinging drinks. Tough I can't imagine staring at mortgage documents years on end (though defaults are sure to continue in abundance into the forseeable future, notwithstanding the wish making of the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg et al.) The benefits have abounded, for me; my house is cleaner than it has been in awhile, I've brought a lunch every day since I started, most of it from my garden, and I'm encouraged to think about orderly progress on the house and garden. There is much to do, including turning the garage into a greenhouse, tearing up more of the driveway, a paver patio by the pond, insulating boards for the windows, besides putting the garden to bed for the winter, and the full harvest of course. I get up every weekday at 5am with the alarm. I've economised somehow and my best dreams seem to come around 2am.
I wish I could show you pictures of my garden, though no image or series of images or words would suffice to capture the beauty of my garden, after a rain, in the twilight, in the fall. My garden is a lush, abundant, enchanted food and medicinal forest, compared to my neighbor's consensual, bleak, burned out yards of sod. There is a spontaneous landscape artist on the corner right now (with an easel,) painting the sunflowers in the front, which stand ten feet tall, next to the equally tall broom grass, and the heavenly blue morning glory's on the fifteen-foot, dead, spiraled lilac trunk I propped up right at the corner. Surrounded by cosmos, hyssop, New-England aster, tomatoes, cabbages, melons and sapling fruit trees.
I finished reading a book this week, called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. Leonard Shlain's basic premise is, five thousand years ago, everywhere in many cultures the Great Mother was supplanted by a Violent Male God, wherever there is evidence of the emergence of the written word. The word, he claims, is linear, abstract, and analytical, which is the purview of the left hemisphere of the brain, which is associated with the right side of the body. The right brain is about emotion, connection, image and sound, intuition, art and dancing. The written word literally rewired our brains to be left brain dominant, hence the imbalance in the world, the right angles, the general aggressiveness, incongruous attitudes about life, economy, the earth and universal processes. The world is in process toward re-balance, a return to wholeness and equanimity between the opposites of our being, as evidenced by the re-emergence of the image, Shlain contends. Teevee isn't so bad, in this sense, insofar as the near universality of the image has primed the human brain toward a greater openness to right brained activity, a greater expansion in the feminine. Shlain believes we are on the verge of a golden age, in which the masculine and the feminine are in greater balance. He wrote his book in the Ninties, before 9/ll, though I don't think he would be surprised necessarily by the resurgenge everywhere of mysogyny, whether that be fundamentalist Islam or the white male American Republican obsession with controlling the womb. Like I said, the watershed, the final thrust, of a dying paradigm.
I gave the painter a watermelon. I've made juice from three kinds of grapes that grow here. I've made salsa, and I've canned tomatoes and peppers. And while I have the urge to store, preeminent, or at least evident, is a desire to share. I measure the true abundance of this garden by what I will keep and what I will give away. Trusting, when I remember, that what I give will come back.
Shlain though contends, it is not to do away with the word, with Logos, with the analytical and science, but to embrace the spontaneous, life as Art and the joy of being alive, emotion, connection and the relation in every aspect to all things. Because therein arises the essence of the next stage of our evolution, the dis-illusion of duality and the unification of opposites. Arising above all out of the body, as it is a fount of universal energies, to the degree we open up to it.
*er, two. LOL
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Due Gratitude
I've been a bit hostile, of late. I feel justified, but that is probably about the time to stop, and offer up some gratitude:
I am grateful for my family and my friends, who care about me deeply, who I do not get to see often enough.
I am grateful for my health, which is exceptionally good, which I was reminded about recently, and was glad to see my body healed itself without drugs of any kind, despite my whining.
I am grateful for my house and my garden, for the curious fact that I still inhabit this place, as if somehow it has not given up on me, though the direct thanks goes to my father.
I am grateful for my awareness, such as it is, which is at least wide eyed and amazed at pretty much every thing about this world.
I am grateful for my job, because it is paying the bills, because every weekday I get to see the sunrise above the Minnesota river valley, because I am drinking considerably less - and to give credit where credit is due, though I have been critical and somewhat mocking of big bank, today when our primary software was down, they kept us on 7.5 hrs, which they didn't have to, which is something...
And I am thankful for my readers. :)
I am grateful for my family and my friends, who care about me deeply, who I do not get to see often enough.
I am grateful for my health, which is exceptionally good, which I was reminded about recently, and was glad to see my body healed itself without drugs of any kind, despite my whining.
I am grateful for my house and my garden, for the curious fact that I still inhabit this place, as if somehow it has not given up on me, though the direct thanks goes to my father.
I am grateful for my awareness, such as it is, which is at least wide eyed and amazed at pretty much every thing about this world.
I am grateful for my job, because it is paying the bills, because every weekday I get to see the sunrise above the Minnesota river valley, because I am drinking considerably less - and to give credit where credit is due, though I have been critical and somewhat mocking of big bank, today when our primary software was down, they kept us on 7.5 hrs, which they didn't have to, which is something...
And I am thankful for my readers. :)
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Jobz, God and the DNC
Last week was my second, in my return to the beast, my return to another behemoth. If there is anyone out there who remembers my early days as a blogger, you might recall that at my last job under the wing of the beast, I spent part of my days on the job, blogging about the job, in a not very flattering way about the job, or the behemoth. That job was like paradise compared to my current employment; there will be no more blogging about the beast on the job. The last behemoth didn't care much what I did, or even if I was there, as long as what they expected of me got done. This new job, if I am not a computer or a machine, big bank will force me to think and act like one. This behemoth is about breaking the spirit, in as subtle a way as is possible.
It's the hand of God, don't you know, that I have ended up here. The hand of God is the reason I am working for less than I make landscaping, less than half I made at that other behemoth, doing something that is entirely outside my primary skill set. I know how to take a house off the grid; I know how to grow large amounts of food; I write prolifically and well; I am good at managing people. But God apparently has said, you will stare at a computer all day and organize digital mortgage documents because my favored children made loans to people to buy houses they couldn't afford, while imploding the global economy with those mortgages - therefore you, as my not-favored child, because you have not preyed upon your fellow humans, because you have not been greedy and have not twisted yourself in knots justifying your exploitation, shall wither as an automaton!
My one "abuse" of the clock is to read the banking "news" as proffered by big bank on it's website. The newz can be summed up as, regulations are bad, the mysterious market heals all wounds, and shouldn't you be happy to have a job, even if you are making half to a third of what you were making before the collapse, (even if the cost of everything important has risen or remained equal, not least of all your mortgage, assuming you still have one.) The latest scheme is to bundle big blocks of those foreclosed homes and sell them to speculators, who will rent them, or have the option to sell. Said speculator getting a far sweeter deal than Joe and Jill Schmo would. Because don't you know you don't have the incentive to work your ass off and justify warmongering and global exploitation, if you aren't compelled to by a fat mortgage? I'm sure the speculators will take excellent care of the houses and the renters, at a price the market can bear (read, work your ass off and keep your mouth shut about the way God runs things.)
Meanwhile, this week like the week prior with the RNC, I stayed up past my bedtime to listen to the Democratic National Convention. I turned to NPR Tuesday evening, to catch the tail end of John Kerry pimping for war in Syria, Bill Burton of Priorities Superpac, quoting Donald Rumsfeld and analogizing Pearl Harbor, and that warmonger EJ Dionne gushing about how unlike any previous Dem convention, everybody in the mob was in sync. If you listened or watched at all you know the Dems are plenty capable of mindlessly chanting USA. For awhile listening to Michelle Obama, I remember thinking I'd prefer her as president, until I remembered that she is a lawyer too. An ace for Barack though, for sure.
Bill Clinton is an Ace too. Too bad he forgot to mention, it was during his presidency that the financial markets were deregulated. He did mention that regulations are important, and the Republicans want to go back to the way it was before the crash. Hmm...That was about the time I began to reflect on the fact, that to the extent Americans are paying attention, policy does not matter anywhere near as much as rhetoric. The Dems in their convention did an excellent job, IMHO, of telling a story that is in contrast to the Republican story (the Repubs did a horseshit job of telling theirs, which is a hard sell admittedly, it's so goddamned mean.) The trouble is, it's only a story, and if you don't give a damn about the story and you actually pay attention to the policies, at the core there isn't any fundamental difference between the parties. It's really all about big corporate, big banks and global war.
Biden was up next, Thursday prior to Obambam. Grandpa Joe, the abider. Now, I listened to the DNC, I didn't watch it on tee-vee. And I can tell you, without the visuals, the voice-over in the video introduction to Biden's speech, was just plain creepy. But not as creepy as Grandpa Joe. What sort of American VP, the author of anti violence-against-women legislation no less, refers to his wife, the mother of his children, the matriarch to his grandchildren, as Kiddo, on the stage at the DNC? But that is not necessarily as creepy as a sitting American VP who goes to Jerusalem and says publicly, "It's good to be home." Or his professed loyalty to a president with a spine like a "ram rod." On the whole, a speech that can be summed up as warmongering, "BOOM BOOM BOOM," and support for carz, because don't you know, it was the makers of carz that "put America on the map." "No intention to downsize the American Dream," clearly. His choked up pity party for the "fallen angels" was pure political fakery. No ace there, though his speech was far more impressive rhetoric than Romney's, the standard bearer.
