A Brief Update from Egypt

Here’s the latest we have from Egypt:

1. At 2:30 this morning (U.S. Central Time), we received a text message from Meredith informing us that texting, at least, was working again. She said everyone there is well and safe, and advised against putting too much stock in TV news reports. Apparently things there are indeed bad, but not as bad nor as widespread as the news makes it seem.

2. She texted again around 7:30 a.m. with this bulletin:

“Dude, they have Justice League in Arabic on TV!”

3. Cheered by this good news, we then inquired about her well-being, and she replied: "Good. Just chilling for the time being. They’re keeping us within the hotel/airport/airport mall complex until midnight, when my group will be bused to the international terminal.”

(Midnight in Cairo is 4:00 p.m. U.S. Central Time.)

So far, so good. More news as there is news.

Update to "Is LinkedIn Blocking References to Egypt? And Why?"

After three attempts, LinkedIn accepted my posting of my previous blog entry, “Is LinkedIn Blocking References to Egypt? And Why?” But it still will not allow me to post the link to the original newspaper article. Curious.

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Is LinkedIn Blocking References to Egypt? And Why?

This is interesting: My daughter is quoted in an article that appeared in this morning’s local paper, “Augustana College band plays on amid turmoil in Egypt,” which, naturally enough, I decided to share with various friends and acquaintances. I posted a link to the article on Facebook and on Twitter with no problem, but when I attempted to share it on LinkedIn, I got this message—repeatedly, on several attempts over the course of a half-hour or so:

So I went on about my business, and later returned to LinkedIn. Same results. But in reading articles online about the Egyptian government’s cutting off internet and cellphone service (which our daughter notified us about this morning, calling from a pay phone in Cairo), something suddenly crossed my suspicious little mind. 

I went back to LinkedIn and tried the post again. Same “something unexpected happened” non-result.

Then I attempted to post a link to a New York Times editorial about the curious case of the Arthur Conan Doyle estate authorizing a new Sherlock Holmes novel (“The Authorized Sleuth,” if you must know;), and seconds later there was the link, in all its glory, on my LinkedIn page or wall or feed or whatever they want to call it.

So I tried the Augustana Band link again...and “something unexpected happened” again. Only by now it wasn’t unexpected, at least not by me.

One hates to be the Boy Who Cried “Censorship!”—but one does come away with the distinct impression that the minds behind LinkedIn have decided to block the posting of items that pertain to or even merely mention Egypt, regardless of said items’ content. Since I habitually cross-post these little blog items to LinkedIn, it will be interesting to see if that link is allowed.

I may or may not try the Augie Band link again, omitting “Egypt” from the headline, and see if that passes LinkedIn’s watchdogs.

If indeed LinkedIn is practicing this sort of mindless, blanket censoring of its members’ posts, I predict I will be utilizing it a great deal less than has been my habit in the recent past. Which I’m sure must strike fear into its corporate heart. But if in fact that’s what’s going on here, it points to a corporate culture that I find completely odious, not to mention stupid, and one with which I would chose not to associate.

Stay tuned.

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Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

What I don’t know about the zodiac is only slightly less than how much I care about the zodiac, but this makes no sense to me.

According to Gawker.com, citing the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, astronomers have divined how the ancient Babylonians intended the zodiac to be “by recalculating the dates that correspond with each sign to accommodate millennia of subtle shifts in the Earth’s axis.” So far so good. But here is that “corrected” zodiac, “with the dates corresponding to the times of the year that the sun is actually in each constellation’s ‘house’”—whatever that means—“according to the Minnesota Planetarium Society’s Parke Kunkle”:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.

Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.

Pisces: March 11-April 18.

Aries: April 18-May 13.

Taurus: May 13-June 21.

Gemini: June 21-July 20.

Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.

Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.

Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.

Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.

Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.

Ophiuchus:* Nov. 29-Dec. 17.

Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

* Discarded by the Babylonians because they wanted 12 signs per year.

Fine by me, but here’s the deal: I was born on December 17; used to be I was a Sagittarius. And maybe I still am...it’s hard to tell, since the list says Ophiuchus covers November 29-December 17, and Sagittarius covers December 17-January 20. (Indeed, all of the signs overlap on dates that way.) Is that a misprint, or is there a particular time of day at work here? Born before noon, you’re an Ophiuchus, born after noon, you’re a Sagittarius...something like that? Some astrological type help me out here.

