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. :)
Monday, September 10, 2012
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.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Grief and Anger
I once attended a training taught by a
man named Jim Mitchell. A tall, robust black man, a former bank
executive who gave up that life well before people were hungry to hang
bankers, he'd dedicated himself to training men to deal with their
emotional baggage. One of his central ideas, in the training at
least, was the idea that there are interior reservoirs, of grief and
anger. He told us, if you want to get clear about who you are, and
what you are doing in this life, you need to dive down into those
reservoirs and drain them.
That made sense to me, on a visceral
level. I was working at a Fortune 100 at the time, at their world
headquarters, paid more for less work than I'd ever done anywhere
before, and yet I didn't feel right. I had dedicated myself to a path
of healing two and a half years prior to that, and those years had
been productive; I felt better and more clear about who I was than I
ever had in my adult life. But still, something wasn't right. I
didn't want to be working in a climate controlled tower surrounded by
sound deadening cubicle walls and profoundly conventional people. I
wasn't sure what I wanted, but it wasn't that. So I took that
training, and I thought about what Mitchell said, and I set about an
intention.
I took some time off work, and fasted
and deprived myself of sleep for three days, at the end of which, six
of my most trusted friends came to my house, and they sat in a circle
on my living room floor, with me in the middle. I fasted and sleep-deprived myself because I
figured, the weaker my defenses, the more I might be able to get to
the core of what I was looking for. I also had severe symptoms of Lyme
disease at the time, which I didn't know was Lymes, which exacerbated my
physical strain immensely. My friend Snake facilitated, and I went
about exploring the depth of my grief. I was a mess from the
beginning.
I wrote about that experience in my
first book, The Dream That Must Be Interpreted. Free to
download, such as it is, if you don't read any other part of the
book, and want to know what a grief reservoir draining session might
look like - there it is, chapter five, Initiation. Suffice to
say, I did not know I was that deep. Nothing very pleasant about it,
I might add. But such is the nature of personal growth, dealing with
unpleasantries.
A young woman who goes by the handle
Karpatok said it well, about grief, with these simple words: “How
could they...HOW COULD THEY!” in the Doomstead Diner forum
recently, in reference to the hideous destruction of the mountainous land of her birth and childhood, West Virginia, by mountain-top removal coal mining. Grief, in it's generalized form, about what has been done to me, what has been done to
the earth, and also, consequently, what I have done to myself. The
constant breaking down, the demands of obedience, the cruel
critiques, the minimizing, the petty and not so petty tyrannical
pressure to conform, the physical and psychological abuse, the
irrational command and control aggressiveness of Authority. The
Destruction of the biosphere in the name of self-interest, the
systemic toxicity, the burning of fossil fuels wantonly and the
denial of the consequences, the constant enforcement of separation,
the predations of the monied. All the stupid petty things I have done
to fall in line, to debase myself, to make myself small.
Of course, the other side of that is
anger, for all the very same reasons. If you want to know what my
anger has come to look like, I'll refer you to my recent post 911,
which I wrote shortly after I came to the belated conclusion that
9/11 was a false flag, inside job to initiate a war of Terror on all
the people of the world, that cannot end or be won, any more than the
drug war, which never was about eradicating drugs or drug use, but
about the control of the people. What I would like to do, to the
defilers! There is a thing in me that desires to kill every last one.
But in case you haven't figured out, and I haven't been clear enough
about it, I am NOT encouraging you to explicit violence. At most, I
am encouraging you to explore the depths of your anger. Because if
there is to be anything like a change of course, driving humanity in
a direction away from mass extinction and the destruction of the
biosphere, IMHO we're going to have to get clear about our anger. As
is, it's coming out sideways mostly, directed by Authority at
anything but Authority, or directed at Authority impotently, or
bottled within and tearing us apart.
Mitchell talked about draining that
reservoir too, and he's right. I don't think one can think or be
clearly, as long as that reservoir remains full, spilling out over
the sides. I think we have to drain it. And at the bottom of those
two reservoirs I think, are pearls of forgiveness. Because we have to
forgive, or it isn't the thing we wish to destroy that is destroyed,
but ourselves instead. And the thing about that is, forgiveness isn't
anything like giving up, giving in. Forgiveness is like freeing oneself to be in
love with this life fiercely. To be in love with this earth,
to be free to do what one can to nurture and protect it, each other
and ourselves
So I think if you really want to
understand how deep you are, how deep down you really do go, you've
got to dive on in, into one's own depth, inside. Nothin'
pleasant about that work, necessarily, but real change rarely is.
And if you do that work, if you're
anything like me, you may just find, the hardest one to forgive is
myself.
