Sunday, December 19, 2004
Everything?
My Sweet Man sends me links to my favorite current scientific points of fascination, like the Theory of Everything and smelly robots. It's one of the reasons I love him.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
And so here I am...
... shaking my head over the coincidentals of life.
I'd just discovered the blog of old and excellent bud Kristen Fox (well okay it was a week maybe two afterward) when I got a call from one of the technical temp agencies I'm signed up with -- seems there was this company in south Raleigh, near Cary, that needed a tech writer starting yesterday, would I interview.
It's Christmas time and I've been broke for what seems like forever. So sure, I'd be glad to interview, and would take the job at the less-than-$25 an hour wage they could afford. As long as it wasn't that much less. It was an hour-long commute and gasoline-by-the-gallon was hopping in an out of bed with $2 bills.
The address was familiar.
"I used to work down there," I said.
The directions were familiar.
"It sounds real close to where I used to work," I said.
So I drove to Raleigh the next afternoon. I used a new (to me) exit from I-440 and turned toward Centerview. And, by golly gum gee, there it was! The four-story concrete and glass office building where I first met Kristen, and Jack, and Dan, and Marguerite, and Paul, and a host of other really great folks. I worked there for nearly five years -- fourth floor, in three offices (one after the other), two with windows.
It was disconcerting to see how big the little maple saplings got in nine years.
When I worked there, we were in the top two floors. The American Kennel Club took the second floor, and various offices were on the first floor.
After I left, the AKC took over the entire building, and has all of the outside doors passkeyed except for the front, where a receptionist is stationed behind a big wrap-around desk in front of a two-story dark wood background, the darkness providing sharp relief for the handles of the doors at either side of the desk. That was different from the open foyer I remembered.
My handler and the interviewing manager met me there and escorted me to the fourth floor. How odd -- the last time I'd left this building, I was escorted out, per company policy, and now I was escorted back in. The offices on the side where I'd worked were almost all gone, replaced by a cube farm.
In a room I think was once my manager's, they told me what they needed, I told them I could do it, and they hired me on the spot. The AKC is revamping the website and adding some functionality to a web application that member clubs use, and I'm writing the help for the application. I started the next day, which was Thursday a week ago. They should have hired me five weeks ago.
There are dog pictures everywhere, and dog statues and dog magazines.... Dogs can come to work with their full-time company employed owners, if they pass a test. Just the sort of place where I'd like to work, being as I am a dog-lovin' person. I always have at least one, and sometimes it's a difficult one.
I'm enjoying the work, although rocked by the sudden shock to my schedule from self-directed to gone from sunup to past sundown, five days a week. I've had to squeeze out a few things, move several activities to the weekend, and take a hiatus on a few more -- blogging being one activity that suffered. (Not that I was all that regular to begin with.)
It's dream-like, that feeling of walking through a door from the elevator hallway into a wide-open cubicle warehouse, knowing in that there should be offices with doors and walls to the ceiling. I was interviewing one of the programmers and looked out the window, and realized we were sitting "in" my old office -- or, at least, looking out of the same window. The smokers still go out on the triangular balcony, which still has that crack running along the tiles and the discolored place at the corner where the water blows in. The room on the other side has the obligatory break room furnishings now, fridge and sink and coffee pot, and a linoleum floor instead of a waiting room couch and chairs on carpet. And the door locks down at 7 pm.
How very odd.
I'd just discovered the blog of old and excellent bud Kristen Fox (well okay it was a week maybe two afterward) when I got a call from one of the technical temp agencies I'm signed up with -- seems there was this company in south Raleigh, near Cary, that needed a tech writer starting yesterday, would I interview.
It's Christmas time and I've been broke for what seems like forever. So sure, I'd be glad to interview, and would take the job at the less-than-$25 an hour wage they could afford. As long as it wasn't that much less. It was an hour-long commute and gasoline-by-the-gallon was hopping in an out of bed with $2 bills.
The address was familiar.
"I used to work down there," I said.
The directions were familiar.
"It sounds real close to where I used to work," I said.
So I drove to Raleigh the next afternoon. I used a new (to me) exit from I-440 and turned toward Centerview. And, by golly gum gee, there it was! The four-story concrete and glass office building where I first met Kristen, and Jack, and Dan, and Marguerite, and Paul, and a host of other really great folks. I worked there for nearly five years -- fourth floor, in three offices (one after the other), two with windows.