I see that Ophiuchus means “serpent-bearer,” which is cool enough, but it would be good to know which “house” or lean-to or whatever I was born in. Yes, it’s been a good 30 years since anyone began a conversation by asking me what my sign is. But you never know, and a guy likes to be prepared.

Meanwhile, there's this from Five Man Electrical Band, which asks if I can’t read the sign. Which, obviously, I can't.

Whose Crimes?

I’m guessing that ABC News means that Gov. Richardson cited the crimes of Billy the Kid and not any that the governor himself may have committed...but that’s not in fact what the blurb says:

Looks like your sixth-grade English teacher was right: Modifiers do matter.

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They Do Understand it's Just a Comic Book, Right?

Although I read Marvel Comics’ Thor comic book back in the day—the heyday, I should say, the late 1960s and early 1970s when it was being rendered with a good deal of over-the-top pseudo-mythological seriousness by the great team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the often-maligned Vince Coletta—I wasn’t that big a fan. (Big enough to note that the actual title of the book was The Mighty Thor, since in those days nearly all Marvel heroes had an official adjective: The Amazing Spider-Man; The Incredible Hulk; The Invincible Iron Man. And a big enough fan to note that, early on, the book was titled Journey into Mystery, and so by the time I came along the cover line was, confusingly, Journey into Mystery with The Mighty Thor. So maybe I was a biggish fan.)

Anyhow, I have noted with some interest the development of a Major Motion Picture based on Marvel’s Thor...including this interesting tidbit from from Right Wing Watch:

Council of Conservative Citizens To Boycott "Thor" Over Casting of Black Actor

Well, of course. Who wouldn’t?

Naturally, having never heard of the Council of Conservative Citizens before, I hied on over to the right-wingnut organization’s website to see what it was that had them so worked up. And, well, who could blame them? It seems that Marvel Comics—my beloved Marvel Comics of old—has declared war on the gods of Asgard! By Odin’s beard!

From the Council’s website:

Marvel Studios declares war on Norse mythology

Norse mythology gets a multi-cultural remake in the upcoming movie titled “Thor,” by Marvel studios. It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin.

It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves. An upcoming movie, based on the comic book Thor, will give Norse mythology an insulting multi-cultural make-over. One of the Gods will be played by Hip Hop DJ Idris Elba.

Setting aside for the moment the interesting fact that the Council chooses to capitalize “God” in reference to mythological gods—a practice that I would expect Conservative Citizens to decry, leading me to conclude they must of course be anti-Christian Conservative Citizens, since they obviously uphold other gods besides the God of Abraham—I’m left with one single burning question:

Don’t they know that Thor is a movie based on a comic book?

Which is to say, it is not a movie about Norse mythology. The producers have not gone to ancient source materials for a rollicking retelling of the legends of Odin, Thor, Baldr, Heimdall, and the rest of that jolly crew. It’s a movie based on a comic book that pulls some characters, places, and themes from the mythos and recasts them in a superhero mold. (Indeed, in the early days Thor had a secret identity and everything—including an interesting slant on the old Clark Kent-Lois Lane-Superman triangle, in which Thor’s love interest thought that his human alter-ego, Donald Blake, was a dreamboat and didn’t really seem to give two hoots about Thor.)

Given that, the moronic objection to Heimdall being portrayed by a black actor obviously isn’t so much about protecting Norse mythology as it is complaining about the casting of an actor who is...well, not white.

Racist claptrap, in other words. These clowns are “insulted” because a movie studio cast a black man to play-act in a flick based on a comic book.

As my wife commented when I shared this, The Most Idiotic Thing I’ve Read all Week, with her: “Some people need to get jobs.”

Naturally, the wingnuts have begun a campaign to boycott the movie. I wasn’t too sure I’d bother to see Thor in a theatre—you know how it is: sometimes you just wait for the DVD to appear—but now I’m pretty sure I’ll spring for a ticket, just on principle.

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Should Have Consulted a Nerd

This from today's Salon.com e-mail:

One doesn't need to be much of a science fiction nerd to know that the character in question is Mister Spock, not Doctor Spock. I haven't heard him misidentified in that fashion since, probably, the early 1970s. Is it possible that my father has been reincarnated and is working at Salon.com?

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What to Get for the Man Who's always Offended?

