Well hell it's a job but still

Pureeing the topics here but let's get back to retail for a minute. One of my friends who works at the supermarket end of things is a kind of source for scuttlebutt that's happening in that sector of the economy. You remember KRONOS don't you? (and btw don't tell me that's just a phonetic version of "chronology" or something), now add to this the growing field of mystery shoppers. Now I don't know what the going rate for them is but basically they pretend to be your average casual shopper, they come in and then after they leave the store or place of business they grade how well each department did in terms of whatever the Company deems important (e.g. suggestive selling, "how are you today?" etc.). Now I realize the economy is bad but would you do this for even a temporary living? get other workers in trouble really who are just trying to get by? Word on the street is some major supermarket chains will even go to the lengths of finding out which employee was lacking and maybe even write him/her up. This kind of gangsterism is not good for morale imo and stuff like this tends to happen when a company is not doing well, they're looking for answers and don't know what to do so they come up with crap like this. Truthfully I'd rather be unemployed than rat people out to pay my rent and once they make use of mystery shoppers the company seems to become practically obsessed with the topic like nothing else matters (e.g. low prices, a safe work environment). BTW checked out the new Gordon Ramsay culinary collection yesterday at K-Mart, not bad especially the digital 12-Cup coffeemaker:)

The priest shortage

While we're on the subject of faith this topic came up recently in our parish because our parochial vicar was just reassigned upstate and now our pastor is running the parish all by himself basically and saying most of the Masses with only an occasional helping hand and btw the priest who was just sent upstate will be running that parish by himself too which seems to be the trend these days. In the latest bulletin our lone priest/pastor now gave statistics on the priest shortage, only one new priest ordained in the whole Archdiocese of New York in the month of May and he further gave the numbers on how many parishes in Westchester and surrounding counties are now being run by one priest. Suffice to say quite a few in fact but this begs the question as unfair as it may seem to him and others and make no mistake saying that many Masses is hard work but isn't this the marketplace in operation? The vast majority of men do not opt for the celibate lifestyle which is still a requirement for the Catholic priesthood so you can pray for vocations all you want and petition God on a weekly basis but that still won't change the marketplace or the reality. Of course for too many men these days who aren't even priests there is the depressing matter of involuntary celibacy, those existential drought periods of poor gas station porn and carpel-tunnel syndrome but even for these poor souls caught in the orbit of Outer Darkness sex or meeting someone or eventually falling in love is still a goal if not reached in this life then the next. Deliberate celibacy has always struck me as somehow going against Nature but be that as it may my pastor acts like a bunch of us men are supposed to just stop what we're doing after maybe a lengthy period of reflection and spiritual introspection and sign up to be priests. Ain't gonna work that way, there's too strong a pull in the opposite direction. Change the rules and you'll get more priests:)

Steve Jobs and a philosophical question that pops up

Would you rather be astoundingly wealthy, a gazillion or have your health? You can live in a mansion and die fairly young or you can sit on your patio in all your middle-class stature on a fine autumn afternoon and enjoy feeding your cats or your dogs or if you don't have them just reading a book. Though I'm a strong capitalist by nature I don't envy the superrich, that societal trend has always irritated me. While I don't want to punish them like Obama I am philosophically balanced, they don't bother me but I don't want to be one of them. Personally I'd rather have my health.