Note: There is a fundraising drive going on for me, at the Doomstead Diner. A couple of my posts have been featured there. It's a great crowd, a great resource for dialogue and information about the collapse of Civilization. I find myself in a bit of a financial bind, my utilities long in arrears and threatening to open up another confrontation with city governance over an attempted condemnation of my house. RE, chief admin there, found out, and offered up the idea. I accepted. To anyone who gives, to help give me a little breathing room while I figure out WTF with this house, and myself - THANK YOU! Whether you come from the Diner, or from my blog, drop a note and I'll reply. Blessings, with gratitude.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Techno Triumphal Cornucopianism
Meanwhile, Apple Inc recently pulled out of the EPEAT, a registry of “green” electronics. A non-binding
certification process that tech manufacturers have largely agreed to
adhere to, a baseline set of agreements that pretty much amount to
whether or not the gadget can be taken apart to be fixed, and
recycled. The only word Apple has given as to why they will no longer
submit their products to the EPEAT for certification, is that the
guidelines are no longer consistent with Apple's design direction.
What is that direction? To make smaller
and smaller products that can do more and more, but can't be fixed,
or recycled, because they can't be taken apart, and so are destined
for the trash. Why is that a problem? Because consumer electronics
are highly toxic, comprised of a myriad of chemicals and base metals
that are anathema to the health of the biosphere. Not only that, many
of the rare earth metals necessary to a functioning computer or phone
are called rare for a reason. These rare earth metals in Apple
products will now be destined for the landfill even more than they
already are, where they can never be recovered. Apple is widely
acknowledged as a design leader, and other electronics manufacturers
are likely to follow.
You are free to call this evil, if you
like, this kind of thinking that “designs” the ill health of the
biosphere, while eliminating the ability of future generations to
build such things as electronics. But you will be in the minority, as
nary a soul will stop buying Apple products because of this news. Most Homo sapien with access to high technology are
convinced, the resources of the earth are infinite, and technology is
making the world cleaner and safer. If that sounds Orwellian to you
in a most 1984 kind of way, then take heart, you are not an
idiot.
Perhaps the Apple people are convinced
that James Cameron, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Peter Diamandis et al, are
going to start mining asteroids soon, and the fact that China has a
lock on the few remaining rare earth metals won't be any kind of
issue. Never mind, as I have mentioned before, that these are
supposed to be the good guys, and the bad guys in the Cameron
franchise Avatar at least, are the ones going to other places
in the universe to mine things, because the earth is dead, because we
poured toxins into the biosphere for profit, without limit. That
these guys can't see the irony should give them (and you) pause, if
they truly gave a damn about the earth, but when you are a master of
the universe type, your words have to reflect the opposite of
your actions. And it's not like Avatar fans, the majority of them,
have critical thinking skills enough, or the will, to put the pieces
together.
I haven't read Diamandis' new book, Abundance, profiled in the video above. The computer lady says, "We will soon be able to meet the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet. This bold, contrarian view backed up by exhaustive research..." Contrary to what I said above, I do believe Diamandis believes what he is saying. His TED talk is particularly enlightening. I also readily admit, his attitude is abundantly more attractive than my own, at least as it appears in this, and my latest post. I too believe humanity will live a glorious techno existence someday.* I just don't think the current crop of geniuses and their mostly as yet imaginary tech are capable of overcoming the crop of greedy warmongers controlling things, and we're going to have to pass through a threshold first, which isn't going to be pleasant, at all. And Daimandis is simply saying that everything is ok, nothing to worry about, and Jesus, I mean aliens, I mean technology, is going to save us from our global predicament.
We are seeing this same sort of thing
coming from the energy industry. America is to become the new Saudi
Arabia, they are repeating endlessly (sort of reminiscent of Dick Cheney in the polar op., "Terror, terror terror terror...") Again, with the irony, that Saudi Arabia is a major
oil producer, and also a repressive Monarchy with 28,000 members of
the Rich-as-God royal family, lording over an illiterate, unskilled, poverty stricken
populace of 28 million (all hail the .001%!) Never mind that the idea America is
going to be the world leader in fossil fuel production is a
transparent lie, to anyone who understands the definition of EROEI,
or is paying attention to the coming collapse of the natural gas
bubble - because the media are pumping peoples heads full of bullshit
24/7, and the people are utterly hypnotized.
It's possible these guys don't even
believe their own bullshit. When TransCanada built
the first Keystone pipeline, the damn thing bust open a dozen times
in the first year. Word is, they didn't care that they were building
a POS product even when they were building it, as if saying
everything is hunky dory after the fact when the damn thing is
spraying cancer causing benzene and heavy crude all over the place,
is sufficient enough to make it not a problem. Besides, if Obama has his way, and this turncoat Congress is sure to capitulate, foreign
nationals will be able to build shoddy pipelines spilling toxins, or
things like sulphuric acid from copper mines, into the water supply,
and no American law or court will be able to do a damn thing about it.