This started out as a letter to the editor of my local rag, in response to a spectacularly idiotic letter published in the edition of 12/12/10. The letter went like this:

“Happy holidays” is offensive 

It’s “Merry Christmas” - not “Happy holidays” - and yes, it’s a religious holiday. 

Some undoubtedly will argue that there are people who don’t celebrate Christmas, which is absolutely fine. Yet they take the holiday pay and the time off from work. 

If you are that opposed to Christmas, then volunteer to work in place of those who do celebrate it and turn down the holiday pay universally associated with Christmas. 

In a world of withering political correctness, “Happy holidays” is an offensive phrase to those of us who celebrate Christmas. 

So “Merry Christmas” to all of you.

Usually such inanity merely makes me chuckle and/or shake my head in wonderment, not so much at people’s boundless bone-headedness but also at their willingness, nay, eagerness to put said bone-headedness on public display.

But this time around, rather than just move on to the next page, I found myself musing on the reason (if “reason” is the right word) someone would take offense at being greeted with “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” And so it was that I drafted a quick letter to the editor...which turned out to be about twice as long as the paper claims to want them to be (although I note that they violate their guidelines pretty frequently), and which I decided not to cleave to the bone to satisfy somebody’s arbitrary word count. So here’s my take, in all its verbose glory:

I had a nice little chuckle from the letter titled “‘Happy holidays’ is offensive” in Sunday’s Argus Leader. It’s always amusing at this time of year when people decide to be “offended” if they are not greeted the “right” way, or if they see “Xmas” instead of “Christmas” (ignorant, perhaps purposely, of the fact that since the earliest days of the church X—the Greek letter chi, from the Greek word for Christ—has been used to represent Jesus, and thus as an abbreviation is no more disrespectful than, say, WWJD), or when they see themselves as soldiers in the nonexistent “war on Christmas.” Oh, what fun it is to see people tie themselves into knots of indignation for no reason at all.

But I find myself wondering why someone would be offended by receiving the “wrong” greeting. Seems to me that it’s nice to be greeted at all, and nice that the person doing the greeting seems to understand that there are many holidays at this time of year, not just Christmas, and that the real offense would be to presume that the person being greeted celebrates a particular one of them.

So why take offense at what is obviously such an innocent greeting?

The answer, I think, is simple: Selfishness. Sheer childish self-centeredness. If you don’t greet ME the “right” way, the way I want to be greeted, then I take offense! I am indignant! I instantly recognize you as someone who is “opposed to Christmas” (as the recent letter has it)—that is, you are my enemy, and you must be crushed!

As a fan of irony, I enjoy how this “I am offended” mentality is so completely at odds with the message of Christmas—peace, goodwill, that sort of thing—and indeed so contrary to the teachings of him who the “offended” profess to follow—you know, the fellow who proposed people turn the other cheek, love their neighbor, forgive their brother “until seventy times seven,” etc. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus admonish his followers to take up arms if our neighbor wishes us “Happy Holidays” or a local ad touts its “Xmas” sale.

My advice to the “offended": Get over yourselves. We are told that this season all about Jesus (I refuse to repeat the gratingly idiotic rhyme that we see see all over the place at this time of year)—which is another way of saying that it’s not all about you! The coming of the Savior does not depend on other people greeting you with the exact phrase you wish to hear when you wish to hear it.

Relax, for goodness’ sake. Enjoy the holidays a little!

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Yes, By All Means, Be Specific!

A screenshot from a survey I took awhile back. Still trying to figure out how I could not have been specific, given the instructions.

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Advertising...What, Exactly?

The column "Q. and A. with Stuart Elliott" in the New York Times this week featured a question from a reader who wondered what the theme music from Magnum, P.I. was doing in a make-up commercial--specifically, a spot for Maybelline's oddly named Falsies mascara.

Elliott quotes a spokeswoman for Maybelline's ad agency saying that the spot features three "women on a mission" a la Charlie's Angels, but the theme from that show didn't "feel right with the flow of the spot," so they went with the Magnum, P.I. theme instead. (The column is online here.)