Steve Jobs, Apple Founder and Tech Genius -- 1955-2011, RIP

Watson is my boss

Have a friend who works in a supermarket and he told me the other day that when the workers punch in now there's a handy device on the wall with a lens that scans their thumbprint. Fred Flintstone with his punchcard is so yesterday. You'd think a deli clerk or a part-time butcher were working for the CIA or the FBI or Interpol and I'm not even sure they do this (side issue -- why do so many women who work in supermarkets have man hands?). What's next, retinal-scans like in Minority Report? So the name of the company the supermarket contracted with is, get this, KRONOS. Why that? sounds too sci-fi to me, a little off I said and my friend gave me the deep background on Kronos. Seems in mythology Kronos was the father of Zeus and there was a prophecy that one of Kronos' sons was gonna do Dad in, kill him and take over so when they were born Kronos ate Poseiden and Hades. Who says ancient Greek/Roman mythology is boring? it's chockful of Sex and Violence. Anyways Zeus' mother knew what was coming so when she was pregnant with Zeus and gave birth she wrapped a big old rock in some swaddling clothes and Kronos ate it. Zeus later cut off Kronos' testicles and penis and threw it in the ocean where it gave rise to Aphrodite. You remember Venus in a pink shell don't ya? Now all that's fine for a college lit class but why would a major technical company choose such a name with such a negative bio behind it and why would a major food chain even do business with them? and how come the Union never got involved and issue a statement or even inform its members? It's because the New World Order'ers are Weird that's why, everyday is a Renaissance Festival inside their heads. BTW the term for scanning your thumbprint to start work and punch in and out for Lunch and go home later is biometric, remember that word and the whole stated rationale is that some workers are using other workers to clock themselves in using their punchcards. Old story new solution. Well that's the cover story anyway but my gut tells me there's more, much more to the story like that cat Willow that wandered all the way from Colorado to New York City and was lost for five years until some shelter ID'ed him 'cause the family had a microchip put in him, that's gonna be YOU in the not too distant future ("Don't worry m'am, Hank's just having an affair"). Now who's behind all this? I'd say our friends the Masons, those who like to worship statues of owls in the Bohemian Grove and stuff like that, a little Osiris action. Basically they're Nutz and now we hear that Watson is gonna look over some folks' medical records and make instant diagnoses, save time and money. The times they're'a gettin' weird:)

Mitt Romney - I can't get all that jazzed up about the guy

First off his health care program in Massachusetts was the model for Obamacare. Judging from his latest debate performance with Rick Perry (oh, are there others?) he doesn't seem to want to touch the third rail of Social Security so that's second. Third off he seems rather bland, very bland in fact like a safe conservative choice in a polyester suit (read: moderate). I believe that as we speak he's pro-life but I don't think he's firmly rooted in any one direction except the zeitgeist or the base or whatever, four. Mormonism, you can take it or leave it but for me it has just the touch of the cult but that's not a five. I'm just not that into him. The GOP Establishment (Nancy Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Bush, the New York Post) pushing Chris Christie on us has the feel of someone trying to fix you up and I always hated that. It's the pushing that I find suspect (what, nobody else out there?) and Ron Paul is McCain's age. It'd take the edge away if Hillary ran against Obama which usually when there's no primary to speak of it means the guy's a champion but c'mon. A champion to whom, Shaw? Personally I prefer to watch X Factor, it takes my mind off things:)

Mr. Port Authority Toll Hikes as the savior of the GOP?

They won't give him up and I'm not getting it. Some influential GOPers, some real Republican movers and shakers, didn't quite get their names but a large swath of them are former Bush donors which should tell you something right there and they're practically stalking NJ Governor Chris Christie to enter the rather disappointing field. Calling his office at all hours of the day, sending love letters, behind his shower curtain, in his closet, behind him in the diner. Saw a few recent pictures of the Governor and is it just me or has he gotten Bigger? He seems positively gargantuan these days and practically dwarfs out everyone else in the picture. Now when I was having a weight problem myself not that long ago I got out of the shower one evening and looked at myself in the mirror and said OK this and no more so at what point do you even stop noticing these things? PUT DOWN THE FUCKING KRISPY KREMES!!!!!! Not exactly a role model for our yoot so what does it cost to cross the GW Bridge these days 12 bucks for cash-paying commuters? going up to 15 I believe in a couple of years and this is the Savior of the GOP party just 'cause Rick Perry had a couple dismal debates??? You know I was never that great at the whole job interview thing but I think I'm a real kickass worker just the same. God help us and already those red-light cams are sprouting up all over Jersey like some vast police state. BTW did you catch NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on 60 Minutes last night? I'd be afraid to scratch my nuts. Oh yeah I knew this was coming but apparently technology is in the works for those traffic cams to be rejiggered somehow to see how fast you're going too, that's being discussed in Albany right now believe it or not. You know when you consider that most towns, villages and city speed limits are artificially low I'd go bankrupt. The topic of Chris Christie causes me to ramble but just 'cause he has a penchant for the blunt talk ("get the hell off the beach!") and can somehow control a budget but not his own food intake doesn't mean you have to get all hot and sweaty, have a man crush on the guy. It's like they want to take him in the woods and Ned Beatty him or something. Palin/Bachmann, now that's your ticket. We can at least see who can out-brainfart each other:)