It was disconcerting to see how big the little maple saplings got in nine years.
When I worked there, we were in the top two floors. The American Kennel Club took the second floor, and various offices were on the first floor.
After I left, the AKC took over the entire building, and has all of the outside doors passkeyed except for the front, where a receptionist is stationed behind a big wrap-around desk in front of a two-story dark wood background, the darkness providing sharp relief for the handles of the doors at either side of the desk. That was different from the open foyer I remembered.
My handler and the interviewing manager met me there and escorted me to the fourth floor. How odd -- the last time I'd left this building, I was escorted out, per company policy, and now I was escorted back in. The offices on the side where I'd worked were almost all gone, replaced by a cube farm.
In a room I think was once my manager's, they told me what they needed, I told them I could do it, and they hired me on the spot. The AKC is revamping the website and adding some functionality to a web application that member clubs use, and I'm writing the help for the application. I started the next day, which was Thursday a week ago. They should have hired me five weeks ago.
There are dog pictures everywhere, and dog statues and dog magazines.... Dogs can come to work with their full-time company employed owners, if they pass a test. Just the sort of place where I'd like to work, being as I am a dog-lovin' person. I always have at least one, and sometimes it's a difficult one.
I'm enjoying the work, although rocked by the sudden shock to my schedule from self-directed to gone from sunup to past sundown, five days a week. I've had to squeeze out a few things, move several activities to the weekend, and take a hiatus on a few more -- blogging being one activity that suffered. (Not that I was all that regular to begin with.)
It's dream-like, that feeling of walking through a door from the elevator hallway into a wide-open cubicle warehouse, knowing in that there should be offices with doors and walls to the ceiling. I was interviewing one of the programmers and looked out the window, and realized we were sitting "in" my old office -- or, at least, looking out of the same window. The smokers still go out on the triangular balcony, which still has that crack running along the tiles and the discolored place at the corner where the water blows in. The room on the other side has the obligatory break room furnishings now, fridge and sink and coffee pot, and a linoleum floor instead of a waiting room couch and chairs on carpet. And the door locks down at 7 pm.
How very odd.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Old friends pop up in the most wonderful places!
I was checking out my Blogger User Profile's "Interest" section, and clicked on "writing." A list of like-minded bloggers (i.e. bloggers whose "Interest" section also includes the word "writing") displayed and my old friend Kristen Fox was right there, first page! Yeah, Kristen! She was one of the witnesses at my wedding.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Compartmentalizing my rants
I've decided to start another blog: Blue Thorn is specifically for the low-down dirty cussin' that I want to do about the scoundrels currently in power - an all-American tradition. All political ranting will be done there, leaving this blog free to concentrate on other things. (FYI, check out Bubba Skid, my dog blog, for completely non-political entertainment.) And, while I'm listing 'em, my husband's classical music blog is The Muse at Sunset.
And they're off! It's a dry track for Anti-abortionists....
(On today's outrage, here is a copy of an e-mail to like-minded friends -- probably the first of many.)
I actually thought the Religious Rite (RR) would wait until January or February before mounting a full scale attack on reproductive freedoms, but the election was a "mandate" (shudder). ...
They choose late Friday to release the information to the press, and Saturday for the vote.
In a nutshell:
[The measure] expands to all hospitals, clinics and doctors a provision that currently applies to Catholic hospitals. Those hospitals do not have to comply with a federal law that requires health-care providers who receive taxpayer dollars to discuss the option of abortion with women if they inquire about it.
The language also allows hospitals and health-care providers to opt out of state and local laws that require them to provide abortions, abortion counseling or referrals. ...
In other words, they're opening the door to cut out a whole class of medical care now available to women in this country. With the demonstrated viciousness of the RR, it shouldn't surprise anyone if hospitals dropped the option in droves rather than face busloads of these aggressively religious people rioting on their doorsteps. They've already chased providers out of small family clinics in numerous counties throughout the country, now they're going for the gold -- your local hospital.