It's like Enron all over again, and
again, and again, and again, ad infinitum. The smartest fucking guys
in the room. Do you begin to wonder why in my last post, I was like,
off with their heads! I'd be lying, if after reading about the Michigan spill, I wasn't thinking like, line up the entire executive
staff of Enbridge and Bechtel against a brick wall, ratta tat tat.
But let me be clear, if the scenario I painted last week were to
actually happen, say a million Americans descending on the Beltway
with rolls of concertina wire, pitchforks and AR-15's, the Department
of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the CIA, the FBI, the NSA,
the military, would just haul out some Apache gunships and start
spreading .50 caliber rounds with all the compunction of those goons at
that university in California with their pepper spray. And Americans
would be outraged for about three days, and then they'd go back to
their wage slave jobs and wonder about things like whether or not Top Gun Tom
Cruise is going to have to choose between Scientology and his
daughter Suri.
Blah blah blah. I'm preachin' to the
choir, aren't I? Well, let it be said, it's easy to be drawn into the
story of the techno triumphal cornucopianists, that we are
on the verge of a new day in the life of Humanity, not a collapse but
a glorious new techno heaven on earth, utopia for the geek wanna-be-a-cyborg set. Take the Higgs Boson chatter lately. You might think it
was like the first time anyone ever saw E=MC2. Confirmation of the
standard model of physics, yeah (pump fist)! Except, the standard
model of physics contradicts the law of gravity, and it can't explain
why anything in the universe spirals or spins, or why quantum physics
tells us empty space is denser than matter by an order of magnitude
running to infinity. That's a very big deal. Really. For all their
talk – and look at all the fancy shit they can do with all those bloody millions and billions! - they don't yet
know shit enough not to spoil the damn planet they live on.
Be wary of the masters of the universe,
no matter what their specialty. And remember, the calls that
everything is fine are always loudest and most shrill, in the weeks
and months before meltdown.
* As to a glorious techno future, I'm of the opinion that the "prime mover" so to speak, that is responsible for things spinning and spiraling in this universe, is contained in the vacuum, the empty space that quantum physics tells us is denser energetically than matter by an order of magnitude running to infinity. If the brainiacs ever figure that out, it's a whole new reality. But we aren't even close, and given another 200,000 years, we might figure it out. Maybe.
* As to a glorious techno future, I'm of the opinion that the "prime mover" so to speak, that is responsible for things spinning and spiraling in this universe, is contained in the vacuum, the empty space that quantum physics tells us is denser energetically than matter by an order of magnitude running to infinity. If the brainiacs ever figure that out, it's a whole new reality. But we aren't even close, and given another 200,000 years, we might figure it out. Maybe.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
911
I'm returning to this because of all
the chatter on the Internet about a potential false flag operation
planned for the London Olympics this summer. Some people think it
will be a faked alien invasion, others think a small nuclear or
“dirty” bomb. Many are tying it into the so-called Illuminati and
their goal of the new Zion, or total world domination. That weird ass
emblem has an uncanny resemblance.
It shouldn't take a genius to figure
out something is being planned. Barack “hegemon” Obama hasn't
eviscerated the Constitution for nothing. Many are afraid the elite
of the world are preparing to exterminate the majority of us. Did you
hear the Department of Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets recently? Why are international elite special
forces running drills on the waterfront of Tampa Bay? Why are
American soldiers running drills on the streets of St Louis? One might argue, the government is afraid of riots,
should the global economy go into recession, and they want to be
ready to restore calm. What's that they say, about the road to hell
being paved with good intentions? Conversely, how can an elite
military/industrial leadership capable of something on the scale of
9/11, have anything resembling good intentions? Forty caliber hollow point bullets for crowd control?
Meanwhile, word is out that
phytoplankton are going the way of the dinosaurs. Phytoplankton. I
know we humans like to think of ourselves as the center of the
proverbial universe, but phytoplankton are the primordial foundation
of the existing ocean food chain. Not only that, they provide an
estimated 50% of the oxygen we breath. Why are they declining? Because we
are toxifying the oceans with our burning of fossil fuels and our
chemical making. If the phytoplankton are lost, the food chain of the
ocean collapses, the ocean dies, the air is no longer breathable, we
all die. Get it?
This is old news (that should be on the
news every day, every minute, every second, what we are doing about it.) The new
news is (which isn't reported either, except to say everything is fine), conventional oil supplies are
on the decline, but wouldn't you know it, they've gone and saved the
day by figuring out how to drill for oil in super deep ocean waters,
dredging it out of the ground like coal, and fracking for it; the
later two methods compromising our already polluted and strained
fresh water supplies, the former threatening an already strained and
polluted ocean (they can figure out these funky new extraction
methods but not how to efficiently use the renewable power of the
sun, sea and wind to generate power?) But don't just blame the oil
industry. The chemical industry is pouring more than 100,000
different chemicals and chemical compounds into the air and water,
daily. Of course, humans breathe air and drink water. But that's ok,
that they are polluting so wantonly, because we need economic growth
more than we need breathable air and drinkable water, and really one of the few
sectors where economic growth is even possible anymore, other than
making weapons and bombs, is Health Care.