Obama is an Ace, too. A testament to his celebrity, that the much less obtrusive voice-over in his video was no less than George Clooney. Though what does it say about a sitting American president, who takes the stage to accept his party's nomination for a second term, to the soothing sounds of Coldplay? I can imagine that was an oblique reference to O's ice cold handling of the Bin Laden affair (and by extension, though never mentioned of course, his kill list, or his lawyerly dismantling of the Constitution.) But Coldplay are Englishmen.
"Hope has been tested," he said. Indeed, he sounded like a practiced actor, until he got to the point about how much land he had and would open up to gas, oil and "clean coal" extraction. Though hey, he talked about renewables, and he even mentioned global warming! But then he repeated the well refuted lie about 100 years of natural gas, with emphasis. Nevertheless, the crowd was fired up! even chanting USA with intensity when he got to talkin about Osama. Though there was an ever so subtle pause in the fervor, when he talked about maintaining the strongest military the world has ever known - not long after which he reiterated America's loyalty to Israel, and rebuked Iran. "God bless the Democratic Party."
First of all, I'm wondering, when did the numbers 2016 and 2024, in reference to the insolvency of Medicare, become part of the lexicon? I consider myself a fairly astute observer of the newz, and I have never heard these numbers before. They were up front and center, at the DNC. And since when has this President embraced the Simpson/Bowles commission, and their deficit reduction scheme? Not at all in the first four years - he walked away from it! But now it's what he's been fighting for all along? I listen to these men, and I can't help but think, this is only theatre. There is some agenda that transcends America. There is some plan that supercedes the American dream, and these men are commissioned to tell us what we want to hear, when it comes time to make a good face of it, so we continue to think we are voting for people who have ours or America's best interest in mind.
I said last week the Dems have no soul. That would be a generalized reference to the party that has not abandoned "science", or scientific materialism. Which is to say, the party that believes literally that we have no soul, notwithstanding what anyone in the party thinks for themselves. Though "God" was referenced in abundance at the convention, if not in the platform. As if God were any measure of the behavior of, say, the Republicans? As if proclamations about God are not mostly about justifying whatever corrupt, vicious, inhuman behavior one wishes to justify? Warmongering, for instance. Or making the poor poorer. Or treating people like automatons.
The Dems have no soul because they are as captive as any American, to the narrative of progress and growth, which is inextricably leading them to support military action in the Middle East, again. Only this time, for all the marbles. Except such a war is going to crack, nay, shatter all the marbles, destroying modernism as we know it, potentially even reducing global population by the billion, leading to an attempt at total government lock down here in America and eventually total chaos.
But wtf am I barking about? I took this job because I made a commitment to this community, and I stayed up late analyzing the message of the supposedly separate political parties, out of a sense of duty. And what has that got me? Sick. A chest infection, exactly like the one I had when I left the beast four years ago, a sickness which I haven't had anything like, these last four years.
It's the hand of God, don't you know, that I have ended up here. The hand of God is the reason I am working for less than I make landscaping, less than half I made at that other behemoth, doing something that is entirely outside my primary skill set. I know how to take a house off the grid; I know how to grow large amounts of food; I write prolifically and well; I am good at managing people. But God apparently has said, you will stare at a computer all day and organize digital mortgage documents because my favored children made loans to people to buy houses they couldn't afford, while imploding the global economy with those mortgages - therefore you, as my not-favored child, because you have not preyed upon your fellow humans, because you have not been greedy and have not twisted yourself in knots justifying your exploitation, shall wither as an automaton!
My one "abuse" of the clock is to read the banking "news" as proffered by big bank on it's website. The newz can be summed up as, regulations are bad, the mysterious market heals all wounds, and shouldn't you be happy to have a job, even if you are making half to a third of what you were making before the collapse, (even if the cost of everything important has risen or remained equal, not least of all your mortgage, assuming you still have one.) The latest scheme is to bundle big blocks of those foreclosed homes and sell them to speculators, who will rent them, or have the option to sell. Said speculator getting a far sweeter deal than Joe and Jill Schmo would. Because don't you know you don't have the incentive to work your ass off and justify warmongering and global exploitation, if you aren't compelled to by a fat mortgage? I'm sure the speculators will take excellent care of the houses and the renters, at a price the market can bear (read, work your ass off and keep your mouth shut about the way God runs things.)
Meanwhile, this week like the week prior with the RNC, I stayed up past my bedtime to listen to the Democratic National Convention. I turned to NPR Tuesday evening, to catch the tail end of John Kerry pimping for war in Syria, Bill Burton of Priorities Superpac, quoting Donald Rumsfeld and analogizing Pearl Harbor, and that warmonger EJ Dionne gushing about how unlike any previous Dem convention, everybody in the mob was in sync. If you listened or watched at all you know the Dems are plenty capable of mindlessly chanting USA. For awhile listening to Michelle Obama, I remember thinking I'd prefer her as president, until I remembered that she is a lawyer too. An ace for Barack though, for sure.
Bill Clinton is an Ace too. Too bad he forgot to mention, it was during his presidency that the financial markets were deregulated. He did mention that regulations are important, and the Republicans want to go back to the way it was before the crash. Hmm...That was about the time I began to reflect on the fact, that to the extent Americans are paying attention, policy does not matter anywhere near as much as rhetoric. The Dems in their convention did an excellent job, IMHO, of telling a story that is in contrast to the Republican story (the Repubs did a horseshit job of telling theirs, which is a hard sell admittedly, it's so goddamned mean.) The trouble is, it's only a story, and if you don't give a damn about the story and you actually pay attention to the policies, at the core there isn't any fundamental difference between the parties. It's really all about big corporate, big banks and global war.
Biden was up next, Thursday prior to Obambam. Grandpa Joe, the abider. Now, I listened to the DNC, I didn't watch it on tee-vee. And I can tell you, without the visuals, the voice-over in the video introduction to Biden's speech, was just plain creepy. But not as creepy as Grandpa Joe. What sort of American VP, the author of anti violence-against-women legislation no less, refers to his wife, the mother of his children, the matriarch to his grandchildren, as Kiddo, on the stage at the DNC? But that is not necessarily as creepy as a sitting American VP who goes to Jerusalem and says publicly, "It's good to be home." Or his professed loyalty to a president with a spine like a "ram rod." On the whole, a speech that can be summed up as warmongering, "BOOM BOOM BOOM," and support for carz, because don't you know, it was the makers of carz that "put America on the map." "No intention to downsize the American Dream," clearly. His choked up pity party for the "fallen angels" was pure political fakery. No ace there, though his speech was far more impressive rhetoric than Romney's, the standard bearer.
Obama is an Ace, too. A testament to his celebrity, that the much less obtrusive voice-over in his video was no less than George Clooney. Though what does it say about a sitting American president, who takes the stage to accept his party's nomination for a second term, to the soothing sounds of Coldplay? I can imagine that was an oblique reference to O's ice cold handling of the Bin Laden affair (and by extension, though never mentioned of course, his kill list, or his lawyerly dismantling of the Constitution.) But Coldplay are Englishmen.
"Hope has been tested," he said. Indeed, he sounded like a practiced actor, until he got to the point about how much land he had and would open up to gas, oil and "clean coal" extraction. Though hey, he talked about renewables, and he even mentioned global warming! But then he repeated the well refuted lie about 100 years of natural gas, with emphasis. Nevertheless, the crowd was fired up! even chanting USA with intensity when he got to talkin about Osama. Though there was an ever so subtle pause in the fervor, when he talked about maintaining the strongest military the world has ever known - not long after which he reiterated America's loyalty to Israel, and rebuked Iran. "God bless the Democratic Party."
First of all, I'm wondering, when did the numbers 2016 and 2024, in reference to the insolvency of Medicare, become part of the lexicon? I consider myself a fairly astute observer of the newz, and I have never heard these numbers before. They were up front and center, at the DNC. And since when has this President embraced the Simpson/Bowles commission, and their deficit reduction scheme? Not at all in the first four years - he walked away from it! But now it's what he's been fighting for all along? I listen to these men, and I can't help but think, this is only theatre. There is some agenda that transcends America. There is some plan that supercedes the American dream, and these men are commissioned to tell us what we want to hear, when it comes time to make a good face of it, so we continue to think we are voting for people who have ours or America's best interest in mind.
I said last week the Dems have no soul. That would be a generalized reference to the party that has not abandoned "science", or scientific materialism. Which is to say, the party that believes literally that we have no soul, notwithstanding what anyone in the party thinks for themselves. Though "God" was referenced in abundance at the convention, if not in the platform. As if God were any measure of the behavior of, say, the Republicans? As if proclamations about God are not mostly about justifying whatever corrupt, vicious, inhuman behavior one wishes to justify? Warmongering, for instance. Or making the poor poorer. Or treating people like automatons.