The Obama Platform is what exactly?

That I'm trying to do the right thing but am constantly prevented? that my heart is in the right place...It's not so much a list of accomplishments to run on so I'm not really getting why he wants us to vote for him again. He reminds me of a whiny contestant on X Factor, someone who wasn't that great to begin with but who won't get off the stage and feels the judges' decision is some kind of cosmic injustice speaking of which I think the best contestant so far was that Diana Ross lookalike on the first night forget the name. Absolutely phenomenal but she needs to reduce the waterworks. Simon seems somehow nicer this time 'round with L.A. Reid kinda towing the line here. New Girl, mildly funny but felt it didn't live up to its advance hype all through the summer although I really really like the name Zooey Deschanel. The new 5-0, my brother feels it's bad writing. On the Season Premiere a secret cam hidden in an old clock in the late Governor's residence that could exonerate McGarrett of her murder and Danno busts it with his foot 'cause he doesn't have a screwdriver handy and there he is on the tape Wo Fat killing the guv and framing Steve but his head is somehow cut off, well he is the Archvillain after all who gets away all the time. I'll give it a chance and at least they cover other ground besides serial killers but if they're to be really faithful to the original Chin Ho has to get shot and thrown from a car. Somebody at work has the Irritable Bowel Syndrome and one of the stalls is for all practical purposes unuseable. How can we turn a profit if people don't even know basic potty training? I feel I'm right about all things but do I expect people to agree with me all the time? No, it's ain't realistic and that's the trouble with alot of blogging these days. My God so you don't agree with Ron Paul you're not a true conservative, when did this happen? This is supposed to be fun, kind of coffee klatchy and I see our friend Tony Bennett has made some controversial comments about 9/11. Doesn't he look like some friendly uncle you had when you were a kid and you just got ripped a new one by Mom and Dad and he talks to you in the alley and asks you what's wrong and says but they really love you and gives you a 5-dollar bill to go get an ice cream cone? Looks real good for his age. OK what'cha got?

Social insecurity

Is Rick Perry right, is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

Once you go black sometimes you go back - Sarah Palin's jungle fever

Joe McGuiness has written a new one, The Rogue, a kind of unauthorized bio of Sarah Palin. Now every book has to have what they call a hook these days to sell, in Barbara Walters' case it was her affair not that I care and so in this case we learn of Sarah Palin's past coke use (presumably we're not talking about the classic American carbonated beverage here) but even bigger is (brace yourself all you racist teabaggers out there, got a chair? sit down)......seems when she was a junior in her college days she had a one-night stand with some 6'10" black basketball player by the name of Glen Rice (he's trending right now as we speak). Now as a husband you don't want to hear this stuff, your spouse's past episodes of high sluttery when they do come out are bad enough but Sarah back then was 5'4" or 5'5" or something and the African-American gentlemen was 6'10" so you know some really freaky stuff went down. Sure that was back in the day but that toxic crap really gets in your psyche I don't care what you say, it's lurking in your mental attic somewhere in some cobwebbed corner with the baseball mitts and the Flexible Flyer (permanently emblazoned images of your beloved churchgoing wife guzzling it down like a milk shake, getting bopped in the head with IT). The other thing is some of today's biggest conservative women moralizers have been yesterday's biggest cat-bitches in heat (e.g. Dr. Laura) so maybe they should be the first to get this stuff out, just sayin' but what I think Mr. McGuiness is doing here and he's known to not like Republicans but he's masturbating the Tea Partier's mind which he sees as most liberals do as lurking in the racist fever swamps, some gap-toothed old red-headed farmer who sneaks into his daughter's room at night telling his wife hey get a load of this, Sarah Palin once fucked some big black buck. He's niggerizing the debate, agitating the political discourse never that high to begin with and maybe somebody should start writing unauthorized biographies of all the unauthorized biographers out there. Start with him, Kitty Kelley......but damn I just thought of something, what if there's a Sex Tape out there? Michele Bachmann dear, I hoped you lived a fairly clean life:)