That's all well and good, I guess, but I know that back in my ad-agency days I'd have never taken such an idea to a client, and if the client came up with it on his own I'd've strongly argued against it. Why? Because iconic music such as the Magnum, P.I. theme or (even more inexplicably) the theme from The Andy Griffith Show, which has been used in a recent minivan commercial, or the theme from Bewitched, used in commercials for a brand of kitchen appliances, has the effect of distracting the viewer from the product being advertised and pulling his or her attention to the familiar music and the TV series with which it's associated. All of a sudden I'm thinking about Darrin and Samantha Stevens, Endora, Dr. Bombay, and the Kravitzes--notthe fabulous kitchen appliances I'm supposed to be thinking about.

No doubt advertising has changed a great deal these past 20-odd years (we were shocked back then when a rival agency put together a spot for a local video-store chain titled--on screen, no less!--"Video Junkies," since any reference to addiction in such contexts was considered taboo; now it's commonplace, to the point where the local cable company built a whole campaign around urging people to "Get Hooked"), but I can hardly believe that its central objective is no longer to sell product.

Seven Years On

Seven years ago this morning, my dad called me in a panic because he couldn’t wake Mom. We had had a similar episode a couple of months earlier (as if she was in a very deep slumber from which she could not be awoken, for reasons no one ever was able to explain), and I expected it to be a repeat. But by the time I alerted the kids to what was up (they were still abed, having no school that way) and got over to my folks’, it was all done. “She’s gone, Bill,” my father said, and that was that.

As I said to my wife this morning, in some ways it seems impossible that it’s already been seven years since Mom died, but in other ways it seems impossible that it’s been only seven years. That is, I guess, the nature of things.

Here’s a great snapshot that I scanned some time back. I suspect it’s from my parents’ dating days, putting it around 1953 or so.

Back row, from left: Mom’s brother, my uncle Tom Bosco; Mom’s father, Carmine Caliendo; Sarah Bosco, Tom’s wife; Mom’s sister, Joan Caliendo; my cousin Connie Bosco, Tom and Sarah’s daughter.

Front row, from left: My cousin Freddy Bosco, Tom and Sarah’s son; Mom and Dad; unknown (I think her name was Sharon); Mom’s brother, Martin Caliendo; Mom’s sister, my aunt Tina Bosco.

Halloween 2003

It was on this date seven years ago that I saw my mother alive for the last time.

We had taken the kids trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and, as was our custom, then piled into the car to trick-or-treat at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Mom had had a rough summer and autumn: An aortic aneurysm (her second) had been detected in July, and she was flown to Mayo for emergency surgery; the surgery went well, but seemed to trigger respiratory problems that saw her in and out of the hospital for the rest of the summer, culminating with a month's stay at a nursing home for respiratory therapy that didn't seem to accomplish much. Still, she had been home for about a week when Halloween rolled around, and in fact was feeling, looking, and sounding much better. We would later say that we thought she had turned a corner, but didn't realize which corner; one week later she died.

Here is one of my favorite photos of my parents, from their dating days, which would make it around 1953. It always makes me smile.

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Just Open the Attachment!

It's been awhile since I've received any good spam. (Regular readers will know that I am always appreciative of well-done, thoughtful spamming, spoofing, or phishing, and disdainful of the slapdash, half-hearted efforts that seem to clog my inbox these days. Does no one take pride in his work anymore? See here and here for past expositions on the subject.)

What came today isn't especially good, spam-wise, but it earns points in the Chutzpah category, for coming right out and suggesting I download an attachment to the e-mail. ("Hey, you know all that stuff about never downloading anything from someone you don't know? Nevermind.")

Anyhow, here's the missive, carrying the provocative subject line "Your account was accesed by a third party" and purportedly coming from HSBC Bank plc. (alert@hsbc-online.co.uk) (one of my numerous European bank accounts, no doubt. So numerous that I lose track of them all the time):

Dear Customer,

We detected irregular activity on your HSBC

Internet banking account on 26/10/2010.

For your protection, you must verify this

activity before you can continue using your

account.

Please download the document attached to this

email to review your account activity.

We will review the activity on your account

with you and upon verification,

and we will remove any restrictions placed on

your account.

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise

but to temporaly suspend your account.

We ask that you allow at least 72 hours for the case to be

investigated and we strongly recommend to verefy (sic) your

account in that time.

Best Regards,

Colette Nugent

Head of Customer Communications

© Copyright HSBC Holdings plc 2010 - All rights reserved

The attachment (which I somehow have not gotten around to downloading) is cleverly called "Verify.html." Seems a little odd to me that an alleged review of my account activity would be in an html document. But then it seems a little odd that they would e-mail me such a thing in the first place. Considering I'm not a customer or anything.