The Dems have no soul because they are as captive as any American, to the narrative of progress and growth, which is inextricably leading them to support military action in the Middle East, again. Only this time, for all the marbles. Except such a war is going to crack, nay, shatter all the marbles, destroying modernism as we know it, potentially even reducing global population by the billion, leading to an attempt at total government lock down here in America and eventually total chaos.
But wtf am I barking about? I took this job because I made a commitment to this community, and I stayed up late analyzing the message of the supposedly separate political parties, out of a sense of duty. And what has that got me? Sick. A chest infection, exactly like the one I had when I left the beast four years ago, a sickness which I haven't had anything like, these last four years.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Labor Day
Please excuse my anger last post, with that tirade at my fellow Gen Xer. Prior to that, I had been gathering Frontenac grapes at my sister's house, for my third attempt at fermenting wine. It went well, but for the city having butchered the grape vines. They sent a letter to my sister apparently, a demand to remove the "sidewalk obstruction"; but the letter never arrived, forwarded instead to the address of a friend (who is on the mortgage but no longer lives there [not me]). The city workers or contractors could have removed the soil and weeds that have encroached twelve inches onto the sidewalk from the boulevard side, but instead they took a gas trimmer and hacked off every vine on the the side walk-side of the 100ft length of my sister's south fence, leaving a ragged mess of shredded vines, absconding with approx 100 lbs of grapes, a week before harvest. That's about 30 bottles of wine equivalent @ $10/ bottle, plus the $250-$350 my sister will be charged for the "work" done, or $550-$650 for grape vines hanging over a portion of a sidewalk. That's like twice the theft - which contributed to my anger at Payl Ruan (which I will continue to call him until such time as he proves that he will not help initiate WWIII.)
Ok, I'm still a little angry.
Plus, I was contemplating a new job, working as a temp for a big bank helping to foreclose on houses, if you can believe that. I wasn't sure what to expect. How could it possibly be, that of all the jobs I have applied for, the one entity willing to hire me, for on-going employment, is a big bank? What sort of command and control oppression could I expect to butt heads with? Besides, the past four years. my attitude has been, I don't make appointments before 10am. I'm up and awake at 5am now, to catch a bus, to get there by seven, to work for less than I make pushing dirt around landscaping with my friend Organic Bob, less than half I was making for The Behemoth at their world headquarters, just before the collapse of 2008.
My first impression was of a cattle yard, for documents. I wasn't quite prepared for global bank document carts, 18in wide by 4ft tall by 4ft long, on six inch wheels, all carts being made of plywood, many of which are unpainted, of which there are many, painted and not. Nor was I prepared for a socialist bureaucrat's utopia, the most ethnically and race diverse workplace I have ever encountered, where none of the thousand (at least) people looks particularly happy, but no one looks necessarily pissed off at the world, either.
I've spent the last week training as an auditor, to assure the documents are in order, before they are shipped back to the "investors", Fanny and Freddie. Wading through the wreckage of the housing debacle, in other words, is what I have been doing. I wasn't prepared for the sheer volume either, of the $275-400,000 houses and second homes, which account for about 75-80% of the loans I've audited. That's not saying there aren't people still in the houses I am foreclosing on, but most every loan I have audited thus far, has suggested outright fraud on the part of bankers and buyers, and over-reaching on the part of buyers, or intoxication, or outright obliviousness.
It's a curious thing. The Fed made credit cheap, the government encouraged home ownership (BUSH's "Ownership Society,") while agreeing to back-up at least half the mortgages (HUD, FHA, Fannie, Freddie), and then they, Fannie and Freddie, contract-hire big bank to clear the mortgages big bank signed for the fees, to tens of millions of greedy, intoxicated and outright oblivious "borrowers" (not "buyers".)
Nor was I expecting the very warm and genuinely concerned reception, from the training staff, who made the experience a great deal more enjoyable than it might have been. Everyone I have encountered has seemed, if not particularly joyous, astute, on task, and engaged in whatever they are doing. Doing the best with what they have, basically. The command/control is more ingrained in the structure of the system, less overt. More, I sense a people coping as best they can with command/control directives trickling down from above, which are what they are and are tolerable at least. If it was an overt command/control environment, people yelling and domineering, the work would be intolerable. As is, the work lends well to letting go into the task, to get one's small part in the greater whole done, on time, and done well, depending on how much one wants to hold onto the job, or move into something more enjoyable/less exhausting than whatever one is doing now. We all show at least some mastery over technology, and/or ourselves; we even have a certain contempt for the technology. It's not as fast as we are; it lags. Big Bank loses more money cumulatively, by far, from slow-ass technology that makes us sit and wait to get done what we are ready and want to get done, than Big Bank would lose if they just trusted us to do the work we are contracted and hired to do, and worried less about tracking us minute by minute.
Head trainer offered us copious amounts of cheap candy to keep us awake, and to lighten the mood, and to make the onslaught of information more palatable, during the training. I let go of my general prohibition on High Fructose Corn Syrup and gorged, while I consumed an extraordinary (for me) amount of coffee, to cope with the massive amount of technical information, and the early morning shift, which has been less a challenge than sitting in a room all day every day with a dozen other of the same humans. I brought veggies from the garden on Friday, a kind of cornucopia, which was well received. I'm optimistic about my immediate future at big bank, notwithstanding how I feel about modern economics generally.
Meanwhile I was listening to the Republican National Convention, on the radio. From about 8pm-close, approx, all three nights. About as much as I could stand. Which makes me a patriot, comparative to the majority of my fellow Americans. Of Ann ro-Money I can only say, I cannot listen to a word that flows from your mouth without juxtaposing, that you brought your horse to the London Olympics. I listened to Payl Ruan's speech (I wonder what AC/DC and Led Zepplin have to say about being appropriated into the Republican war machine?) I hear many people (in the media) talking about the speech by Mill ro-Money, without saying anything (I found the incessant breathlessness of the final syllable of just about every phrase to be nauseating.) The only speech that really mattered, came from Condoleezza Rice. The elder stateswoman, the Republican Party rock star, speaking directly to the narrative, that the path forward is war in Syria and Iran, and conflict with Russia and China.
(Of particular interest, the narrative encapsulated, 1:35-3:40)
Mill confirmed it, with his attempt to initiate another cold war with Putin, so Mill could show some "backbone", giving Putin exactly what Putin needs to regain power, to incite the Russian people against the West. Apparently the terrorism bit is wearing thin, so it's time to ratchet down on some old rivalries.
Where is the media on this? No less than EJ Dionne of the Washington Post, claimed on NPR that neither Condelezza nor ro-Money even spoke about foreign policy! What sort of fukitol pharmaceuticals is everybody on, that almost no one seems able to ascertain the meaning of anything anymore? Or maybe EJ's admiration of Condolezza Rice is a sign that he's just a warmonger too?
That speech by Condolezza Rice was crafted in the very bowels of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). There is no economic policy, there is only war. Which is exactly what ro-Money, or Obama, will initiate.
The American people are being asked to dispense with their medicare, social security and safety net, to finance tax cuts for the wealthy so the wealthy can wage and profit from global war. ro-Money claims the potential to create 12 million jobs, in four years. I think he will, in an effort to prosecute the war, and expand the surveillance state; while another 15-20 million jobs are lost, in the debauchery - or the racket - of war, and the reality of declining resources.
The creepiest moment of the convention, by far*, was the mob. When ro-Money mocked O for his claim to want to prevent the rising of the seas, the crowd cackled, maniacally. When ro-Money accused O of wanting to heal the earth, the mob cackled deeper. Followed closely by, after a lie about America and dictators, the most intense chant of U. S. A. of the convention. And then the call to war against Putin. The rest of the world must shiver. I certainly did.
(A particularly enlightening sequence, 31:30-34:30)
There will be NO healing of the earth in a ro-Money presidency. There will only be chants to prevent the rising of the sea. Chants to incite global Armageddon.
Even the Outlaw Josey Wales called it out, that we might want to remember the ten years lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a faux conversation with Obama.
(4:45-5:18. Sorry I'm not skilled enough yet to generate the clip.)
In what otherwise might have been construed as a speech whoring for warmongers. Josey, of course, has nothing on Condoleezza. "Aunt Tomasina" is too kind.
But such an extreme statement is meant to elucidate the severity of the situation. Global war is being crafted. Troops and supporters are being incited.
Know, that such a path can only end in ruin. Which we seem to be walking into as greedily and obliviously as we did the housing debacle. And in the aftermath people will ask how did that happen?
I'm not going to participate this time, like I did buying this house at the peak of the boom. Hopefully though, me and my fruit trees and gardens will still be around when it's time to clean up the wreckage of global war mongering. I really hope Americans are not that dumb.
Though at least the Republicans have a soul, as twisted as it is. They can talk about love without visibly flinching. Dems are comparatively soulless. More on that and the new job, this week.
*Though I seem to recall something from a video montage preceding Mill ro-Money's speech, of which I have not been able to find corroborating video, Mill uttering the words, about Ann, "Oh baby,"...
Ok, I'm still a little angry.