But clearly I do not know what I am
talking about, and everything I'm saying is delusional, because if it
were true, it would be reported in the mainstream media. Unless of
course the mainstream media were simply appendages of the
military/industrial complex. (Fuck you, Anderson Cooper, I don't care
if you're gay or straight, you're no different than your high dollar
cronies on the other end of the dial, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al -
you're a well compensated shill for monsters.)
If you have the courage to put the
pieces together, the reality is inescapable. Not only is humanity on
a course of mass suicide, by way of mass global extinction, our elite global
leadership may very well be conspiring to preempt such an outcome by
killing off most of humanity. And if you think they aren't capable of
that kind of logic, it doesn't matter, because if you're an American
at least, there are 1.5 DHS hollow point bullets with your fate
embedded in the lead. Whatever false flag operation there is planned,
and the foil looks to be Iran, or Syria, it is merely an excuse to institute
martial law, total global control, and probably elite managed mass
death for the useless eaters and undesirables, basically, the
non-militant and not-willing-to-be-a-slave sets.
So what has to happen? I'll tell you
what I think needs to happen, assuming our leadership doesn't reverse course and start telling us the truth (acknowledging that just because I think this is what needs to happen doesn't make it a good idea, or even plausible. Think of it as me venting.) Fence off the DC beltway with
concertina wire, let no one from Congress, the Pentagon, or K-street
escape alive, empty out the executive suites and board
rooms of the Fed, Wall Street and all the major banks and corporations, the major players in
all the major family empires, the various billionaires, and basically
the entire political class and their shill major media talking heads, and
add them to the DC mix, and then leave them to cannibalize each
other. Or just cut off their heads and be done with it. You know that
fence surrounding the White House? The head of Dick Cheney on a spike
right out front, with his new heart spiked to his forehead. Donald
Rumsfeld on a spike next to him, with GW Bush on one side, and Barack
Obama on the other. Ring the rest of it with the rest of Congress,
and whatever other major players, and then toss the remaining on the
grounds. There'd be heads overflowing, from the roof of the White
House to the peak of the fence, yet hardly a percentage of all the
sick fuck who have poisoned this earth and turned it, and us, into their
private ATM.
But what am I saying? That's so awful!
Well, if you think that, you haven't been paying attention.
Of course, all those elite monsters who
are driving this military/industrial/technological/financial
machine, are also in control of the mainstream media, which is
actively engaged in perpetuating the mythology of progress and
growth, war mongering, lionizing elite etc, encouraging the demonization of the right or the left among
the people, of the poor generally, and otherwise titillating the senses ad nauseum unto
blind obedience and abject stupidity. No one gets time on the MSM
unless the Machine approves of the message. (Isn't it astounding, how
much the military/industrial/technological machine has come to
resemble the great beast of the book of Revelations, and yet here in
America there are hardly any more fervent supporters of that great
beast, than Christians.)
What am I prepared to do? Not much. I have no military training or fighting skills, nor any keen desire to kill
or even hurt anybody. I haven't even struck someone in anger since I was sixteen,
and then I had a hockey glove on, and he had a face mask (he was also
my teammate and he slashed me on the wrists with his hockey stick, in
a team practice scrimmage, the prick.) What I want really, is a
quiet, ascetic kind of life, to build my own house off the grid,
studying plants, gardening, hunting and fishing, with some friends
and companions, who appreciate dancing and singing. That's it. But
what is that, when the path of humanity is so clearly engaged in
making that very simple thing impossible for anybody? When the economic system
we take for granted is so inherently hostile to life, so geared to
depriving us of true health and general welfare, so clearly destined to generate death on a grand scale here-to-fore unseen? These people who rule
over us are not American, in the pure sense of what that was supposed
to mean. They are scarcely human, with their desires and their actions,
having so closely come to resemble a machine. It's no wonder people get
to thinking they aren't human, reptile aliens in disguise (there is
not a greater charlatan than David Icke.)
I'm down to my last few dollars. My
house is on the verge of being condemned for failure to pay my
utility bills. I am estranged from most of my family and my friends.
Today, July 04, Independence Day in America, is my 39th
birthday. My name
is William Hunter Duncan, and I used to be afraid, but I'm not
afraid anymore.
You might want to consult another voice for this kind of thinking, without the recital of explicit violence, and something more in the way of doable sollutions...here.
You might want to consult another voice for this kind of thinking, without the recital of explicit violence, and something more in the way of doable sollutions...here.
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