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I'm back at work! Well, I have been for a little over a week. I admit to some sense of terror and trepidation at the (remote) prospect of returning to the Nether Regions, also known as Retail. During the days preceding my receipt of "the call", I'd put in applications to the big orange remodeling warehouse and countless other dreadful positions for which I'm amply qualified but equally reluctant to occupy.
I hate retail. Hate it. Something happens to "decent people" when it's time to shop. Sense and reason seems to escape them in their pursuit of the chachka du jour . Gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it ... what do you mean, you're "out of stock"? ... Walmart has it for 8 cents cheaper, will you beat that price? I drove all the way from (some geographical point at the opposite end of the Earth) to save that 8 cents, so you better come up with one real fast! ... gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it gotta have it ...
But "the call" came ... and I was spared the return to Purgatory. Now I work here :
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| What is something you feel you can do better than anyone else?well, although I don't typically ring my own bell, I happen to be a world-leading expert at scratching my own ass. No-one else's ass mind you, just mine. It's an automatic kinda thing, filled with artless grace.
Right. 
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| politicians and pastorsMuch is being made of the statements (whenever they were made) of Barak Obama's former pastor. I don't recall everything that the media and his political opponents have been saying, but there is one thing that has managed to stick in my mind. The remark about American foreign policy being the root cause for the 9/11 tragedy is both near to actuality and wide of the mark at the same time.
As much as I believe that too many of our politicians are self-interested bullshitters first and "public servants" second, as hard as I try to fix the blame on them, I just can't seem to make it work. It would be swell if things were as easy as that, but there are a few uncomfortable truths yet to emerge before we'll be able to deal with the circumstances that led to that event. Those "uncomfortable truths" won't be brought to light by any journalist or member of any political body from anywhere. They'll emerge in small bubbles, like the effervescence in champagne as it slowly goes flat ... some glasses will remain bubbly in defiance of reason and humanity, while some will go flat sooner than others as these realizations rise to the surface.
There are entirely too many contributing factors to be discussed in any forum that lasts less than centuries, and by then enough time will have passed and enough history will have been forgotten or relegated to dusty shelves (or crumbled away altogether) as to allow the recreation of the same circumstances: poverty, disenfranchisement, and hopelessness, and the presence of those whose expectations make those circumstances even more intolerable.
Ever been really shit-out-of-luck? No prospects? No hope for something better, while more and more of the little that you do have is taken away from you in such a way that there seems to be only one method of redress? It's a bad neighborhood. The WORST. It feels like it's a one-way street going in, with no exits at all, or maybe only one that's crowded with the rusted hulks of others who've tried before. It's really hard to see the more subtle possibilities, given the face of those circumstances, and the one road that appears to remain clear (at all) is Desperate Action Boulevard ... especially when there's a tour-guide who's only too happy to tell you what needs to be done to "make things right". We are there, one the side of those whose expectations act to perpetuate the circumstances of rage and despair. We are unwitting participants, drawn into our part in the play by the effect of our illusions. The world is not so large anymore, and the ripples of our actions and choices travel faster than we can imagine.
Humanity Before Oil
Humanity Before Commerce
The tenets of many of our faiths place us as stewards of our home, and so far, our example has been unacceptable. History seems to suggest that we are incapable of changing, and that is true if we expect someone to make laws that will lead us there. United individual effort is what will work, but such things only seem to happen after incomprehensible cataclysm.
PAX
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| What is the weirdest question anyone has ever asked you?a guy asked me if anyone had ever told me that I had a cute ass. This was a LONG time ago ... in more recent days I'd have made a joke of it, but at that time I was of such a frame of mind that I felt obliged to "prove" stuff. No, no-one has ever told me that I have "cute ass", but should anyone offer such a remark I'd feel obliged to recommend a good opthamologist and perhaps a refresher course in the principal differences between men and women. As far as I'm concerned, men don't have "cute asses".
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| too old for thiswhat an addiction!
the internet, that is. capable of bringing so much of value to the fore, yet providing so much DRECK that needs to be waded through before arriving at the good stuff.
it's almost like tacit permission to act like a bunch of assholes when the "celebrities" of our culture behave like so many spoiled children whose best medicine could be a visit to a Singapore courtroom to face charges of defacing public property.
is there some reason that I should allow the antics of these characters to govern my decisions and inform my values? I think not. media.media.media.media.media. all about selling ad space and air time -------- all about the bottom line, like everything else.
so much energy we spend in the pursuit of that bottom line, that I think we have actually gotten there, but managed to forget to bring a ladder along.
crap.
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