Of course, the offices of our representatives are closed today (Saturday). When the offices open up again on Monday, they can say, well, golly gee, we had to vote on this important spending bill without your specific input -- beyond, of course, the recent election. At least the office manager for my RR Senator (Libby Dole) will have *my* complaint about both the measure and its timing on her voice mail when she opens her office on Monday. Those of you who live in NC are certainly invited to share *your* disgust and dismay with her -- her Raleigh number is 919.856.4630 and her DC number is 202.224.6342. I ask those of you outside the area to call your senators and representatives and let them know how you feel about this sneak. http://www.senate.gov/ and http://www.house.gov/ will tell you how to get in touch with any of them.
I'm afraid that e-mail is too easy to ignore. We must either fill up their voice mailboxes or burn 37 cents and send in an actual paper letter. (Conventional wisdom has it that each person who is inspired to actually write and send a letter is expressing the opinion of 10 to 20 of their peers, who are not all that inspired. You can see where receiving a bunch of letters makes these guys sit up and take note.)
It's going to be a long four years, and we of the Blue persuasion *must* make ourselves the vocal and aggressive minority in order to retain *any* of the rights we've achieved and enjoyed these past few decades.
~B
PS If emails of this type offend you, or if you are a member of the Religious Rite and agree with what they're doing, please drop me a line and let me know so that I can save bandwidth and not send any more of them to you. I plan to be a Blue Thorn for the next four years. Those who are "with" me will get these action alerts on occasion, along with a plea to phone and complain. Those who aren't... I guess that, according to Group W, those who aren't with us are against us.
At least they haven't figured out how to circumvent that "freedom of speech" thing ... yet. Use it or lose it.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Doin' Good
I just returned from my very first session as an adult literacy teacher! My student is a young man who's working as a custodian in a local hospital. He wants to go to a cooking school and learn how to be a chef. His reading capability tests at a solid second-grade level, but he's probably reading somewhere in a third-grade level. I'm pumped! He's really into it, which makes him an excellent student.
He said his favorite food is Italian. So, using my Encyclopedia of Cooking, we looked up "Lasagne" and he read the entire recipe - twice, once just to get all the words, the second time for comprehension. We also decided to start a recipe file for him, so he copied the ingredient list onto a 3 X 5 card and wrote the recipe steps on the back, in his own words.
It's good to help others.
He said his favorite food is Italian. So, using my Encyclopedia of Cooking, we looked up "Lasagne" and he read the entire recipe - twice, once just to get all the words, the second time for comprehension. We also decided to start a recipe file for him, so he copied the ingredient list onto a 3 X 5 card and wrote the recipe steps on the back, in his own words.
It's good to help others.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
News in the News
From Free Press:
And there's nothing new about a new study about further disintegration of the US media that made last week's news. I don't know about you, but I am certainly not surprised that more people are turning to alternative sources like late night comedy shows and the Internet for their facts. Turns out, "infotainment" is overtaking serious news in traditional outlets, and the bottom line has replaced old-time American journalistic values in modern newsrooms.
It's all one big yawn, as a bunch of folks (me too) have been screaming for years about the commercialization of the news and the corporatization of the news business.
At the same time that the U.S. military is harassing Al Jazeera reporters, other parts of the U.S. government, including the State Department, are attempting to answer Al Jazeera in its own language and format. On February 14 the United States launched a nominally independent, U.S.-funded Arabic-language satellite channel called Al Hurra, which means "the free one." The purpose of this effort is to address the lack of popular support for the U.S. occupation in Iraq, as well as the deepening crisis of American legitimacy throughout the Arab world; polls from the region indicate that more and more people hate the United States every day.
And there's nothing new about a new study about further disintegration of the US media that made last week's news. I don't know about you, but I am certainly not surprised that more people are turning to alternative sources like late night comedy shows and the Internet for their facts. Turns out, "infotainment" is overtaking serious news in traditional outlets, and the bottom line has replaced old-time American journalistic values in modern newsrooms.
It's all one big yawn, as a bunch of folks (me too) have been screaming for years about the commercialization of the news and the corporatization of the news business.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Subject: Fwd: THE ROBIN WILLIAMS PEACE PLAN
>Note: forwarded message attached.
Dear Fellow Netizens,
You forwarded an email from one to another that ended up with me. Robin Williams is one of my favorite comedians, so I opened the email post-haste. It expressed an opinion that I feel every time I hear the US "dissed" by some fella whose country was yanked from political, economic, or real disaster by our soldiers, technology, businesses, money, or other purely American resource.