9/11 - the most historic event in recent history

I had thought when I went to work Monday morning some folks would have a different perspective in light of the preceding day's solemn and extremely moving events, don't worry about stupid stuff......uhm, no. We don't discuss current events much, I'm always the one to bring up the topic but then again I never married my job. It's been years since I read the late Claire Sterling's seminal work The Terror Network published in 1981 and what's changed is that then terrorism was mainly political whereas today's it's largely inspired by a warped vision of God. Sure Hamas and Hezbollah are still political but it's a weird development, after the Cold War never dreamed we'd be at war with radical Islam. You don't believe in Allah and we'll kill you, when did that happen? Saw Frontline's "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" the other night which while superbly produced and asked legitimate questions somehow left me uninspired and empty. Doesn't anyone ponder this puzzle that God chose to give us the gift of free will and that means the freedom to choose evil in many cases, to make bad decisions and that all too often those bad choices negatively, even tragically impact and impose themselves on others, the good, the innocent, the virtuous? Put another way if God forced you to be faithful to your spouse it wouldn't mean anything so I'm a little more on God's side here and also if you never had Evil could you really appreciate the Good? If the world was always and forever a perpetual Eden with no tears and sorrow, no suffering and no death would we even know what the Good is? How horrible those people died on that day and your immediate thought is there but for the grace of God. To make that terrible terrible decision to die in overwhelming fire or to jump 80 or even 100 stories hand in hand with a complete stranger in some cases. My own mother many months before this even happened was sitting on the couch one day and said she had a very bad feeling. She felt cold she said and then said she felt something very terrible was gonna happen to the World Trade Center and it's always struck me to this day. I've heard others say similar things so I do believe in a kind of psychic reality. 9/11 unified us as never before and how could it not? I'm sure those people who chose to jump sometimes again with that complete stranger were not contemplating their political differences or the stupid stuff that went on at work last week and that's one of the great lessons here. The other is this tragic event so mind-boggling in the magnitude of its sheer evil, this existentially surreal Happening brought out the worst but more importantly the best in Humanity. We also went from the sublime to Rachel Uchitel becoming one of Tiger Woods' bevy of mistresses so the poetic always somehow becomes mixed with the tabloid culture but that's to be expected. Then there was my lady boss who yesterday was doing her work as usual and asked me what date it is and I'm thinking but didn't say it just how uninformed are you? I mean I'm not a nerd or anything but when you go home what do you do? Do you at least pop on the News for 10 or 15 minutes before going to bed? Again an extremely moving and poignant day and make no mistake, we live in a post 9/11-centric world. It imbues all our thoughts, our very psyche and it did affect my sleep that night. Though it was an adequate sleep it was a kind of somber and fitful slumber and my dreams and thoughts drifted back to this tragic framework brought on by the day's events. What are your thoughts?

The Post Office

I say let 'em go broke.

Advertising you'll never see

Everybody has to be the best and they resent it when somebody questions their #1 status, challenges the orthodoxy. Take the new Weight Watchers commercial with Jennifer Hudson which says rated best by US News and World Report. Now that's mainly a geopolitical mag so WW may as well have been endorsed by Popular Mechanics and you know it just got under their skin that Consumer Reports recently rated Jenny Craig the best weight-loss program out there. So why can't WW simply say we're a good approach among many, it's an option and the same thing goes for Boar's Head. They just have to be the world's #1 cold cut, can't say look we're a damn good slice but hey if you like the Black Bear or Thumann's that's up to you. Advertising is all bullshit, it's childish but it is what it is. Now everyone can't be #1, why can't you just say you have a good product and leave it at that? Trojans......