Another oddity: The (sic) in the above message, after the misspelled "verefy"? They put that there! I have no idea why. Nor do I know why they failed to add (sic) after the equally misspelled "choise."

In general, however, this is a pretty average bit of flummery...no graphics, no seemingly legit links, nothing really of interest at all except the damn-the-torpedoes suggestion that I just go right ahead and click on that attachment right there. Hey, what's the worst that can happen, right?

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Making it Work

With a little surprise, I observe that it’s been nearly a month since my latest post. (Well, in fact, it’s been only a few minutes since my latest post, a little froth that I whipped up based on Yet Another Strange Internet Observation this morning. I mean it’s been several weeks since my last post before, er, my latest post.)

I shouldn’t be surprised, though. About five weeks ago I started a new job several months after being downsized from my previous employment of nearly a decade (“Gainful Employment”, September 10, 2010), and it’s been pretty hectic with learning new responsibilities, new personalities, new routines, a new corporate culture, and so on.

And of course at the same time a guy still has all “the usual” going on—you know, life and stuff. Even after only eight months I’d forgotten how much formal employment cuts into one’s day.

While this is going on in my little corner of the world, I have a couple of friends whose employment situations are less shiny. One probably won’t be in that situation much longer, thanks to various external forces; the other shouldn’t be, since the situation is completely untenable and intolerable, to the point of creating some pretty alarming health issues.

Pondering my friends’ cases and contrasting it with my own recent good fortune, I reflected again on the value of being valued in one’s employment—a feeling I had all but forgotten in the waning days of my previous employment. “You’re a real asset to the office, that’s why we’re throwing you under the wheels” strikes one as something of a discrepancy, and does little to foster a sense of worth or value to the undertaking. Add to that the fact that a sizable percentage of what I had dedicated myself to for the better part of a decade simply went away when I left, and one comes away with the nagging feeling that he’s wasted a considerable amount of time and energy for no lasting good. Having now come into a workplace where it seemed from the get-go, and still seems, that my contribution is welcomed and appreciated, I see how much I had missed that before. And how important it is to one’s well-being and self-esteem.

I’ve reflected too on how much employment is like a personal relationship. You have to put yourself out there, expose yourself, make yourself vulnerable, at least to an extent. Maybe you’ll be accepted, maybe you’ll be rejected. It’s a little like asking for a date. Then there’s that whole getting-o-know-you phase, during which time you start to see the cracks a little. And you don’t know—and probably won’t for awhile, and maybe not ever—how long it will last, how real it will be, how compatible you’ll prove to be, how much you or they will or will not change.

Just like real life.

As in a personal relationship, our relationship to our work, and our workplace, can be a source of affirmation, contentment, even joy. Or it can be a living hell. Or, I suppose, all of the above.

So far so good, for me. I like what I’m doing, I like the people I’m working with, I like the conditions and the culture. (Office gets a little hot in the afternoon, but I’ve decided to wait and see how it is in the dead of winter before I start to whine about it.) But I have to say that I feel bad for my aforementioned friends, and a couple of others, who aren’t experiencing that sort of contentment or affirmation in their work or work environment. It’s a real shame. It’s a real shame for everybody in that position. We spend so much time and invest so much of ourselves in our work; it should be worth more than just a paycheck. (Even though a paycheck is indeed what brought me to my current engagement. I’m not against paychecks, mind!) Certainly it should not be soul- and psyche-crushing.

I think of that every time I hear some deep thinker profess that “any job is a good job.” Naturally, they’re always talking about someone else when they say things like that.

And they’re wrong.

For must of us, employment is necessary. But it shouldn’t be a necessary evil.

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How Mysterious the Internet Is

Okay, so I’m reading this article from this morning's USA Today...

...and somehow, based on that, USA Today or the great and powerful internet or, I don’t know, God himself concludes that I might be interested in these other articles as well:

But of course. One logically would conclude that anyone who’s interested in a topic such as, say, the nature of the God of All Creation, the Ground of All Being, the Omniscient Omnipotent Alpha and Omega will likewise be interest in “Celebrity Birthdays” or “Surprising Origins of Everyday Phrases.”

I mean, what else?

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But Can You Believe It?