But it wasn't funny. I didn't laugh once, not even a faint snicker or a soft snort.
I don't know about you, but I expect Robin Williams to be funny, even when he's playing a poor English teacher!
So I "Googled" the subject line of the email, which itself apparently had been forwarded to the first person in this e-Pass the Secret game.
In a fairly short time, I found this: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/williams.asp .... (Snopes is a reputable site with a Good Veracity Rating(TM).)
So, one of my favorite comedians did not write an un-funny "Peace Plan".....
Have a great day!
"B"
PS - The (TM) after Good Veracity Rating is sarcastic, but I do generally believe what I read on Snopes as it's been around for almost ten years and I haven't caught it in a deliberate fabrication yet.
PSS - Try a Google search the next time something tickles *your* caution toggle.... Search for a phrase rather than individual words by putting quotes around the phrase and typing it into the Google text box, for example:
"THE ROBIN WILLIAMS PEACE PLAN"
Dear Fellow Netizens,
You forwarded an email from one to another that ended up with me. Robin Williams is one of my favorite comedians, so I opened the email post-haste. It expressed an opinion that I feel every time I hear the US "dissed" by some fella whose country was yanked from political, economic, or real disaster by our soldiers, technology, businesses, money, or other purely American resource.
But it wasn't funny. I didn't laugh once, not even a faint snicker or a soft snort.
I don't know about you, but I expect Robin Williams to be funny, even when he's playing a poor English teacher!
So I "Googled" the subject line of the email, which itself apparently had been forwarded to the first person in this e-Pass the Secret game.
In a fairly short time, I found this: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/williams.asp .... (Snopes is a reputable site with a Good Veracity Rating(TM).)
So, one of my favorite comedians did not write an un-funny "Peace Plan".....
Have a great day!
"B"
PS - The (TM) after Good Veracity Rating is sarcastic, but I do generally believe what I read on Snopes as it's been around for almost ten years and I haven't caught it in a deliberate fabrication yet.
PSS - Try a Google search the next time something tickles *your* caution toggle.... Search for a phrase rather than individual words by putting quotes around the phrase and typing it into the Google text box, for example:
"THE ROBIN WILLIAMS PEACE PLAN"
Thursday, March 18, 2004
The Bookshelf
I want to add two books....
Remember when Karen Hughes quit working for the administration in order "to go home to be with family"? The next time I heard about her, she was quite actively reporting news and speaking at functions all over; generally not hanging out by hearth and home. I tend to believe that, in human groups, the whole reflects the passions of the parts. So, the powerful women so prominently pictured in W's administration intrigue me. On the one hand, they could be wonderful role models for girls who don't want to trod the traditional path of homemaker. On the other hand, they use their power in service to a group whose strongest supporters would return them and their sisters to the backseat of life.
Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species by Laura Flanders might shed some light on the subject. From her interview with buzzflash, I surmise that the book contains unremarked-upon oddities and ocean-sized cognitive disconnects practiced by the Bush women.
For example, did you know that Lynn Cheney is the author of a poorly received blue pulp romance that featured a lesbian sex scene? Phew! Who would want the battle going on in her subconscious? ("You have a Vice President and his wife running on a blatantly homophobic platform while their campaign is run by their openly lesbian daughter," Flanders says succinctly.)
(I like buzzflash; with pitiless pith, this editorial points out "the essence of the Bush Administration political strategy: 'If you tell a lie five times, it becomes the truth.'")
Read the interview yourself to discover why I'd refuse to play bridge against W if Laura is his partner....
As for W, the man himself, I just saw two authors on Charlie Rose who were not impressed. Eric Alterman and Mark J. Green (of the New Democracy Project) just released The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America.
Green told Rose that the Bush strategy is to define the election year battle on the "Gays, Guns, and God" nexus that has hypnotized the slightly less than one-half of the electorate that put them into the White House.
On the show, they pointed out that John Kerry is openly concerned with the economic well being of the country, but "Bush changes the subject" whenever pressed. In the brief time they were on the air, Alterman discussed how the Bush political machine "created false impressions" of both John McCain and Al Gore, but that was before he got a record of his own to examine. During the upcoming electioneering time, it may not matter that the Bush tenure hasn't been particularly good for most of us, especially with stuff like job creation, the national budget, and the administration's reasons for invading Iraq, the authors said.