So what's the karmic deal yo?

Just how does a particular religious system influence people's behavior? Are Christians better than others? more moral, more ethical, somehow more virtuous? Are they the salt of the earth? You'd think so but to give a perfectly honest answer in my long experience......NO, uh-uh. For example to put it in the work context again I've had my share of Christian bosses, some Catholic bosses. Many were underhanded, screwed the worker, weren't fair and as for other Christians they gossip, backstab, throw others under the bus with the best of them. Not an indictment of Christianity btw since I'm a Christian myself but why this contradiction? I'm going to heavily paraphrase from a point made over at Lista's, gonna do some major-league spinning myself here but the idea of you can keep on sinning and just keep going to Christ who will forgive you over and over and over again...I think the average Christian feeling liberated from the whole karmic cycle feels he or she can do what they want and get forgiven later. OK maybe that's an oversimplication but to paraphrase from St. Augustine "make me not gossip Lord or throw other people under the bus but not yet." Many Christians behave like the rest of the lot and then take their Souls to the cleaners on Sunday as my brother likes to say. The Christian/Catholic running the department now, doesn't strike me as being overly ethical, maybe the Church is more a social watering-hole......Perhaps the karmic believers are better people, live better lives because karma is so much more demanding and unforgiving and yes fear-inspiring. Pope Benedict would do well to address the issue again as he's addressed karma in the past and is well familiar with the topic. I believe it was when he was Cardinal he made the point that the beauty of Christianity is that Christ enables you to break free from the harsh and never-ending cycle of karma, that's the positive aspect but on the downside imo is the general character of today's Christian. The Pope would do well to talk up the issue again this time in the context of you people are misapplying Christ's Message and the Gospel if you think you can just go on sinning and......but is karma real? does it actually operate in this life in the here and now and not just in lives to come? A stronger variation of the biblical you reap what you sow I've seen some evidence. I'd love to hear examples here from the resident bloggers who are big on karma. As a rule I generally don't blog about presidential vacations, God knows they all take them so I just wanted to go with a karmic thrust today:)

Are most people selfish?

There are some very interesting discussions going on at Lista's about karma and I will be expanding on some of the points like, oh I don't know tomorrow or beginning of next week but the topic of selfishness is too broad here. Are most people selfish? Since we spend so much time at work I'll put it in my usual context of the workplace (after 1,000 posts it's still a tick on my ass). Dunno if my place is a microcosm, God I hope not! but I've come to the conclusion that most folks are selfish. Now they're not viciously selfish, they come across as quite nice. They don't have fangs and will buy you a cup of coffee but when push comes to shove their interests come first. Take vacation time. We have a problem going on right now where everybody wants to take their vacations at the same time and we're not talking a week off here and there but like a month devoted to European travel alone. Now back in the day I still remember a system, a kind of unwritten code that you took turns, you went and then he went and then she went when Bob got back and if you had to sacrifice for the good of the Company by pushing up your much-looked-forward-to vacation by a week or two well that just showed what kind of a sterling guy or gal you were. Now it's like this isn't even an afterthought and I've spotted another trendoid and it has to do with new hires. Now many of these monstrous jaunts, random globetrekking are being taken by the fairly new employee, the recently hired and it's not that they're getting paid for all this free time but that's not the point. It's still leisure time and the department runs less effectively due to their prolonged absences, the burden then being shifted onto the few who remain like moi. I asked a co-worker about this, new workers pushing for and getting massive time off when they haven't even put in a year yet. I queried him well is it a part of some contract, some kind of secret handshake, an overly generous boss, some spit the love juice out from under the table kind of a deal but he said no, that they just have their minds set on going is all, doesn't matter if they started a new job. Of course back in the day when you were lucky enough to get hired for a spanking new job you would happily wait and chug along until you qualified for at least one full week of paid vacation time and then it would properly accrue over time but this selfishness thing is cutting across all age and ethnic groups, spilling over all kinds of boundaries and it's not just the young, an easy enough group to pick on although I don't like working with them either. Calling Out Sick, that's another one. Now I don't do it anymore but the few times I did in the past I at least chose a day when it would have the least impact, made sure there were enough people on staff. Not anymore, I've seen people simply call out sick even if the whole day depended on their presence and not a twinge of guilt upon their return. The selfishness thing is kind of disturbing, the blitheness with which it's practiced and goes straight to our character deficit in this country. Since this ultimately ties into the whole karma thing I'll be working on that one next. As I said to my friend once I think we were born in the wrong era:)

