Today, October 16, is “National Feral Cat Day.” Like most animals, cats have a way of breeding if left unchecked. Although I’m strictly a dog lover, I hate to see any animal suffer because of human abuse and neglect. Thanks to fellow blogger Rumpydog for bringing this to my attention.
Filed under News
“With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey.”
– Vice President Joe Biden, during the October 11 vice presidential debate with U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan.
Malarkey – noun, unknown origin: nonsense.
Synonyms – crap, bullshit, Mitt Romney’s economic plan.
Filed under News
“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
It’s been two years now since I lost my job at the engineering company – and I haven’t been able to land a full-time job ever since. Each of the two contract positions I’ve found in the past fifteen months have been pulled out from beneath me. It’s an interesting dichotomy. I was so miserable that last year at the engineering firm it was almost a relief to be let go. Key word – almost. The only things I miss are the pay, the benefits and one of my favorite Mexican restaurants that’s a couple of blocks away from that building in downtown Dallas.
It’s a stab in the gut when you give your life to a company, and they reward you with a lay off. People put up with a lot at work: bully bosses, rude coworkers, office gossip, office politics, piss-ant reviews, chicken-shit salary increases, traffic, bad weather – us working folk go through quite a bit just to earn that paycheck. I had hoped to retire from that company, or at least work there until my writing career took off.
As tempting as it is, I won’t name the place, but you can probably find it on my Linked In page. They were two years into a contract with a large government agency when I joined them in 2002. They had a nice office in suburban Dallas, which was closer to home and where I’d work occasionally on other projects. But, I spent the bulk of my time in downtown Dallas. I’d worked for eleven years at a bank in downtown Dallas, so I was somewhat accustomed to that lifestyle.
The engineering firm had undergone the usual series of management and staff changes in the eight years I was there. But, by 2010, when we lost the prime contract with the government agency to a small business and were kept on as sub-contractors, things were different – vastly different. It wasn’t the same place I’d started with the week before Thanksgiving 2002. It had gotten so bad that everyone I knew was looking for another job. When I told a colleague not to say that too loudly, or they’d help her out the door, she casually said even our supervisor knew she was looking around. The company had experienced a number of harassment lawsuits from disgruntled former employees. Not all of them claimed victory, from what I understand, but it’s still a wonder no one returned with a shotgun. Yes, people really can get that angry. But, murder won’t just ruin your weekend; it doesn’t look good on your resume. Mercenaries and military special forces can probably get away with it, but the average white-collar fool can’t.
My parents each have been retired for some time now, but they occasionally have bad dreams about their working lives; lives they left long ago. Together, they put in a century’s worth of labor and came from an era where people went to work for a company and stayed there until they either retired or dropped dead. I’d vowed never to let a job get to me like that. Despite all the crap I endured at the bank, I never once dreamed of the place. I don’t know why, but I guess I subconsciously realized it wasn’t worth that much of my time and energy.
Yet, for some ungodly reason, I’ve had two dreams about the engineering firm. In the first, not long after they let me go, I found myself at their former corporate headquarters in California with the same project manager who had hired me. A massive seaquake had struck not far from the coast, and a tsunami was approaching. Our building sat right on the coastline, and everyone nervously went about their daily tasks, while preparing to evacuate to the upper levels once those alarms sounds. My manager told me not to worry; that if I stayed with him, we’d be alright. He’d lead me and the others to the building’s upper floors. He’d been there several times in the past, but this was my first time visiting the place. Then, I heard a distinct rumbling in the distance and realized the tsunami was on its way. But, when the alarms sounded, my manager was nowhere to be found. He’d disappeared. As chaos gripped my panicked constituents, I calmly proceeded up the stairs alone – and then woke up.
In the second dream, I was getting ready for a meeting. At the designated time, I stepped into the conference room – and found it empty. I then began running all over the damn building looking for my colleagues. To make matters worse, I was butt-ass naked. Now, don’t get me wrong! As a bona fide, red-blooded American male, I normally like being naked. But, I didn’t care to be nude in front of the menopausal debutantes and lecherous old men who populated that government agency. Alas, I couldn’t find my constituents and wandered into the break room – still naked – and sat down with my mug of ice water, a pen and some notebook paper. I’d decided to start working on a new story – and then, I woke up.
Okay, I don’t want to get too esoteric about this. They were just two stupid dreams about a company that had turned on me quicker than a rabid dog. But, I wouldn’t blame a real dog for doing something like that. Still, the dreams made me realize three things:
It’s why I’d proceeded calmly up the stairs in that first dream and why I said ‘fuck it’ in the second dream and sat down to do what I really love: creative writing.