Plus, I was contemplating a new job, working as a temp for a big bank helping to foreclose on houses, if you can believe that. I wasn't sure what to expect. How could it possibly be, that of all the jobs I have applied for, the one entity willing to hire me, for on-going employment, is a big bank? What sort of command and control oppression could I expect to butt heads with? Besides, the past four years. my attitude has been, I don't make appointments before 10am. I'm up and awake at 5am now, to catch a bus, to get there by seven, to work for less than I make pushing dirt around landscaping with my friend Organic Bob, less than half I was making for The Behemoth at their world headquarters, just before the collapse of 2008.
My first impression was of a cattle yard, for documents. I wasn't quite prepared for global bank document carts, 18in wide by 4ft tall by 4ft long, on six inch wheels, all carts being made of plywood, many of which are unpainted, of which there are many, painted and not. Nor was I prepared for a socialist bureaucrat's utopia, the most ethnically and race diverse workplace I have ever encountered, where none of the thousand (at least) people looks particularly happy, but no one looks necessarily pissed off at the world, either.
I've spent the last week training as an auditor, to assure the documents are in order, before they are shipped back to the "investors", Fanny and Freddie. Wading through the wreckage of the housing debacle, in other words, is what I have been doing. I wasn't prepared for the sheer volume either, of the $275-400,000 houses and second homes, which account for about 75-80% of the loans I've audited. That's not saying there aren't people still in the houses I am foreclosing on, but most every loan I have audited thus far, has suggested outright fraud on the part of bankers and buyers, and over-reaching on the part of buyers, or intoxication, or outright obliviousness.
It's a curious thing. The Fed made credit cheap, the government encouraged home ownership (BUSH's "Ownership Society,") while agreeing to back-up at least half the mortgages (HUD, FHA, Fannie, Freddie), and then they, Fannie and Freddie, contract-hire big bank to clear the mortgages big bank signed for the fees, to tens of millions of greedy, intoxicated and outright oblivious "borrowers" (not "buyers".)
Nor was I expecting the very warm and genuinely concerned reception, from the training staff, who made the experience a great deal more enjoyable than it might have been. Everyone I have encountered has seemed, if not particularly joyous, astute, on task, and engaged in whatever they are doing. Doing the best with what they have, basically. The command/control is more ingrained in the structure of the system, less overt. More, I sense a people coping as best they can with command/control directives trickling down from above, which are what they are and are tolerable at least. If it was an overt command/control environment, people yelling and domineering, the work would be intolerable. As is, the work lends well to letting go into the task, to get one's small part in the greater whole done, on time, and done well, depending on how much one wants to hold onto the job, or move into something more enjoyable/less exhausting than whatever one is doing now. We all show at least some mastery over technology, and/or ourselves; we even have a certain contempt for the technology. It's not as fast as we are; it lags. Big Bank loses more money cumulatively, by far, from slow-ass technology that makes us sit and wait to get done what we are ready and want to get done, than Big Bank would lose if they just trusted us to do the work we are contracted and hired to do, and worried less about tracking us minute by minute.
Head trainer offered us copious amounts of cheap candy to keep us awake, and to lighten the mood, and to make the onslaught of information more palatable, during the training. I let go of my general prohibition on High Fructose Corn Syrup and gorged, while I consumed an extraordinary (for me) amount of coffee, to cope with the massive amount of technical information, and the early morning shift, which has been less a challenge than sitting in a room all day every day with a dozen other of the same humans. I brought veggies from the garden on Friday, a kind of cornucopia, which was well received. I'm optimistic about my immediate future at big bank, notwithstanding how I feel about modern economics generally.
Meanwhile I was listening to the Republican National Convention, on the radio. From about 8pm-close, approx, all three nights. About as much as I could stand. Which makes me a patriot, comparative to the majority of my fellow Americans. Of Ann ro-Money I can only say, I cannot listen to a word that flows from your mouth without juxtaposing, that you brought your horse to the London Olympics. I listened to Payl Ruan's speech (I wonder what AC/DC and Led Zepplin have to say about being appropriated into the Republican war machine?) I hear many people (in the media) talking about the speech by Mill ro-Money, without saying anything (I found the incessant breathlessness of the final syllable of just about every phrase to be nauseating.) The only speech that really mattered, came from Condoleezza Rice. The elder stateswoman, the Republican Party rock star, speaking directly to the narrative, that the path forward is war in Syria and Iran, and conflict with Russia and China.
(Of particular interest, the narrative encapsulated, 1:35-3:40)
Mill confirmed it, with his attempt to initiate another cold war with Putin, so Mill could show some "backbone", giving Putin exactly what Putin needs to regain power, to incite the Russian people against the West. Apparently the terrorism bit is wearing thin, so it's time to ratchet down on some old rivalries.
Where is the media on this? No less than EJ Dionne of the Washington Post, claimed on NPR that neither Condelezza nor ro-Money even spoke about foreign policy! What sort of fukitol pharmaceuticals is everybody on, that almost no one seems able to ascertain the meaning of anything anymore? Or maybe EJ's admiration of Condolezza Rice is a sign that he's just a warmonger too?
That speech by Condolezza Rice was crafted in the very bowels of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). There is no economic policy, there is only war. Which is exactly what ro-Money, or Obama, will initiate.
The American people are being asked to dispense with their medicare, social security and safety net, to finance tax cuts for the wealthy so the wealthy can wage and profit from global war. ro-Money claims the potential to create 12 million jobs, in four years. I think he will, in an effort to prosecute the war, and expand the surveillance state; while another 15-20 million jobs are lost, in the debauchery - or the racket - of war, and the reality of declining resources.
The creepiest moment of the convention, by far*, was the mob. When ro-Money mocked O for his claim to want to prevent the rising of the seas, the crowd cackled, maniacally. When ro-Money accused O of wanting to heal the earth, the mob cackled deeper. Followed closely by, after a lie about America and dictators, the most intense chant of U. S. A. of the convention. And then the call to war against Putin. The rest of the world must shiver. I certainly did.
(A particularly enlightening sequence, 31:30-34:30)
There will be NO healing of the earth in a ro-Money presidency. There will only be chants to prevent the rising of the sea. Chants to incite global Armageddon.
Even the Outlaw Josey Wales called it out, that we might want to remember the ten years lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a faux conversation with Obama.
(4:45-5:18. Sorry I'm not skilled enough yet to generate the clip.)
In what otherwise might have been construed as a speech whoring for warmongers. Josey, of course, has nothing on Condoleezza. "Aunt Tomasina" is too kind.
But such an extreme statement is meant to elucidate the severity of the situation. Global war is being crafted. Troops and supporters are being incited.
Know, that such a path can only end in ruin. Which we seem to be walking into as greedily and obliviously as we did the housing debacle. And in the aftermath people will ask how did that happen?
I'm not going to participate this time, like I did buying this house at the peak of the boom. Hopefully though, me and my fruit trees and gardens will still be around when it's time to clean up the wreckage of global war mongering. I really hope Americans are not that dumb.
Though at least the Republicans have a soul, as twisted as it is. They can talk about love without visibly flinching. Dems are comparatively soulless. More on that and the new job, this week.
*Though I seem to recall something from a video montage preceding Mill ro-Money's speech, of which I have not been able to find corroborating video, Mill uttering the words, about Ann, "Oh baby,"...
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Paean 2 Payl Ruan (In Shadow)
Does anyone else find it funny that only a few days after Payl Ruan was selected by, well who knows really, as Mill ro-Money's running mate, that the first Gen Xer on a major US presidential ticket, is forced to comment incessantly on the definition of rape? Payl Ruan, as I like to call him, as he has set up the blueprint for you to pay to ruin your country by way of making our elite much richer than they already are, institutionalizing the transfer of money UP the social hierarchy.
The "biggest brown noser," voted as such by his fellow High School classmates, willing apparently to stick his nose up anybody's ass if he thought it worthwhile; but of course, you don't become a youthful brown noser unless you hope one day others will find occasion to stick their nose up yours. A kind of expectation, actually. Such people not ultimately thinking rape is any kind of big deal, thinking as they do the only truly meaningful relationships are those having to do with power, as in dominator/dominated - and really, if you are willing to let your nose get a little brown, well, you have to be willing to bend over. That the presumptive VP has been so willing in his life to assume the submissive position, doesn't in my mind bode well for him to become the potential supreme leader of empire, not because I think he would be weak, but because I think he would have the expectation that we all get down doggie style. Whether he would be standing upright in the front or back, and which way he would be facing, is as yet one of those disconcerting unknown unknowns.