If Obama were Bush......

You see this is why I REALLY hate politics, folks can't admit the obvious. Let's say everything that's happening under Obama's term now happened to Bush, the 9-9.2% jobless rate, the historic downgrading of our credit, entering into yet another recession (actually in my view the old recession never really ended just that the "experts" pronounced that we were out of it, remember that one?), the failure of our mission in Libya however you define it, our Syria non-policy, troop surges in Afghanistan and the two wars never really ending...well I daresay liberals would most assuredly hold Bush responsible, the buck stops with him and that's right and proper (disagree with me if you like but I'm consistent). OK let's just focus on the unemployment rate and that historic because it never happened before S&P downgrading of our credit rating since those are the two biggies here the fact remains that this happened on Obama's watch just like if they happened on Bush's watch it would be fair to say there was a lack of leadership. You see it's like this, let's say you have a store manager or a branch manager or even a company president. Charles is a swell guy, quite popular, chats with the workers around the coffee machine every morning, is good for morale, honors their birthdays when the time comes and all the other positive stuff but some of the workers aren't doing the right thing, some of the department heads ain't doing the right thing either. The place isn't functioning quite right, profits are down, maybe you can't put your finger on it but would it be fair to hold Charlie personally responsible? YES, a 1,000X yes because when anything bad happens in a business or government entity or a religious institution (e.g. the Church sex abuse scandals) the buck has to stop with someone and that someone is the head, it happened on his or her watch, he or she didn't lead, didn't have oversight. Democrats like John Kerry can call it the Tea Party downgrade if they like but that doesn't change the fact that the S&P action happened on Obama's watch and no other president's watch. What I see in President Obama is a lack of leadership, a failure to take personal responsibility and they're not the qualities and virtues I look for in a leader. What I also see is an incestuous relationship with Hollywood. Now Sony Studios which has been the biggest booster of Obama in Hollywood has a movie in the works about the raid that killed bin Laden (of course the events of that day are highly questionable but that's another blog for another day so for now just to make a point). Rep. Peter King is rightly indignant about all the leaking of classified information that's going into the making of the movie but here's the kicker, it's due to be released to the general public about a month before the 2012 elections. I've rambled on long enough but the death of bin Laden doesn't somehow magically delete the S&P downgrade or create millions of new jobs. I think race is a factor too. We all want the nation's first black president to be a success, to be more than a footnote in History or a piece of trivia in an almanac but it ain't working out that way. It's just way past time for liberals to man up and admit the obvious:)

Our Syria non-policy

What if we had gone after Syrian president/dictator Bashar al-Assad instead of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy? well about 2,000 Syrian protesters might still be alive today. What if we didn't have wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment maybe we could have gone after BOTH. Maybe if we didn't get involved in any of this mishegas we could devote full-time to the escalating crisis in Somalia, a country without a functioning government where 30,000 children have died from cholera there in just the last 3 months alone in this the land of Famine and Drought. The Arab Spring has turned into the long hot summer. We preferred to do business with Assad instead, Hillary even referred to him as a "reformer" not that long ago but here's a great way to cut federal spending and put a dent in the debt and deficit at the same time -- STOP ALL WARS! Just sayin'. BTW has "just sayin'" become an annoying catch phrase yet? just sayin':)