But, am I still angry about what happened? Well, in a word – YES! Yea, yea – I know you’re supposed to let that shit go. Put a period on it and move forward with your life. But, here’s how bad I let that dump get to me. In September 2010, I visited my dentist. A back lower tooth had been aching for some time, and I was horrified to discover it was loose. I’d just been there two month earlier, and everything was fine. My dentist couldn’t understand what happened.
But, I knew what had happened. I’d been under so much stress at work that I must have ground the crap out of it, and now there was no other remedy except to yank it out.
So, along with the paltry raise and office politics I’d had to live with that last full year, this is how my career ended with the engineering company: a loose tooth. That’s it. That’s what I got for busting my butt for nearly eight years. Yes, the experience looks great on my resume. All those technical skills make for nice business conversation pieces as I scoot in and out of companies now with a bloated grin; feeling like an ugly pitbull being shuffled from one foster home to another.
Resumes never tell the full story behind a person’s working life, but it’s just not that easy sometimes letting bad experiences go – especially at work where you dedicate so much of your life. I think of that project manager who I’d considered a friend and mentor and now hope he has a radical prostatectomy that leaves him permanently impotent. I guess it’s wrong to feel that way. But, I don’t. In fact, I really hope something like that happens to him and I hope other bad shit happens to some of those people. Call me childish if you want, but – oh well. In this rotten economy brought down by the wealthiest 1% and the politicians they have stuffed in their designer pockets – none of whom can relate to us average working folks – there are a lot of people who understand exactly what I’m saying.
Still bitter? Yea, you could say that. Still moving forward? Oh yea! A tsunami couldn’t stop me!
Filed under Essays
“Blessed are the weird people – poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, troubadours – for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.”
– Jacob Nordby, author and speaker.
I’ve always known I was different – now I’ve come to see that as an attribute and not a defect. To hell with the mainstream!
Filed under News
Following up on my Columbus Day rant, I happened upon this video on Facebook, “Christian the Bible Cat’s Happy Columbus Day Celebration.” Just like Columbus Day celebrations perpetuate the myth that Columbus discovered America, this dumpy little cartoon accentuates the fallacy that the United States was built on Judeo-Christian principles. Damn! When will the madness stop?! Don’t expect much – this isn’t exactly Japanimation.
Filed under Curiosities
The Christopher Columbus monument in Barcelona, Spain
Today is Columbus Day in the United States where narrow-minded Americans perpetuate the myth that Christopher Columbus discovered this country. It remains a popular fallacy despite obvious proof that the Western Hemisphere was not devoid of humans when Columbus and his fellow seafarers arrived. As someone who is part Indian (Mexican), this is a particularly vexing situation. But, as someone who is also Caucasian (Spaniard and German), I know I can be critical. For one thing, historical references can’t confirm exactly where Columbus landed. Some say present-day Hispaniola; others state Cuba. But, it’s pretty well understood that he didn’t make it to the American mainland.
We also have to understand some other facts that slip by the history texts, which have always had a Euro-Christian slant. Italian-Americans celebrate Columbus as one of their own. Evidence has surfaced in recent years, however, that the intrepid explorer was not actually a humble Italian weaver, but a Polish immigrant. Manuel Rosa, a professor at Duke University, claims that Columbus was the son of Vladislav III, an exiled king from Poland.
More importantly, though, Columbus had to seek help from Spain to finance his voyage. In the late 15th century, Italy was not actually a country, but a collection of city-states; fractured and in constant conflict. Apparently, no member of Italian royalty saw the value in Columbus’ grand scheme. Thus, he turned to Spain and received approval from Queen Isabella – one of my paternal ancestors.
Another myth is that Columbus had deliberately set out to discover the Americas, or traveled as a result of some divinely inspired vision. In reality, he wanted to find a westward route to India’s east coast and thus gain an advantage in the lucrative spice trade. Spices were as valuable as gold and silver at the time. Columbus believed Asia was where the Americas are and initially thought he’d arrived somewhere off the coast of China. Then, he thought he’d actually made it to India and thus, called the Taíno peoples of the Caribbean “Indians.”
Yet another major fact that goes unreported is that Columbus was not the first European to arrive in the Western Hemisphere. As Jared Diamond points out in his seminal book Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, scientists now realize that Norse Vikings arrived in North America nearly 500 years earlier. In the 1960’s, archaeologists unearthed remnants of a village in present-day Newfoundland known as “L’Anse Aux Meadows.” Norse literature also points to a land the Vikings called “Vinland.” The Norse had begun their march across the North Atlantic around A.D. 800; first populating the Orkney, Shetland and Faeroe islands, then moving onto Iceland and Greenland. There’s even some evidence that they’d made as far down North America’s eastern coastline as present-day Florida. But, that remains to be proven. By the time they landed in Newfoundland, however, they’d depleted much of their own energy and resources; thus any permanent settlement was unlikely.