It seems like old news now, but lets review the particulars. ro-Money introduced Payl in Norfolk, Virginia, in front of the battleship Wisconsin (decommissioned, presumably gutted, precisely what ro-Money and Ruan intend to do with Social Security, Medicare, unions and government generally, leaving empty hulls - except for the military/police/spies domestic and foreign placed, which you can expect to be fattened up, invigorated and robust.) I assume, to send the message that this is the ticket for continued, perhaps exponential warmongering. ro-Money introduced Ruan as, "the next President," which may or may not be the plan, if ro-Money turns out not purely free-market sociopath enough - which one wonders, did those who made the choice of Payl Ruan, make it clear to ro-Money the terms, and oops, that slipped out? He covered himself by offering up a double negative, "I did not make a mistake with this man," which also maybe roundabout implies he didn't necessarily choose Ruan either. Norfolk, by the way, is ground zero for the part of global climate change that is rising sea levels, just about the first American city that will drown, which is also ironic (amid ironies) that it is a naval yard, and fuck-the-earth (including women, children, elderly and the otherwise vulnerable) is basically now part of the Republican Party platform - the party of JESUS CHRIST, I would like to add (how many Christians this week tied themselves in knots, condemning presumptive Missouri Senator Akin for opening his big mouth, if not necessarily for what came out? Or outright defensive, of his righteousness? "In certain parts of Missouri rape by a kin is legitimate, apparently.")
Speaking of rape, Payl Ruan's family is in the business of earth moving, as in digging out, scarring, devastating, gouging the land, transforming it in the industrial, opportunistic, exploitative image, for all time, for immediate profit. Much of that profit, perhaps most, coming from government contracts that have facilitated/were facilitated by Payl Ruan's political ambition, the great upstart professional demonizer/facilitator of all things big government. Oh, and he votes for oil subsidies, while owning shares in oil wells, while dehumanizing the poor, and those beneficiaries of the social contract. You do not get any more perfectly corrupt than that.
Have you noticed what big eyes Payl Ruan has? All the better to prey upon you with. The forlorn puppy dog look. It taking a feral, scurvy-dog kind of mind, however, to be taken in by the psychopathy of Ayn Rand, that great popularizer of all that is vicious, that philosopher who would tear you limb from limb just because she could, because she deemed it in her interest. That most efficiently industrial kind of thinker, having debased all that is good, all that is nurturing, gentle and kind.
[You say you want a Constitutional designation, personhood for the fetus, Payl, jail time for abortion (and inevitably in such an environment, for a great many miscarriages)? What say you of the near total evisceration of the first and fourth amendments, for actual, air ensconced flesh and blood persons, since 9/11? What say you of the lawless environment on Wall Street, and among the TBTF banks and corporations, those designated "persons"? What of the growing surveillance state, the ratcheting up of command and control techniques? What of the way this government is arming up, as if for war against the people it is said to be of, by and for? Say you nothing? Not a word, not one criticism, of the growing crypto-fascism, among your myriad criticisms of too-big government? Because it is not big government you despise, it is big government you desire, on your terms, to enforce your will.]
What else? He is a Catholic. Is it any wonder then, so comfortable with the institutional model as defined by his service to the Church and Gov, he has become insensitive to rape, or that he is wont to so perfectly model corruption in the name of virtue?
Speaking of hunger games, he's a bowman too. There are to be food shortages, this next presidential term, and hardly a more ruthless two on earth than Mill ro-Money and Payl Ruan. What they will do with the money of your social contract, they will do with your food, using the government to funnel it up, to those they deem worthy. Not that this is any endorsement for O, who is not one whit less cannibalistic of the body politic, only a different color. Color not making one whit of difference in the one who is about to eat or rape you, figuratively speaking, of course.
This Payl Ruan, the first of my generation, X, on a major US presidential ticket. I am so proud.
The "biggest brown noser," voted as such by his fellow High School classmates, willing apparently to stick his nose up anybody's ass if he thought it worthwhile; but of course, you don't become a youthful brown noser unless you hope one day others will find occasion to stick their nose up yours. A kind of expectation, actually. Such people not ultimately thinking rape is any kind of big deal, thinking as they do the only truly meaningful relationships are those having to do with power, as in dominator/dominated - and really, if you are willing to let your nose get a little brown, well, you have to be willing to bend over. That the presumptive VP has been so willing in his life to assume the submissive position, doesn't in my mind bode well for him to become the potential supreme leader of empire, not because I think he would be weak, but because I think he would have the expectation that we all get down doggie style. Whether he would be standing upright in the front or back, and which way he would be facing, is as yet one of those disconcerting unknown unknowns.
It seems like old news now, but lets review the particulars. ro-Money introduced Payl in Norfolk, Virginia, in front of the battleship Wisconsin (decommissioned, presumably gutted, precisely what ro-Money and Ruan intend to do with Social Security, Medicare, unions and government generally, leaving empty hulls - except for the military/police/spies domestic and foreign placed, which you can expect to be fattened up, invigorated and robust.) I assume, to send the message that this is the ticket for continued, perhaps exponential warmongering. ro-Money introduced Ruan as, "the next President," which may or may not be the plan, if ro-Money turns out not purely free-market sociopath enough - which one wonders, did those who made the choice of Payl Ruan, make it clear to ro-Money the terms, and oops, that slipped out? He covered himself by offering up a double negative, "I did not make a mistake with this man," which also maybe roundabout implies he didn't necessarily choose Ruan either. Norfolk, by the way, is ground zero for the part of global climate change that is rising sea levels, just about the first American city that will drown, which is also ironic (amid ironies) that it is a naval yard, and fuck-the-earth (including women, children, elderly and the otherwise vulnerable) is basically now part of the Republican Party platform - the party of JESUS CHRIST, I would like to add (how many Christians this week tied themselves in knots, condemning presumptive Missouri Senator Akin for opening his big mouth, if not necessarily for what came out? Or outright defensive, of his righteousness? "In certain parts of Missouri rape by a kin is legitimate, apparently.")
Speaking of rape, Payl Ruan's family is in the business of earth moving, as in digging out, scarring, devastating, gouging the land, transforming it in the industrial, opportunistic, exploitative image, for all time, for immediate profit. Much of that profit, perhaps most, coming from government contracts that have facilitated/were facilitated by Payl Ruan's political ambition, the great upstart professional demonizer/facilitator of all things big government. Oh, and he votes for oil subsidies, while owning shares in oil wells, while dehumanizing the poor, and those beneficiaries of the social contract. You do not get any more perfectly corrupt than that.
Have you noticed what big eyes Payl Ruan has? All the better to prey upon you with. The forlorn puppy dog look. It taking a feral, scurvy-dog kind of mind, however, to be taken in by the psychopathy of Ayn Rand, that great popularizer of all that is vicious, that philosopher who would tear you limb from limb just because she could, because she deemed it in her interest. That most efficiently industrial kind of thinker, having debased all that is good, all that is nurturing, gentle and kind.
[You say you want a Constitutional designation, personhood for the fetus, Payl, jail time for abortion (and inevitably in such an environment, for a great many miscarriages)? What say you of the near total evisceration of the first and fourth amendments, for actual, air ensconced flesh and blood persons, since 9/11? What say you of the lawless environment on Wall Street, and among the TBTF banks and corporations, those designated "persons"? What of the growing surveillance state, the ratcheting up of command and control techniques? What of the way this government is arming up, as if for war against the people it is said to be of, by and for? Say you nothing? Not a word, not one criticism, of the growing crypto-fascism, among your myriad criticisms of too-big government? Because it is not big government you despise, it is big government you desire, on your terms, to enforce your will.]
What else? He is a Catholic. Is it any wonder then, so comfortable with the institutional model as defined by his service to the Church and Gov, he has become insensitive to rape, or that he is wont to so perfectly model corruption in the name of virtue?
Speaking of hunger games, he's a bowman too. There are to be food shortages, this next presidential term, and hardly a more ruthless two on earth than Mill ro-Money and Payl Ruan. What they will do with the money of your social contract, they will do with your food, using the government to funnel it up, to those they deem worthy. Not that this is any endorsement for O, who is not one whit less cannibalistic of the body politic, only a different color. Color not making one whit of difference in the one who is about to eat or rape you, figuratively speaking, of course.
This Payl Ruan, the first of my generation, X, on a major US presidential ticket. I am so proud.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer
No news to make for Job Search Part 3 yet, so I though I might delve into the meaning of it ALL, if you will. A new hypothesis has me thinking about that - it's called Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer, put forth by RE, the main admin at the website Doomstead Diner.
The last twenty years, earthquake and volcanic activity has been on the rise, markedly. If you know anything about the exponential function and how that relates to the currency, to population, to resource extraction and use, well, if you look at a graph of aggregate, global earthquake activity the last 40 years, you see a similar growth curve.
Total strength of world wide earthquakes
http://research.dlindquist.com/quake/historical/?mag=0&type=strength&freq=year&s\tyle=nonlinear
That's strange, don't you think? It's one thing to point to carbon emissions, or oil use, or water extraction, and say we have caused that. But when you realize one sizable earthquake might contain the energy equivalent of a few dozen or hundred nuclear bombs, and there are thousands upon thousands of quakes every year, it is beyond absurd to say humans have caused that (unless you are willing to attribute sentience to Gaia, the earth, in which case she might be supremely pissed off, at the aggregate behavior of her arrogant offspring, and has decided to shake things up a bit?)
What is so striking about this hypothesis, is that most earthquake and volcanic activity takes place below the sea, which, as it turns out, is warming faster than the atmosphere. The ocean is one giant heat sink, and it is simply wrong to suggest heating thin air would in turn heat dense water faster than the air is being heated. It does not appear there is any increase in solar output, that might be a contributing factor to the warming oceans. Instead, the hypothesis goes, it is increased tectonic activity below the sea, that is contributing not just to the warming oceans, but consequently, to climate change.