W, Green explained, makes "willful misstatements" that lead to radical policies. Then, when those policies don't work, he repeats the statements, "changing the facts."
It could be a good book.
Remember when Karen Hughes quit working for the administration in order "to go home to be with family"? The next time I heard about her, she was quite actively reporting news and speaking at functions all over; generally not hanging out by hearth and home. I tend to believe that, in human groups, the whole reflects the passions of the parts. So, the powerful women so prominently pictured in W's administration intrigue me. On the one hand, they could be wonderful role models for girls who don't want to trod the traditional path of homemaker. On the other hand, they use their power in service to a group whose strongest supporters would return them and their sisters to the backseat of life.
Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species by Laura Flanders might shed some light on the subject. From her interview with buzzflash, I surmise that the book contains unremarked-upon oddities and ocean-sized cognitive disconnects practiced by the Bush women.
For example, did you know that Lynn Cheney is the author of a poorly received blue pulp romance that featured a lesbian sex scene? Phew! Who would want the battle going on in her subconscious? ("You have a Vice President and his wife running on a blatantly homophobic platform while their campaign is run by their openly lesbian daughter," Flanders says succinctly.)
(I like buzzflash; with pitiless pith, this editorial points out "the essence of the Bush Administration political strategy: 'If you tell a lie five times, it becomes the truth.'")
Read the interview yourself to discover why I'd refuse to play bridge against W if Laura is his partner....
As for W, the man himself, I just saw two authors on Charlie Rose who were not impressed. Eric Alterman and Mark J. Green (of the New Democracy Project) just released The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America.
Green told Rose that the Bush strategy is to define the election year battle on the "Gays, Guns, and God" nexus that has hypnotized the slightly less than one-half of the electorate that put them into the White House.
On the show, they pointed out that John Kerry is openly concerned with the economic well being of the country, but "Bush changes the subject" whenever pressed. In the brief time they were on the air, Alterman discussed how the Bush political machine "created false impressions" of both John McCain and Al Gore, but that was before he got a record of his own to examine. During the upcoming electioneering time, it may not matter that the Bush tenure hasn't been particularly good for most of us, especially with stuff like job creation, the national budget, and the administration's reasons for invading Iraq, the authors said.
W, Green explained, makes "willful misstatements" that lead to radical policies. Then, when those policies don't work, he repeats the statements, "changing the facts."
It could be a good book.
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Vegetarian Foxes and Chicken Coops
People who did it but don't any more should be the very last ones in line to regulate it, right behind those who do it all the time.
Friday, February 20, 2004
Of Panache and Pandering
I think that Vietnam Vets trump NASCAR Dads.... And why does Bush 2nd get away scott free for pandering to the same group that Howard Dean was pilloried for even mentioning?
Saturday, February 14, 2004
For Valentine's Day...
... Let's all decide how to allow homosexual couples to pursue happiness without being punished by the rigid fears and hatreds of others.
Being gay in the USA means that your family can deny your true love access to your hospital bed. It means you can't include the other in your insurance coverage. Perhaps least fair, you can't receive government-mandated marriage benefits (taxes, death considerations, more) given to heterosexual citizen couples even though you're as hard-working as anyone else. Personally, I don't care what this legal construct would be called - marriage, domestic partnership, civil union, contract, whatever works to make it fair - as long as the same construct is available to heterosexual couples.
Phooey on the claim that marriage benefits should be "saved for heterosexuals only since the institution was really created for the sake of the children," as certain nay-sayers would have us believe. If that were the case, what about childless couples? By choice, my husband and I do not have (and will not have) children; would these people deny us the right to marry? If we step back even further, older tradition and law would make my daughter's father my husband forever, and he would have vast economic and physical power over both of us. I shudder to consider that possibility.
Western-style marriage is more likely a holdover from those European traditions in which a woman (as breeding vessel) was a valuable commodity and had to be protected and traded for the appropriate reasons - usually to form unions with other families.