But, here’s something even more important: people first arrived in the Americas between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago, if not sooner. They’d branched out across the entire Western Hemisphere, even reaching the southernmost tip of South America, long before Columbus started thinking about his trip. They built complex, intricate and highly-advanced societies – without firearms and without horses or cattle – and lived as best they could for all those millennia.
I’ve seen colorful illustrations of European men adorned in velvet and silk arriving on virgin American shores; their majestic ships moored in the distant background, carrying oversized crucifixes to which the scantily-clad Indians responded by dropping to their knees in automatic subjugation. But, it’s just not true. Columbus’ venture was a matter of commerce, not faith. The concept of spreading Christianity came later, as Spaniards began settling into México and then, as the English and the French began moving westward across North America. Some Indians allowed themselves to be converted to Christianity; more as a matter of survival, though, than some sort of mystical divine intervention. Others, however, strongly resisted and were subsequently beaten down by White settlers who used their religiosity more as a tool of oppression than benevolence.
Investigations into the history of the Americas are ongoing, but in recent years, research has gradually proven the Siberian migration hypothesis to be true. One study found “a unique genetic mutation” that exists only in both the indigenous peoples of Siberia and Native Americans. Other recent data suggests that Japanese seafarers made it to South America’s Pacific coast around 3000 B.C. Scientists have found similarities in pottery among Japan’s Jomon culture and coastal Ecuadorian Indians. They also noticed that “the nautical capability of Chinese sea-going rafts” were identical to those of indigenous Peruvian and Ecuadorian peoples. Moreover, archaeologists have found early specimens of the peanut – which is native to South America – in China. That humans populated just about every corner of the Western Hemisphere is testament to overall human ingenuity and determination. That they – we – have survived 500 years of disease, exploitation and genocide is even more impressive.
None of this is historical revisionism, as some staid elitists might claim. The facts are now coming forward and being revealed, whether the old-timers like it or not. It’s a mixed heritage. I’m glad, for the most part, that Europeans made it over here. But, what they did to the indigenous peoples cannot be underestimated or dismissed. While nothing can be done about it now, it’s futile to ignore historical facts – even if it puts a damper on all those Columbus Day picnics and yard sales at Wal-Mart.
Filed under Essays
Today is Thanksgiving Day for my Canadian neighbors. Canada – which remains caught in a battle between French and English, while continually reminding the U.S. it is NOT a 51st state – adopted their holiday from the indigenous Canadian peoples. Canadian Indians held ceremonies and festivals to celebrate bountiful summer harvests at the threshold of winter – which, from what I understand, can be pretty nasty in Canada. But then again, all peoples across the globe gave thanks for enough food to get them through the tough times in life. We modern humans, with our plethora of electronic devices, can still learn from our humble forebears.
So, here’s hoping our northern neighbors had a grand holiday!
Filed under News
Survivalist Tip: I’ve stated more than once that you can’t be certain how things will go after December 21. Many of you certainly hope to stay in your homes and weather the chaos. But, in the event you have to evacuate to safer territory, it might be prudent to stash as many of your survivalist essentials in an assortment bucket. These look like ordinary plastic trash receptacles, but they’re actually portable multi-leveled storage units. A good sturdy assortment bucket is roughly 12” x 10” x 13” in size and costs anywhere from $60 to $70. The wheels make it easy to transport, should you be on foot, or just to move around. Their varied compartments allow for storage of dried foods, bottled water, ammunition and, of course, your beloved chocolate. Even after things settle down and return to some degree of normalcy, the assortment bucket can be used for future storage. Besides, you never know when you have to hide food from nosy relatives.
Filed under Mayan Calendar Countdown
The annual State Fair of Texas is known for two things: the giant “Big Tex” figure and the plethora of fried foods. Every year culinary extremists try to outdo one another by finding something to fry. Ice cream, Snickers bars, bubble gum and margaritas have all fallen victim to vats of boiling lard. (I’m not kidding! They’ve actually fried these things!) This year, however, some lunatic produced a new acid reflux – laden feast: the world’s largest Frito pie. Last week a crew from Frito-Lay combined 635 bags of chips, 660 cans of chili and 580 bags of shredded cheddar cheese to create the 1,325 pound gastronomical monstrosity. It all came together in what can only be described as a trough. Somehow, in present-day America, that actually seems appropriate.
Filed under Curiosities
Chief Writing Wolf 