Notice in these graphs, how the early nineties saw a radical increase in earthquake strength overall, and heat content in the oceans. That would seem to contradict the standard model of climate change, which is called Anthropogenic. To date, about 98% of climate scientists are certain humans are to blame, with our burning of fossil fuels in the rampant way that we do. The other 2% are generally fundamentalist Christians who cannot believe, and paid-for corporate shills who won't. The problem of course is, anytime 98% of any group believe the same thing, when that thing is of great import, that's called orthodoxy; getting the orthodox to accept or even entertain anything, however factual, that might suggest a flaw in the core belief, is damn near impossible (see aforementioned Christians.)
The Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer hypothesis does not in fact contradict ACC (Anthropocentric Climate Change). Whatever is happening to the climate, we are certainly exacerbating that. There is nothing particularly healthy for the biosphere, polluting it the way we do, and what isn't healthy for the biosphere isn't healthy for the biological entity known as people, whatever the propaganda says about this glorious Age. Civilization as we know it is economically beneficial to a small number of humans, disastrous for the majority, and catastrophic for life generally. There isn't any question at all, approaching the 400 ppb number, of carbon molecules in the atmosphere, we are helping to heat up the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. But there is clearly something else going on.
RE suggests, as our solar system is passing through the plane of the ecliptic of the Milky Way, from above the plane to below the plane, the nearer we are to the plane, the more we are bombarded with neutrinos flowing from the center of the galaxy, which is putting a strain on all the interstellar bodies - the other planets and the sun.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/167057-Defenses-Down-Galactic-Dust-Storm-Hits-Solar-System)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3222476/Suns-protective-bubble-is-shrinking.html
Whatever the cause, it is certainly a paradigmatic shift to say that climate change is being caused by changes within the earth, particularly when you are suggesting the driver of that is something coming from outside the heliosphere. Because if that is the case, well, it would seem to suggest we are fucked, if the increase in tectonic activity continues. We've grown accustomed to the idea of continuity. Not just here in America the last seventy years, with the ever growing economy, but over all, the last 10,000 years. We are told, that when the ice from the last ice age finally melted, the climate settled into a nice calm groove, we started planting seeds, and it's been all progress on this (climatically) stable planet ever since. RE suggests the heating of the oceans will mean more moisture in the air, ever more rains, and ever more cloud cover, until the earth is shrouded and things cool down. That of course would lead to another ice age, and very great difficulties unknown in recent memory, for a higher mammal called Homo sapien. As in, population bottleneck. That likely has happened before, when the Toba volcano in the south pacific blew it's top, 70,000 years ago, shrouding the skies with particulate, blocking the sun and reducing the population of Homo sapien to an estimated 1000 breeding pairs. So it's not like that is without precedent.
But that could never happen to us, right? Because we have conquered nature, right? If there's a more orthodox belief than that, it's hard to imagine.
The Geotectonic Ocean Heat Transfer hypothesis may seem like just another doom and gloom scenario, to add to the bucket full bearing down on us at this point. But I don't think so. I think it's the best news I've heard in awhile. How can that be? Well, I've never made much of a secret that I think this universe is divine, which is to say, imbued with energy and conscious intent, throughout. Hearing that the earth is acting up tectonically, that the whole solar system is in upheaval, at the same time the human exponential growth curve has reached it's peak, at the same time our financial markets seem on the cusp of collapse, at the same time we seem to be on the verge of global war for the last of the oil, at the same time the Mayan's cyclical 5,126 long count calendar comes to an end/beginning (5000 years ago we gathered in cities and started writing, 10,000 years ago we started planting seeds) well, it's just another profound layer of mysteriousness. Radical changes are afoot, clearly, on every level. And in light of that, the industrial age begins to look less like a terrible mistake leading inevitably to the extinction of life on planet earth, and more like the necessary growing pains, that we might become aware of the changes that are happening to the entire solar system, and so, prepare ourselves for what is coming. How we do that, I don't know, other than to look at it and be honest. To train our consciousness there. To face it. That we might choose to live more humbly, more harmoniously, on this beautiful planet.
We aren't really doing that of course. More, we are doing whatever we can not to face the radical changes all around us, like this video posted on my Facebook news feed, described by the poster as THIS IS WHAT THE INTERNET WAS MADE FOR.
Gut the resources of the earth to make a washing machine designed with forced obsolescence to break down in less than ten years, but to be destroyed instead for pleasure by some idiot bright enough to heft a rock.
Perhaps it's best to give up on any meaning, in the way of conspicuous affluence and "disposable" income? Or, find this the most propitious of times, to be AWAKE and ALIVE, to BE in a way that is MEANINGFUL, as if we are at the cusp of a transformation unlike anything humanity has ever known?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW - I keep forgetting to mention, one of my readers sent me a great documentary Once Upon A Time In Knoxville I highly recommend. A great story of the waste based culture of our time, and what some are doing about it.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Job Search - Part Two
I've been holding onto this piece for awhile, not sure how to write
it. While I'm not really paranoid - I don't lie awake at night worrying
about suits with guns and unmarked black SUV's - I'm no dummy, and it's
clear to anyone who cares at this point, the surveillance, police state
is ratcheting up. It's not like I'm anything like a threat to my
government - who's gonna rally behind that Goddess guy, in any kind of
number? - but I have said many a thing in this blog that could be
triggers to some digital sweeper, leading to God knows what. All in all,
I think my message is about peace. But then, when you think about it,
the last thing the leadership of this empire, any empire wants, is
peace. A compliant, apathetic, cynical consumer citizenry, passively in
support of global military expansion and universal debt bondage, maybe,
but certainly not peace. So if you will permit me to be a bit coy, I
think it best perhaps not to advertise precisely where I might be
working.
That said, after my brief tour through the rotten underbelly of the job market, I received a call about an interview downtown. They weren't very clear about the job, and I wasn't at first inclined to go to the interview. But it was downtown, there is a high concentration of attractive women and curious characters downtown, I can take the train, and as I'd skipped one interview already, it seemed like fulfilling a kind of commitment, if not to the interview as much to the idea of finding a job.
So I took the train downtown on a beautiful, sunny day, and rode the elevator to a very high floor in a prominent tower, and presented myself in my everycorporateman grey shirt, black pants and black shoes.
First thing was the assessment test. I was led to a back computer in a small room of ten computers lining two walls, I was asked to take a seat, given brief directions, before I was left alone in the room. Right off, first question on the screen, what is 10x12? No problem. Next, what is 314-76? Ok, thank the Goddess I brought a pen, and there's a pad of paper. Next, what is 765.1936-345.789. Oh shit. By this time, I am feeling somewhat clammy, not being conditioned to air conditioning, or lists of random math questions. I'm ok with basic math. No problem. Except I'm applying for a job, and there are 76 more questions on this first of four assessments. Breath. Relax. You can do this.
The math questions, um, mercifully ended after question 36 - after they had gotten progressively more complex. Then it was on to, "of these four sentences, which is grammatically incorrect?" And I'm looking at them, the sentences, and I'm like, they're all kind of stilted, kind of sloppy. I wouldn't write a sentence like that. What's the rule again about apostrophes? Oh shit, relax, breathe, think, intuit. Then it was about punctuation (except they're kind of the same thing), and then it was spelling, and sometimes, in a way, it was really about all three in the same word, except they weren't that specific. I was looking at some of those spelling words, and I was remembering Hemingway's A Movable Feast, and his assertion that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a terrible speller, and then I was thinking about how spell-check has made me a lazy speller (until recently, as my Linux Ubuntu spell check is a worse speller than I am), and then I was like, I don't think there's an extra g in Armageddon, but I'm pretty sure there's a second l in millennium.
The second assessment was the 10-key. Tap. Tap tap. Tap. The third assessment was Typing Speed and Accuracy. You'ld think after a million and a half words...peck, peck peck, backspace, peck. After that, was the Customer Service assessment. "If a customer is rude to you, is it ok to be rude back? A:Never, B:Almost Never, C:Sometimes, D:Yes." Etcetera, eighty times over. As a former manager of a retail establishment, I can assure you, whatever is said, the customer is not always right. The customer is at times delusional, occasionally sociopathic verging on the psychopathic, and potentially violent. As far as I'm concerned, I scored 100% on that test.
Back in the lobby, I was standing at the front desk filling out some paperwork, when I heard a voice next to me: "Hunter Duncan. William Hunter Duncan." I looked over, and there was Lorenzo M. who I haven't seen in maybe eight years. We had a little love fest, and in that moment, the entire mood in the room changed, and I went from random guy applying for a job, to part of the in-crowd, just like that.
In the official interview with Jackie, I was informed that I scored in the 96th percentile on the math/grammar/punctuation/spelling test; only the 90th percentile in accuracy on the 10-key and typing tests, but, um, slightly below average on speed. But not so slow as to disqualify me...whew. On the customer service assessment, I got a dozen questions wrong. Wrong? I told Jackie I didn't think it was possible to get a "wrong" answer unless you were a fool. She laughed and said the 83% percentile probably meant I was telling the truth. I told her I answered as a manager, and not a robot. She giggled.