As will surprise no one even noddingly acquainted with this little blog, I am a fan of quotations. Always have been. In high school I had a small black binder in which I compulsively jotted interesting quotations that I came upon. Today I’m more efficient though no less geeky: I find and share them via the internet, including this blog.

Lately I’ve been encountering and sharing a fair number of quotations via Twitter--in fact, it occurred to me not long ago that I need to quit following so many whose tweets consist only of quotations, since my Twitter page (@wjreynolds; see all my fun tweets over to the left there) is getting pretty clogged up with quotations, many of which are tweeted and retweeted and re-retweeted to a disturbing extent--by the original tweeter, I mean, which gets to be a little old.

One of the things I’ve noted about the quotations I see on Twitter is that the vast majority of them are intended to be “inspirational.” Which is fine. We can all use a little inspiration, a little motivation, a little boost to get us over life’s speed bumps.

What we don’t need, however, is to be lied to about life.

And I’m afraid there’s a subset of “inspirational” quotes that does precisely that.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them—Walt Disney

Sorry, Walt, but that’s simply not true. All of our dreams? Nonsense. People die every day having had dreams that never came true. I hope they died having had dreams that did come true, too, of course, but the idea that every dream can come true if we work hard enough or never give up or, oddly, have sufficient “courage,” is, I’m afraid, only a dream. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue our dreams; definitely we should! But the notion that pursuit guarantees success is silly.

Any person who contributes to prosperity must prosper in turn. —E. Nightingale

That’s a great sentiment and I endorse it wholeheartedly...except for the words “must” and “prosper.” Lots of people contribute to prosperity and get swindled--if we’re using “prosperity” in a concrete, dollars-and-cents way. If we’re talking about prospering spiritually or morally by contributing to the overall prosperity of our fellow human beings, then I have no issue with it. But if we mean monetarily, then no. Anyone who has been paying any attention to the war on the American middle class has to know that Mr. Nightingale’s comment is noble but untrue. Change “must” to “should,” though, and I’m on board!

We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish. —Tony Robbins

Ooh--started off great there, Tony, and then botched it. It’s the Disney Fallacy again: You can (and should) pursue your dreams, but there is no guarantee--none, whatsoever, in any shape or form, ever--that so doing will make them happen. For instance, I would like to be six feet tall and have a full head of wavy black hair. But it is quite impossible. Doesn’t matter how hard I try, how positively I think, how many motivational quotations I memorize. Ain’t gonna happen. Ever.

Better I should concentrate on what can or may happen rather than delude myself into thinking that anything is achievable.

Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it. —Wayne Dyer

More of the same. I realize that I receive and then transmit these quotations out of whatever their original context might be. It’s possible that the speaker or writer went on to elucidate more clearly their meaning, and delineated the obvious stumbling blocks and outright barriers that stand in the way of their supposed “achieve everything” message. But I contend that the stock in trade of motivational speakers and writers is that “sound bite,” that pithy, telegraphic message that resonates with people, and sometimes falls under the heading of telling people what they want to hear. Dr. Dyer’s quotation above seems to fit that category. Truth is, you cannot attain anything you “really want” if you “really go after it.” You can attain some things, but not “anything.” Not everything in life is under our control, or bendable to our will. To believe that it is borders on delusion.

The escape clause in many of these quotations lies in the phrasing: Oh, when I said “you can achieve anything” I meant “can” in the sense of “it’s possible.” Ah. I guess “you might” or “you could” is less catchy than “you can.” I said you can attain things you really want if you really try. If you don’t attain them, you must not have wanted or tried enough. Oh, I assure you: I really want to be six feet tall and have a full head of wavy black hair. Won’t happen.

So it is that I prefer and find more inspiration in quotations that speak to what life is and what life may be, and how we should live our lives.

The reality you experience is a reflection of what you believe is most possible. —Bashar

A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. —Henrik Ibsen

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. —Carl Zwanzig

Okay, that last one was just for fun. I like those too.

And I especially like this one, which I think most accurately reflects reality:

Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. —Langston Hughes

Now that is inspirational!

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Gainful Employment

This past week I started a new job, just a week shy of the eight-month anniversary of my having been "downsized" from my previous gig of nearly a decade.

The new job continues a pattern that runs through my entire employment history: Only once have I landed a job that I saw advertised and then pursued; the rest have all been the result of the phone ringing and my answering it.

It's not what you know, and, it turns out, it's not who you know, either. It's who knows you.