I imagine that pervasive current conservative middle east Islamic attitudes toward women hints at the way it was for all of us until relatively recently, in spite of those apologists, sometimes female, who claim the letter of sharia law "gives" women equality and much respect. In my mind, it's not "respectful" to allow a schoolful of girls to burn to death because they weren't wearing headscarves when they tried to escape the blaze. "Equality" does not describe the plight of an entire half of a population who aren't allowed to drive (or ride bicycles on public roads), show their faces in public, or go anywhere without a male family member escort.
But we aren't there, thank God, and it's just too bad that a free people denies official acceptance and equal justice to two individuals who dearly love each other.
Being gay in the USA means that your family can deny your true love access to your hospital bed. It means you can't include the other in your insurance coverage. Perhaps least fair, you can't receive government-mandated marriage benefits (taxes, death considerations, more) given to heterosexual citizen couples even though you're as hard-working as anyone else. Personally, I don't care what this legal construct would be called - marriage, domestic partnership, civil union, contract, whatever works to make it fair - as long as the same construct is available to heterosexual couples.
Phooey on the claim that marriage benefits should be "saved for heterosexuals only since the institution was really created for the sake of the children," as certain nay-sayers would have us believe. If that were the case, what about childless couples? By choice, my husband and I do not have (and will not have) children; would these people deny us the right to marry? If we step back even further, older tradition and law would make my daughter's father my husband forever, and he would have vast economic and physical power over both of us. I shudder to consider that possibility.
Western-style marriage is more likely a holdover from those European traditions in which a woman (as breeding vessel) was a valuable commodity and had to be protected and traded for the appropriate reasons - usually to form unions with other families.
I imagine that pervasive current conservative middle east Islamic attitudes toward women hints at the way it was for all of us until relatively recently, in spite of those apologists, sometimes female, who claim the letter of sharia law "gives" women equality and much respect. In my mind, it's not "respectful" to allow a schoolful of girls to burn to death because they weren't wearing headscarves when they tried to escape the blaze. "Equality" does not describe the plight of an entire half of a population who aren't allowed to drive (or ride bicycles on public roads), show their faces in public, or go anywhere without a male family member escort.
But we aren't there, thank God, and it's just too bad that a free people denies official acceptance and equal justice to two individuals who dearly love each other.
Friday, February 13, 2004
Of Mars and Rocks, and Blueberry Muffins
Here's an idea for an aspiring cottage industry mogul: figure out how to harvest and ship tons of those little round Martian rocks, the ones they're calling blueberry muffins. The pictures suggest lots of artsy possibilities and who knows what they'd look like broken in two or sliced. Selling the jewelry alone - buyers would be easy to find - should assure some auction site (think eBay) as a major anchor in the future of 'Net-based commerce. I can see it now ...
Erma closed her eyes and stretched.
"Thanks for taking care of the boys," she called. "I really needed to catch up on email!" She focused resolutely on the chaos she could see in the sunny yellow-and-orange kitchen as she pushed her gloves off and popped the earmic out, dropping them both on the coffee table in front of her.
The images on the 50" plasma HDTVPC/Mac, her favorite possession, faded to a sepia-toned picture-album show staring many scenes from Erma's childhood home in Kentucky. She'd snagged the display from a virgin seller at the bargain basement price of $586, including shipping, then worried until the big box arrived. It had been listed as a "thin monater PC/Mac-complient." The accompanying description had also been misspelled, and the category it was listed under was obscure. The seller would have done much better to have simply advertised it under "TV." He would learn, if he continued selling through online venues. Meanwhile, someone profited. Someone always profited - Erma liked being that someone.
Jackie, Erma's good friend and fellow jewelry maker, stepped out of the bright, noisy kitchen into the cool forest greens of the den.
"You've got mine Sunday afternoon," Jackie said. "Don't forget! Did you find any more of those rosewood beads? They look great on Katherine's mesh bags."
Erma rubbed her face. She always felt just a little motion sick after spending a big chunk of time online. It couldn't be helped, though; her special set of skills made her the buyer for their little cottage industry krew. Erma had a knack for spotting and capturing bargains, even if they didn't seem like bargains at the time.
"I found something that might be even better," she said. Jackie's raised eyebrows and pursed mouth silently asked "oh?" and invited enlightenment as she sank to perch on the couch beside Erma.