Afterward I went to lunch with Lorenzo. He claims, that very morning he was looking at a database of potential hires, that he hasn't looked at in three months, and my name was second on the list.
The next day I was talking with a friend, one of the Halloween partners (of the retail store I managed), and he says, you're a prolific writer, go to this website and type in "writer." I did, and the first thing that popped up was my DREAM job. Not just my DREAM job, but the thing I was MADE TO DO. Except, I was in the middle of shooting off resume after resume, and I didn't realize it was my DREAM job that I was MADE TO DO. I filled out the necessary info, hopped up on coffee, sweating, and went to send it, and my Internet went down. That's weird. Restart. No Internet. Restart, Restart, freak out for no good reason, Restart. Internet! Yeah! Go to send, Internet goes down, Shit, WTF! Restart, Freak out for no reason. Restart. Restart.
Send.
It wasn't until I went back later and I really looked at the job description, and then even later as I was in bed, trying to get to sleep, that it hit me, that's my DREAM job! That's not just my DREAM job, that's MY JOB! That's what I've been working toward, without knowing that's what I've been working toward! And Oh MY GOD, I fucked it up, didn't I? Those weren't the writing samples I should have sent! That wasn't the cover letter. Idiot! And then I realized, or remembered, I sent that application thinking that I couldn't get that job, and I was only applying because I couldn't not. And then I rolled around in bed for another hour berating myself. Why didn't I just take the hint - the first or the second - and stop, and think about it?
Less than 48 hours later, I was rejected by HR. As expected. So I started calling everyone I knew who might have any connection to anyone who might be inside the office of my DREAM job. Call after call, and nothing, and then I called one of my childhood playmates, who used to come out to the lake and go swimming and paddle around in the paddle boat, and she was like, I know everybody in that office. And I was like WHOO-HOO, and dancing. And she dropped my name with half a dozen people, and I made contact by email, and spent five days re-writing everything, Resume, Cover Letter and Samples, recruiting some good advice from an HR friend. I reapplied, and that is still pending.
Yesterday, I got the call. I got that other job. Not the DREAM job, but the never-in-a-million-years-imagined-I-would-do job, the back into the belly of the behemoth job, doing something egregious (maybe*) for less money/hr than I make landscaping with my friend Organic Bob, less-than-half/hr I was making at that other behemoth doing something a hell of a lot easier, back in 2008 before the market collapsed, or was collapsed. (*I say egregious, but I don't really know for sure, and I may even like it and be good at it, and it might be a great opportunity, and eventually pay for all sorts of necessities. Stay tuned.)
That job doesn't start for three weeks. Meanwhile, there's still the possibility of the DREAM job. Except I have to get past HR, and they are humorless, and I don't necessarily have the credentials. If I'd gone and got that Masters and that Doctorate like my professors all wanted me to, instead of wandering in the wilderness, and learning how to build a house, and gardening and writing radical blogs and books, I'd be a shoo-in (and about $150,000 in debt.) Still, nobody in this city can do a better job at that job than I can.
I keep calling out, I am in service. My Goddess, my Goddess, my Goddess, my name is William Hunter Duncan, and I am in service to you. The path seems obvious to me, but that's not now in my control.
That said, after my brief tour through the rotten underbelly of the job market, I received a call about an interview downtown. They weren't very clear about the job, and I wasn't at first inclined to go to the interview. But it was downtown, there is a high concentration of attractive women and curious characters downtown, I can take the train, and as I'd skipped one interview already, it seemed like fulfilling a kind of commitment, if not to the interview as much to the idea of finding a job.
So I took the train downtown on a beautiful, sunny day, and rode the elevator to a very high floor in a prominent tower, and presented myself in my everycorporateman grey shirt, black pants and black shoes.
First thing was the assessment test. I was led to a back computer in a small room of ten computers lining two walls, I was asked to take a seat, given brief directions, before I was left alone in the room. Right off, first question on the screen, what is 10x12? No problem. Next, what is 314-76? Ok, thank the Goddess I brought a pen, and there's a pad of paper. Next, what is 765.1936-345.789. Oh shit. By this time, I am feeling somewhat clammy, not being conditioned to air conditioning, or lists of random math questions. I'm ok with basic math. No problem. Except I'm applying for a job, and there are 76 more questions on this first of four assessments. Breath. Relax. You can do this.
The math questions, um, mercifully ended after question 36 - after they had gotten progressively more complex. Then it was on to, "of these four sentences, which is grammatically incorrect?" And I'm looking at them, the sentences, and I'm like, they're all kind of stilted, kind of sloppy. I wouldn't write a sentence like that. What's the rule again about apostrophes? Oh shit, relax, breathe, think, intuit. Then it was about punctuation (except they're kind of the same thing), and then it was spelling, and sometimes, in a way, it was really about all three in the same word, except they weren't that specific. I was looking at some of those spelling words, and I was remembering Hemingway's A Movable Feast, and his assertion that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a terrible speller, and then I was thinking about how spell-check has made me a lazy speller (until recently, as my Linux Ubuntu spell check is a worse speller than I am), and then I was like, I don't think there's an extra g in Armageddon, but I'm pretty sure there's a second l in millennium.
The second assessment was the 10-key. Tap. Tap tap. Tap. The third assessment was Typing Speed and Accuracy. You'ld think after a million and a half words...peck, peck peck, backspace, peck. After that, was the Customer Service assessment. "If a customer is rude to you, is it ok to be rude back? A:Never, B:Almost Never, C:Sometimes, D:Yes." Etcetera, eighty times over. As a former manager of a retail establishment, I can assure you, whatever is said, the customer is not always right. The customer is at times delusional, occasionally sociopathic verging on the psychopathic, and potentially violent. As far as I'm concerned, I scored 100% on that test.
Back in the lobby, I was standing at the front desk filling out some paperwork, when I heard a voice next to me: "Hunter Duncan. William Hunter Duncan." I looked over, and there was Lorenzo M. who I haven't seen in maybe eight years. We had a little love fest, and in that moment, the entire mood in the room changed, and I went from random guy applying for a job, to part of the in-crowd, just like that.
In the official interview with Jackie, I was informed that I scored in the 96th percentile on the math/grammar/punctuation/spelling test; only the 90th percentile in accuracy on the 10-key and typing tests, but, um, slightly below average on speed. But not so slow as to disqualify me...whew. On the customer service assessment, I got a dozen questions wrong. Wrong? I told Jackie I didn't think it was possible to get a "wrong" answer unless you were a fool. She laughed and said the 83% percentile probably meant I was telling the truth. I told her I answered as a manager, and not a robot. She giggled.
Afterward I went to lunch with Lorenzo. He claims, that very morning he was looking at a database of potential hires, that he hasn't looked at in three months, and my name was second on the list.
The next day I was talking with a friend, one of the Halloween partners (of the retail store I managed), and he says, you're a prolific writer, go to this website and type in "writer." I did, and the first thing that popped up was my DREAM job. Not just my DREAM job, but the thing I was MADE TO DO. Except, I was in the middle of shooting off resume after resume, and I didn't realize it was my DREAM job that I was MADE TO DO. I filled out the necessary info, hopped up on coffee, sweating, and went to send it, and my Internet went down. That's weird. Restart. No Internet. Restart, Restart, freak out for no good reason, Restart. Internet! Yeah! Go to send, Internet goes down, Shit, WTF! Restart, Freak out for no reason. Restart. Restart.
Send.
It wasn't until I went back later and I really looked at the job description, and then even later as I was in bed, trying to get to sleep, that it hit me, that's my DREAM job! That's not just my DREAM job, that's MY JOB! That's what I've been working toward, without knowing that's what I've been working toward! And Oh MY GOD, I fucked it up, didn't I? Those weren't the writing samples I should have sent! That wasn't the cover letter. Idiot! And then I realized, or remembered, I sent that application thinking that I couldn't get that job, and I was only applying because I couldn't not. And then I rolled around in bed for another hour berating myself. Why didn't I just take the hint - the first or the second - and stop, and think about it?
Less than 48 hours later, I was rejected by HR. As expected. So I started calling everyone I knew who might have any connection to anyone who might be inside the office of my DREAM job. Call after call, and nothing, and then I called one of my childhood playmates, who used to come out to the lake and go swimming and paddle around in the paddle boat, and she was like, I know everybody in that office. And I was like WHOO-HOO, and dancing. And she dropped my name with half a dozen people, and I made contact by email, and spent five days re-writing everything, Resume, Cover Letter and Samples, recruiting some good advice from an HR friend. I reapplied, and that is still pending.
Yesterday, I got the call. I got that other job. Not the DREAM job, but the never-in-a-million-years-imagined-I-would-do job, the back into the belly of the behemoth job, doing something egregious (maybe*) for less money/hr than I make landscaping with my friend Organic Bob, less-than-half/hr I was making at that other behemoth doing something a hell of a lot easier, back in 2008 before the market collapsed, or was collapsed. (*I say egregious, but I don't really know for sure, and I may even like it and be good at it, and it might be a great opportunity, and eventually pay for all sorts of necessities. Stay tuned.)