I am back on the religion beat, and back among my Lutheran chums. After being thrown down the stairs in my previous position, I commented that I would not be in too big a hurry to work for a religious organization again. It was true eight or nine months ago, and I'd be kidding if I didn't say I approached what is now my current position with some wariness. Once bitten, and so on.

But it was nice to be thought of, and the interview went very well (you can always tell they're going well when you get offered the job on the spot), and the old exchequer acted like it could use some positive cash flow again, so...

The week has been exhausting, as I always find the first couple of weeks in a new job to be. But the people I am working with all seem very nice--more to the point, genuinely nice, since "nice" is a pretty cheap commodity, I've discovered, and although the week was colossally hectic (everyone kept telling me it isn't usually like that; sure hope so), I never had the feeling that I was in the crosshairs, which was a pretty constant feeling in the old job.

There is, of course, a great satisfaction in gainful employment, especially in an area in which one is experiences, which one likes, and which one can do reasonably well (specifically, communication: Publications and website, mostly). But there is a deeper satisfaction, it develops, in being in a setting in which one's contribution seems to be valued, where one's co-workers appear to respect and appreciate whatever expertise and experience one may bring to the table--even though one is still a virtual stranger to them. I'm only four days into the job, yes, but I have gotten the feeling from every single one of my colleagues--the top guns as well as my fellow staffers--that they are glad to have me on board and appreciate my contribution.

I felt that occasionally, and from certain individuals, in my previous assignment, but for the most part I felt that my role was viewed as merely another interchangeable cog in the machine, just some quasi-anonymous someone pulling one of the oars. That feeling was driven home rather keenly when I was informed that my reward for nearly a decade of loyal service would be the privilege of being the first to be thrown overboard when revenue grew tight. Nothing personal, of course, but we've decided we can get along nicely without your invaluable contribution. This way to the plank...

So it is refreshing--and, I must say, surprising--to feel that my work actually counts for something, actually has value in the eyes of someone other than myself alone, and to have that sentiment expressed in attitudes and demeanor rather than in platitudes that ring hollow since they come while one is simultaneously being given the bum's rush.

Yes, I realize that I am still in that golden "honeymoon" phase. But that hardly diminishes the pleasantness of it all.

Work should be about more than just a paycheck. This feels like work that could be that. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm very glad that my phone rang. Glad I answered it. And glad that, despite my recent sour experience, I did not dismiss the current opportunity out of hand.

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Email: A Love-Hate Relationship?

I just got through glancing at yet another article that purports to tell me how to Get More Stuff Done, and which, as seems to be de rigueur these days, includes the advice to check e-mail only once a day.

Without question, e-mail can be a huge time-sink, but I am surprised by the number of people who still treat it as some sort of outside influence, a thief whose only purpose is to steal time. One may also waste a great deal of time on the telephone—in fact, it’s my opinion that e-mail is a more efficient way of communicating that telephone, in most instances— but I have yet to see anyone advise that telephone messages should be returned only once per day. It would be bad advice indeed to say that one should begin his or her workday by returning any messages that may be found in voicemail and then unplug the phone for the duration of the day. Seems pretty unlikely that customers, clients, co-workers, or employers would appreciate much all of the time I’m “saving” by having only one set time during the day in which I “do” telephone.

Why would anyone think that e-mail is any different?

The beauty of e-mail, in my experience, is that I can e-mail you when it’s convenient for me and you can reply when it’s convenient for you. There’s no pas de deux in which we play telephone tag while trying, perhaps in vain, to connect in real time. Talk about time-wasters!

Naturally, there’s a lot of junk and distraction to be found in e-mail, but anyone with a lick of sense quickly learns how to filter that out as he or she scans the inbox list, deleting that which clearly is unworthy and leaving for later that which may be interesting or noteworthy, but not important at the moment.

And anyone without a lick of sense will find other distractions to waste time with.

The other efficiency that e-mail offers is to allow both the sender and recipient to get to the point! For instance, I returned to my home office the other week to a phone message from an acquaintance. His message basically told me who he was and that he wished to talk to me, and his office number. No idea what he wanted to talk about, so no way to prepare for the conversation, if preparation was indicated. I returned his call and left a message; he called back and we connected. We discussed the reason for his call, and set up a time to meet. All of which could have been handled in two e-mail messages.