"Yeah, uh, they're supposed to be Martian rocks, with signed certificates of authenticity. They're not going to come cheap." Erma leaned back and watched the other woman's face. Jackie sat back.
"Oh, my," she said. She looked around and pursed her lips. "Not cheap." Erma shrugged. Jackie bit her lip and looked at Erma as though she were trying to read tea leaves in a cup. "How, how do you know they're for real? How are they for real?"
"The agent who is selling the rocks has a near-perfect rating. He says that they're some pea-gravel that came back with the most recent Mars workers."
"Back from Mars? I sort of remember people coming back from Mars, I think."
"Well, the seller said a few of those rounded rocks have been coming back with workers ever since the beginning, and those few who brought them back made pretty good money off of them. The Mars Consortium finally saw reality and agreed to let workers bring back three ounces apiece, over personal weight, of soil or rock from up there. The workers union got the Consortium to agree to allocate personal weight from the trip out, so that a worker could lose a bit of body weight while there, then carry enough rock back to make up the difference. Plus the allocated three ounces."
"He said these are fairly uniform, all taken with a sieve and three to eight millimeters thick." She paused. "If all else failed, we could package some for novelty. Mars is a good reference." She motioned toward the earmic and gloves. "There are perhaps a couple thousand of mostly large ones loose in the entire earth population. Check out some of the prices. This is the first time they've been available in any amount at all, and no one knows what you can do with them."
"Why do you think we would have enough money to buy them?"
"I'm not sure we do, but bidding isn't as vigorous as you'd think. It's a small amount of goods, not really worth it for the big guys. Maybe people aren't sure they want to figure out how to craft these things, much less package and distribute. There's enough here to keep us all busy for a few years, but we're going to have to figure out how to use them. It would be a pain to have to cage them, but I don't know how hard they'd be to drill or how they respond to glue." She shrugged again.
"Maybe everyone's waiting to see how it goes. Maybe everyone believes this is out of their league. Maybe some real rich playboy will decide he wants them for his aquarium." Erma watched Sam and Josh carry their glasses and plates toward the kitchen sink. "It's interesting, is all."
Jackie nodded. Their home-based concern was much too small to buy or store big batches of supplies, so they had done the same as many small crafters, purchasing beads, wire, and other necessities in manageable quantity from resellers or others who treasured them and their small-lot-buying compatriots across the globe.
Every now and then, they came across real treasures, for example, the one-time sellout by the heirs of a small, privately owned diamond mine in Colorado. Although not of particular quality, the gems made their homemade items sparkle and sparked interest - and they'd came cheap enough to make it profitable. Flawed diamonds from America held an odd worldwide appeal, who knew? Erma had found the diamonds "interesting," too.
The profit from that buy allowed the craft cooperative's members to take a giant step forward and assured Erma's position as chief purchasing agent. The krew had to agree before she made a buy as large as this one could be, though.
Want to hear more? Send email to lightningstruckfirewood at mindspring dot com; remove all spaces, replace at with the @ symbol and dot with a period. Sorry to make you work, but I hate spam. I will never sell or give away your email address.
Monday, February 09, 2004
Romance in a Teacup
(An original 53-word story)
Born on opposite ends of the country, the tracks, and the racial divide, they met and married on golden autumn afternoons.
The children they made on cold winter evenings grew to their legacy; one chose black, one white, and one the Marines.
The night her heart quit, his tears rolled down her cheeks.
Born on opposite ends of the country, the tracks, and the racial divide, they met and married on golden autumn afternoons.
The children they made on cold winter evenings grew to their legacy; one chose black, one white, and one the Marines.
The night her heart quit, his tears rolled down her cheeks.
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Why the superbowl boycott
Dear B,
I couldn't git it to go.....was it funny?
... Lulu
Dear Lulu,
The commercial was not funny. It featured somber-faced kids - say, 6 to 9 or 10 years old - doing grown-up style general service-job-type labor (dishwasher, mechanic, etc.) with the tag line "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" CBS refused to air it....
The commercial is titled "Child's Play" (if you can't get that link to work, try one of the other links at bushin30seconds.org).
As you are finding out, it is causing quite a little brouhaha. In addition to the MS/NBC article cited in the original email, Salon has an article (you have to sign in or read an ad to read). Googling it (cbs + commercial + "Super Bowl" + moveon) returns a list of lots of Internet people who have something to say about it, as well as a bunch of articles.