That job doesn't start for three weeks. Meanwhile, there's still the possibility of the DREAM job. Except I have to get past HR, and they are humorless, and I don't necessarily have the credentials. If I'd gone and got that Masters and that Doctorate like my professors all wanted me to, instead of wandering in the wilderness, and learning how to build a house, and gardening and writing radical blogs and books, I'd be a shoo-in (and about $150,000 in debt.) Still, nobody in this city can do a better job at that job than I can.
I keep calling out, I am in service. My Goddess, my Goddess, my Goddess, my name is William Hunter Duncan, and I am in service to you. The path seems obvious to me, but that's not now in my control.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Job Search - Part One
My apologies to my dear readers, that I have not written a post in the past two weeks. I've been looking for a job. I haven't done that in quite some time. It is exhausting. I've been applying for anything that pays $12/hr or more, everything from light industrial/warehouse, to corporate copywriting. Ten to fifteen applications a day, online. A few highlights:
The first response came from an ad I responded to, for office work. It was an innocuous ad, nothing special. The response came by email, asking if I wanted to be Eugene's personal assistant. A representative for Baume de Mercier watches, he was in Switzerland temporarily, and needed someone to handle money transfers from clients. All I would have to do is receive the transfers in my account, and then transfer the money to another account. That's it. $2000/month, plus 10% of every transfer. Maybe 3-4 hours a day, he said. I just needed to send him all the relevant information. I looked up Baume de Mercier watches online. I emailed him back, innocent like, saying it sounded like a great deal - but if I can buy a Baume de Mercier watch online with a credit card or paypal transfer, why does money need to be transferred through my account? I didn't ask what he was really trafficking in. He did not respond.
The second response came from an ad about entry-level management. I'm not sure why I applied to that one, except they talked about integrity, and it being a family friendly environment. The gal who called was Asian, with a thick accent. We set up an appointment - I figured at the time, I haven't been to an interview in a while, it would be good practice - and she told me to look sharp. Then she told me where the meeting would take place, in an office building on the second floor across the street from the UofM campus, and then I knew it was a shitty call center job with a ridiculously high turnover rate because poor college kids couldn't stand it. I skipped that one.
The next one involved the selling of insurance. I have no interest in selling insurance, but I went to that interview because their niche market is unions, credit unions and associations, and the meeting was in Eden Prairie, one of the ritzier suburbs of Minneapolis, so I figured it was legit. I was also under the impression it would involve more the reviewing of documents, than selling insurance. And I figured, even if there's some selling, at least I'll be talking to union guys. I can do that.
I walked into the office and was surprised to discover everyone working there seemed younger than me. And there was contemporary yuppie music blaring from the front desk, out of two cheap computer speakers. The pretty girl at the front desk was wearing so much makeup I couldn't really see her face, and she averted her eyes as soon as I made eye contact. I interviewed with another young woman, when it became clear that it was all about sales. I didn't exactly hide the fact that I wasn't all that interested, but when she asked if I wanted to stay for the informative "second interview," I was like, ok, sure.
I sat down in a circle of, well, losers - from a success perspective. Not all of them. There was one recent college graduate, who hadn't been totally kicked around by the job market the past four years, though she likely had more debt than anyone in the room. Most of the guys were working class themselves. There was an army wife from Missouri who, when it came time to introduce herself, went on and on like she forgot she was talking. There was a mortgage guy who got out of the business because it had become so "distasteful." Everyone, including myself, talked about how much they wanted to make the world a better place - except the mortgage guy. After introductions, there was a canned speech by the maybe thirty year old Brian leading the meeting, while some dirt bag sat in the corner silently without introducing himself, and took notes about each of us. Then the Brian introduced the introductory video.
I thought it was a farce at first, like they were making fun of fat cat rich guys. Then I realized it was a compilation of the company yearly meeting, set to rock and roll. The leadership looked union, and talked union, except when they got to talking about how much money they made. There were profiles of this twenty something worth two million, and that twenty-something making $435,000/yr, etc. The last guy was the CFO, I think, congratulating his people for their honor and integrity, before he ended the video by saying something about how cool it was to be among so many rich people. I remember thinking, if these guys showed this video to any of the union guys they were trying to sell to, they'd never sell another policy. It might be the end of the business, which has been around for awhile - which wouldn't be good for existing policies of course. Maybe the insurance is good, I don't know. It must pay out, or word would get around. It should probably be cheaper than it is, though. The Brian wouldn't look me in the eye after that, and I didn't even say anything. The rest of the spiel was about how much money you could make. Quite the gravy train, to retire in ten years. Hard to get people to sell insurance, I guess.
I sat down with the girl from the initial interview, after, for the "third interview." She couldn't get rid of me fast enough. I didn't get a call back for the "fourth interview."
The job search got considerably better after that. I'll get to that in part two.
PS: My deepest gratitude, to those readers who have contributed to me recently. You kept the water on, preventing condemnation. Thank you so much - and blessings, for you and yours.
The first response came from an ad I responded to, for office work. It was an innocuous ad, nothing special. The response came by email, asking if I wanted to be Eugene's personal assistant. A representative for Baume de Mercier watches, he was in Switzerland temporarily, and needed someone to handle money transfers from clients. All I would have to do is receive the transfers in my account, and then transfer the money to another account. That's it. $2000/month, plus 10% of every transfer. Maybe 3-4 hours a day, he said. I just needed to send him all the relevant information. I looked up Baume de Mercier watches online. I emailed him back, innocent like, saying it sounded like a great deal - but if I can buy a Baume de Mercier watch online with a credit card or paypal transfer, why does money need to be transferred through my account? I didn't ask what he was really trafficking in. He did not respond.
The second response came from an ad about entry-level management. I'm not sure why I applied to that one, except they talked about integrity, and it being a family friendly environment. The gal who called was Asian, with a thick accent. We set up an appointment - I figured at the time, I haven't been to an interview in a while, it would be good practice - and she told me to look sharp. Then she told me where the meeting would take place, in an office building on the second floor across the street from the UofM campus, and then I knew it was a shitty call center job with a ridiculously high turnover rate because poor college kids couldn't stand it. I skipped that one.
The next one involved the selling of insurance. I have no interest in selling insurance, but I went to that interview because their niche market is unions, credit unions and associations, and the meeting was in Eden Prairie, one of the ritzier suburbs of Minneapolis, so I figured it was legit. I was also under the impression it would involve more the reviewing of documents, than selling insurance. And I figured, even if there's some selling, at least I'll be talking to union guys. I can do that.
I walked into the office and was surprised to discover everyone working there seemed younger than me. And there was contemporary yuppie music blaring from the front desk, out of two cheap computer speakers. The pretty girl at the front desk was wearing so much makeup I couldn't really see her face, and she averted her eyes as soon as I made eye contact. I interviewed with another young woman, when it became clear that it was all about sales. I didn't exactly hide the fact that I wasn't all that interested, but when she asked if I wanted to stay for the informative "second interview," I was like, ok, sure.
I sat down in a circle of, well, losers - from a success perspective. Not all of them. There was one recent college graduate, who hadn't been totally kicked around by the job market the past four years, though she likely had more debt than anyone in the room. Most of the guys were working class themselves. There was an army wife from Missouri who, when it came time to introduce herself, went on and on like she forgot she was talking. There was a mortgage guy who got out of the business because it had become so "distasteful." Everyone, including myself, talked about how much they wanted to make the world a better place - except the mortgage guy. After introductions, there was a canned speech by the maybe thirty year old Brian leading the meeting, while some dirt bag sat in the corner silently without introducing himself, and took notes about each of us. Then the Brian introduced the introductory video.
I thought it was a farce at first, like they were making fun of fat cat rich guys. Then I realized it was a compilation of the company yearly meeting, set to rock and roll. The leadership looked union, and talked union, except when they got to talking about how much money they made. There were profiles of this twenty something worth two million, and that twenty-something making $435,000/yr, etc. The last guy was the CFO, I think, congratulating his people for their honor and integrity, before he ended the video by saying something about how cool it was to be among so many rich people. I remember thinking, if these guys showed this video to any of the union guys they were trying to sell to, they'd never sell another policy. It might be the end of the business, which has been around for awhile - which wouldn't be good for existing policies of course. Maybe the insurance is good, I don't know. It must pay out, or word would get around. It should probably be cheaper than it is, though. The Brian wouldn't look me in the eye after that, and I didn't even say anything. The rest of the spiel was about how much money you could make. Quite the gravy train, to retire in ten years. Hard to get people to sell insurance, I guess.
I sat down with the girl from the initial interview, after, for the "third interview." She couldn't get rid of me fast enough. I didn't get a call back for the "fourth interview."
The job search got considerably better after that. I'll get to that in part two.
PS: My deepest gratitude, to those readers who have contributed to me recently. You kept the water on, preventing condemnation. Thank you so much - and blessings, for you and yours.
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