Life's little miseries

(TMI Disclaimer: If you don't like scatological commentary please turn the page. If u post thanx 4 sharing why did you just read the whole thing?) You see the thing about Port-o-Sans -- there are two on the South County Trail, one at Great Hunger Memorial Park in Ardsley which I still refer to as Woodlands and the other at the Farragut Ave. parking lot at the Hastings-on-the-Hudson end. Now for me to use a Port-o-San for the other thing it has to be Absolutely Necessary, some kind of an apocalyptic emergency, Omega Man with the trots and so yesterday sparing the reader the more graphic details a critical decision was rendered that at the end of my walk I would bite the bullet. There exists a Murphy's Law of Port-o-Sans, it's a cosmic mechanism that doesn't vary and that is that somebody always took a dump before you got there. Doesn't matter if the tank guy just came by a half hour before to clean the place out and hose it down and in this case that same tank guy ain't coming 'til next Tuesday and yesterday was Thursday. At this point due to the condition of the facility ANOTHER critical decision was rendered to wait for the public library to open at 10:00, geez only about 40 minutes away so this is where your meditative powers and use of nice pleasant imagery like babbling brooks comes into heavy play. Now I've used enough public facilities in my lifetime to come to the conclusion that this nation ain't digesting its food right, it's a public health concern and just this morning I checked out the other Port-o-San at Farragut out of a kind of perverse curiosity and same deal. Someone shellshocked by Life, the same jogger working off a bad divorce? Ah what job stress hath wrought, what it's done to our once fine country and they can't pay this tank guy enough imo (Spanish guy, go figure). Basic potty training is the foundation of Civilization and we're obviously a country in decline. When my friend worked at Pathmark in dairy I'd meet him there every once in a while towards the end of his shift to go out and had to go once, nothing serious mind you so he showed me through the breakroom and on to the Men's Room. Let's just say all three stalls were a federal disaster area and I asked him wha'happened? and he said one of the workers wasn't feeling good. OK I get it, I understand but how'd the stuff get on the walls? I honestly don't know how the gays do it, God bless 'em. The rest stop at the train depot at White Plains, pretty gangster. Ever have a bird crap on your head? Is that supposed to bring good luck?

Personality pools

You really do work with a garden-variety of people but I think the reason I've never fit into any of the cliques at work is I operate under a kind of inverse principle from everyone else: sometimes I'll dislike other people whom others like and conversely I'll like others who are disliked. Sets me at odds right off the bat. The majority of people I've worked with over the years seem OK but when I didn't like someone sometimes it was on a visceral, even existential level (Saty chalks this up to karmic crap in past lifetimes and it's an interesting theory). More likely of the ones I didn't like despite their popularity I saw them as somehow being phony and conniving or some other group of strong negatives. I judge character with other criteria besides popularity and it's like sometimes they know it, they can sense it and there's a vibe in the air and they know that you know you're on to them and whatever bullshit game they're playing. On the other hand back in the day we once had this district manager who was strongly and I mean strongly disliked and there was practically a consensus about him. Prick was one of the nicer terms used and yet I liked him and said to a co-worker once that you may disagree with him at times but what I like about him is he shows passion for his job, his position, takes it seriously and has a good knowledge of his district and what needs to be done. Most DM's I've encountered over the years come across as simply bland titleholders who are more interested in teeing off on a nice day than learning the ropes but this DM was different and had a kind of youthful enthusiasm for the job. Now my lady boss at the time when everyone learned he was being reassigned to our region was clearly perturbed, said he's a pain in the ass and other choice words and yet I felt like saying to her some of us feel about you the way you feel about him. The best workers I"ve worked with tend to fall into the ethnic categories of Latinos and Asians. I don't even care if the Latinos aren't full citizens as they say but they work their asses off and the phrase work like a Mexican came into widespread use for a reason. Asians are quiet and take orders without bitching and churn out the work product too and this goes back to their strict upbringings and the installation of values like appreciating being here in America, working and studying hard and it shows and they're moral too btw, don't go throwing other people under the bus. Getting back to the DM I think the reason why he grated so much is he just wanted people to do a little work is all and do the right thing and yet I had a manager once, an inveterate asshole who gave me a hard time but clearly won in the popularity sweepstakes. Tomorrow I have to say something about Port-o-Sans:)

Bad teachers or just bad kids?