But that requires that one monitors his or her e-mail just as one monitors his or her phone messages. I would never return from lunch, or a meeting, or any other adventure away from my desk without checking for messages; why would I not do the same with my e-mail messages? The idea is absurd to me.

Yet I am aware of some people’s love-hate relationship with e-mail. Sometimes it has to do with a greater technophobia, but just as often it seems rooted in that attitude I referred to above, in which e-mail— perhaps the computer itself— is still viewed as some kind of “outsider” in the workplace. These people, I find, tend to put off “doing” e-mail for as long as possible, which only means that it is a bigger and more daunting chore when finally they undertake it.

Which is another reason I think the once-per-day “rule” is bad advice: It only means that the inbox will be teeming with messages the next time you check it. To visit it periodically throughout the day and weed out the debris is much more efficient.

Some time back I worked with a woman who, well, hated e-mail. It was a chore, a burden, a distraction. She viewed it as something that took her away from her work rather than a communication medium that was as much a part of her work as the telephone or a written letter. She tended to avoid “doing” e-mail, with the result indicated above: When she forced herself to look at it, she had literally hundreds of messages! Worse, many of the were messages that required action— yet another reason the once-per-day advocates are steering you wrong. Which made the process an even bigger chore, which meant she avoided it all the more, and on and on. The snowball effect.

I recall one day in which she complained— partly in jest, but of course partly in seriousness— that she had spent the entire morning “doing” e-mail. She had replied to one particular message, and then moved down the list...until she got a reply from the person she had just replied to! And she was a little put out by that. “Don’t people have anything better to do than e-mail all day?” she railed— again, only partly in jest.

To me, that attitude was and is bizarre. Would she have felt the same about a telephone exchange? Let’s say she came in to work and had voicemail from a person. She returns the call, gets his voicemail, and leaves a reply. Two minutes later the guy calls her back with a follow-up question or comment. Would she complain that people have nothing better to do than telephone all day? Seems unlikely.

It occurs to me as well that “wasting” time is largely in the eye of the beholder. What you may view as my waste of time may be to me a legitimate undertaking— indeed, even a time-saving undertaking, since we all know that there are many instances in which an investment in time is required now in the hope of streamlining a process later.

Almost everyone agrees that the best way to tackle a large chore is to break it down into smaller pieces than can be handled one at a time. Why, then, would anyone advise one to let e-mail pile up until it becomes a large and onerous chore? I suggest it’s because the would-be adviser has issues with e-mail; and my advice would be to ignore that advice!

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Let It Be Said

I see that it's been a good while since I last pieced together a selection of the quotations I like to collect, which is kind of a bad thing in that I've been collecting even more than before since I've been following (and am being followed by) a bunch of folks on Twitter who are into quotations as well. So here's a small batch from my file, amassed from a variety of sources and covering a variety of subjects:

“The gov’t of the US is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion. The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.” —George Washington

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.” –George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

“I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt

“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” —Albert Einstein

“The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.” —Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)

“Literature is the language of society, as speech is the language of man.” —Louis de Bonald, philosopher and politician (1754-1840)

“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.” —Mark Twain

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” —Bertrand Russell

“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.” —John Stuart Mill

“A conservative believes nothing should be done for the first time.” —Lynwood L. Giacomini

“The yearning to be heard is a yearning to escape our isolation and bridge the space that separates us.” —Michael P. Nichols

“An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.” —Arnold Glasow

“If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.” —Jack London

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” —Jack London

“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” —Mark Twain

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” –Blaise Pascal

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.” —Oscar Wilde

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Still Waiting for the "Smart" Part

Having had my BlackBerry Tour crash this afternoon, and then reboot with, oh, pretty much everything gone (last backup two months ago. Note to self: Do better at that), I am in the process of re-installing and re-creating the device. This requires me to input a certain amount of data, including ZIP Codes a couple of times and phone number at least once.

My "smart" phone doesn't seem to be smart enough to automatically insert numerals in fields that ask me for numeric information.

So I'm asked for my ZIP Code, which emerges as dzw0d. Actually not my ZIP Code, as it happens.

I know that apps can make that intuitive leap without my having to depress the alt key repeatedly, because I've seen 'em do it. So why don't all apps? I know there must be a reason, and I suspect they come down to time (lack of), energy (lack of), and interest (lack of).

A minor nuisance, but a nuisance nonetheless--and I've had quite enough nuisance the past couple-three days, thanks very much.

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