Most are like the Ad Age article....
(That's "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt," the most favored rhetorical tool in any would-be free-world oppressor's kit. It's how Bill Gates gets people to buy his fat, buggy products and it's how Bush II et. al. sold the Invasion of Iraq to the American people.)
Since it's all a conspiracy, we can just go back to our beer and cigarettes, folks. Nothing to see here.
A MarketingWonk article explains:
The reaction has been a mixed bag. Child's Play could be seen by more people than it would have been if it had aired without controversy. The stinky part of the mix is that CBS also refused to run an ad from the nutcases at PETA, who wanted to hawk vegetarianism by sexual innuendo (e.g.., those who eat meat are impotent); it would have fit right in with many of the ads that did run (Viagra et. al.). Unfortunately, Child's Play is now part-and-parcel of the "shunned by CBS" 2K4 Super Bowl ads. Their take on the issue shows that Republicans understand just how juxtaposition muddies the human mind, particularly if helped by a little muddy writing....
I couldn't git it to go.....was it funny?
... Lulu
Dear Lulu,
The commercial was not funny. It featured somber-faced kids - say, 6 to 9 or 10 years old - doing grown-up style general service-job-type labor (dishwasher, mechanic, etc.) with the tag line "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" CBS refused to air it....
The commercial is titled "Child's Play" (if you can't get that link to work, try one of the other links at bushin30seconds.org).
As you are finding out, it is causing quite a little brouhaha. In addition to the MS/NBC article cited in the original email, Salon has an article (you have to sign in or read an ad to read). Googling it (cbs + commercial + "Super Bowl" + moveon) returns a list of lots of Internet people who have something to say about it, as well as a bunch of articles.
Most are like the Ad Age article....
Reacting to the winning ad, Republican National Committee press secretary Christine Iverson said, "They should have called the contest 'Twenty seconds of fear and loathing of George Bush.' It proves what we have said all along: The Democratic presidential candidates have a message of protest and pessimism but bring no positive ideas to the debate."The RNC press secretary ignored the fact that neither MoveOn.org nor its pet, bushin30seconds.org, is affiliated with any Democratic candidate, presidential or otherwise. (Yes, the bushin30seconds panel of judges for the commercials does read like a Who's Who of Liberal Celebrities.) Iverson is pretending that the whole thing is a setup... a little FUD factor element, GOP style.
(That's "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt," the most favored rhetorical tool in any would-be free-world oppressor's kit. It's how Bill Gates gets people to buy his fat, buggy products and it's how Bush II et. al. sold the Invasion of Iraq to the American people.)
Since it's all a conspiracy, we can just go back to our beer and cigarettes, folks. Nothing to see here.
A MarketingWonk article explains:
The CBS release cites the company's written policy: "CTN will sell time to political candidates, to those authorized by candidates to purchase time on their behalf and to political parties. CTN also sells time to groups supporting or opposing significant ballot propositions."And also...
The CBS press release, taking a clear swipe at MoveOn's successful campaign to stir protest against CBS, says, "In recent years, a cottage industry has arisen among groups that submit advocacy ads that they know will be rejected. They then resort to press releases and Internet diatribes about the rejection to reap considerable free media attention and financial contributions to support their cause. Editors and potential contributors beware."Yeah, sure. The spokes-writer apparently didn't know (or care) that this ad was selected by an Internet poll rather than by cottage industry moguls. Hey, the GOP doesn't go for "popular" stuff anyway, but farting horses, graphic violence, inter-species sexual innuendo, and male virility make great ads.
The reaction has been a mixed bag. Child's Play could be seen by more people than it would have been if it had aired without controversy. The stinky part of the mix is that CBS also refused to run an ad from the nutcases at PETA, who wanted to hawk vegetarianism by sexual innuendo (e.g.., those who eat meat are impotent); it would have fit right in with many of the ads that did run (Viagra et. al.). Unfortunately, Child's Play is now part-and-parcel of the "shunned by CBS" 2K4 Super Bowl ads. Their take on the issue shows that Republicans understand just how juxtaposition muddies the human mind, particularly if helped by a little muddy writing....
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
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