I was never that caught up in the whole education debate in this country, not that I don't care but in the conservative worldview if I understand it correctly and I think I do there are an awful lot of bad teachers in the public schools and so if we just got rid of teacher tenure everything would be hunky-dory. In fact this is one issue they really get their dander up about, endless columns to the point where I just cruise them and turn the page but dunno man, maybe the problem is with the Kids. In our discussion of utterly boring and meaningless jobs Saty had this to say: "Quite a lot of jobs could be made more interesting by the motivation and willingness of the person doing it to make it more interesting." Just substitute the word class for jobs and student instead of person and the same point applies to education. What's a teacher to do with a class full of asshole kids, fidgety brats who won't sit still and aren't willing to learn? I started out very early in the public school system but then my folks switched me over to private but out of all those years I don't really recall too many truly bad teachers. Maybe a few were too boring and dry for my tastes and could have been better but to hear conservatives tell the tale......Mayor Bloomberg's multimillion dollar Black and Latino Initiative in NYC has as a key component teaching the young'ens all about Sex, rubber instructions, things like that but if I may borrow from the soapster here it is not even the primary obligation of the State to educate your kid. It certainly isn't to teach them something Mom and Dad should be teaching them anyway and I say teach 'em a trade, how to make money, how to get a job. How is learning about Mike and Fred adopting a kid gonna pay the bills down the road? Now Mayor Bloomberg somehow got the law changed in the City so he could run for a third term and we get this stuff for his finale and pedestrian plazas where cars used to be and bike lanes nobody really uses and he even wants to have food grade inspections for New York's trademark fast food vendors because in his words if he's buying a hot dog he wants to know whether the guy washed his hands first. Maybe you want one of those giant salted pretzels and Moussa just took a dump. I just shut my mind off to it:)

Wasted time

A co-worker and I were having this discussion last night. Take the most boring, unsatisfying and mundane job you can think of, fill in blank but we can start with armpit sniffer if you like and I said in a way it's tragic, those are lost hours of your life you can never get back to read a book, to watch a documentary on cheetahs, to go for a walk, to cultivate a friendship or any of a hundred other activities that give enjoyment and meaning to you personally. He thought for a moment and considered but then said "but you're getting paid for it." A strong logical point and I had to think for a minute. His is a common attitude, perhaps the prevailing one but dunno I said, I disagree. Since work is such a large part of our lives, such a huge chunk of Time really it should at least be satisfying and fulfilling on some level, have some overall Meaning. Now we all feel being stuck in a traffic jam is a perfect waste of time but let's say we got paid a little for it to take the edge off, to compensate us for the pain of our boredom and delay would it still be wasted time? My friend would obviously say no but I say yes it would still be since a traffic jam is not even remotely related to the meaning and purpose of Life. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the motive power of Life is simply the joy of existence, that's good enough for me and by this standard being in a coma for ten years even if you're lucky enough to come out of it accounts for Time Lost and the Good Lord doesn't give those back unless there's some kind of holdover system into your next life. You'll often hear conservatives say that prisoners these days have the life. This is rather asinine and I have to say something about this. The prisoner's real sentence here is wasted time and I don't care if there's a gym involved and three square meals a day and cable tv, it's still prison. I would rather be at home at night watching that good cheetah documentary or reading a stimulating book or doing a challenging crossword puzzle and this is the short list because I'm somehow broadening my horizons, massaging my imagination, increasing my knowledge if only by increments whereas the totally nonfulfilling job takes important time away from doing this and far more besides and even taking into account the monetary consideration involved it's a total waste of my time although apparently not of my friend's and that's cool, to each his own as they say. If I could call this blog anything it's a kind of ongoing Manifesto of Life. They say you learn something new everyday. By my reckoning if you live to be 5oo you'll be a Genius:)