Hey, just wanted to give a shout out to my blog buddy, Paul Hinrichs.

Paul's going to kick me down a notch in the next 24 hours, by-passing me for page reads here in Salon blogs.

Congrats, Paul!  If I have to be knocked down a peg, I'm glad it's you!

How's those pickles, by the way?

1:26:52 AM    comment []

Wednesday it was Iowa; Thursday it will be Michigan.

Not all of the combatants will be here, but there will be critical mass.

We’ve laid out our strategy, our schedule.

Emails are drafted to send to the foot soldiers for this battle of free speech.

The weapons of mass demonstration have been gathered, the signs prepared and the megaphone tested.

A rally first, to ready the troops.

And then on to the demonstration.

Bring it on!!!

Posting may be light again, of course.  I’m sure you’ll understand.

12:01:35 AM    comment []

Omigod.  Didn't I say something similar not very long ago?

"And chances are your America and George W. Bush's America are not the same place. If you are dead center on the earning scale in real-world twenty-first-century America, you make a bit less than $32,000 a year, and $32,000 is not a sum that Mr. Bush has ever associated with getting by in his world. Bush, who has always managed to fail upwards in his various careers, has never had a job the way you have a job—where not showing up one morning gets you fired, costing you your health benefits. He may find it difficult to relate personally to any of the nearly two million citizens who've lost their jobs under his administration, the first administration since Herbert Hoover's to post a net loss of jobs. Mr. Bush has never had to worry that he couldn't afford the best available health care for his children. For him, forty-three million people without health insurance may be no more than a politically inconvenient abstraction. When Mr. Bush talks about the economy, he is not talking about your economy. His economy is filled with pals called Kenny-boy who fly around in their own airplanes. In Bush's economy, his world, friends relocate offshore to avoid paying taxes. Taxes are for chumps like you. You are not a friend. You're the help. When the party Mr. Bush is hosting in his world ends, you'll be left picking shrimp toast out of the carpet."

11:30:22 PM    comment []

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

4. "Standing Tall for America," means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

5. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

13. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

17. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

18. You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

* * * * *

Thanks to Calypso Dragon 13 for this list.  Takes your breath away, doesn't it?

Makes my head hurt and my heart ache, too.

8:50:52 PM    comment []

Kane recently visited Waikiki Beach, taking pictures to share.

It reminded me of another visit to Waikiki Beach.  My family was visiting on vacation; conveniently, my uncle worked as a beach boy at one of the big hotels on Waikiki.  Uncle would reserve chairs, umbrellas and space on the beach for the family; it was a fringe benefit we enjoyed greatly.

Dad greeted my uncle one day as the family arrived to claim its place in the sun. He asked Uncle, How's the weather today?

Uncle slyly looked around the beach and said, Hey, the weather's GREAT today.  But then it's nearly ALWAYS great.

Hah.

Mahalo for the memory, Kane.

4:28:44 PM    comment []

I’ve not been able keep up with blogging over the last month or so; life has been frantic, change outpacing my ability to keep up.  A year ago it seemed as if nothing would change.  I wasn’t working; my spouse’s employer was struggling; our plans for a new home were put on hold.  Nothing seemed to budge; we were locked solidly into a holding pattern, waiting, waiting for something, anything to change. 

If I got a job, perhaps we could commit to the new house, or at least I’d be able to help out financially if my spouse’s employer failed.  Or if my spouse’s employer went under, perhaps we could find ourselves moving out of the area; a new house would be a millstone and a new job for me would be yet another.  There were so many what-ifs hanging over our head – and none of them coming to pass.  We waited. 

And then waited some more.

I am reminded of the proverb, Be careful what you wish for.  It’s not just that one might get exactly what they asked for, but that they’ll get it all at once in spades.  That’s the real curse of realizing one’s wishes.

Apparently the cosmos granted my wish to be busy and challenged. 

(Damn, I should have asked for plentiful compensation, too.)

The company for which my spouse worked was recently sold because of financial difficulties; now we’re dealing with transition issues.  What do we do about the 401K plan?  What happens to our healthcare plan?  Will the changes require my spouse to travel even more than he already does?  There’s a lot more going on that I won’t air out here; there’s an ownership component here as well that complicates all of this far more than a simple merger or acquisition would ordinarily entail.

Add to this new complexity the oddness of my work as a contract employee.  I’m working for a couple of places, one on an as-needed project-by-project basis.  The other is an 8-to-5 job where I am the Jane-of-all-trades.  I answer phones, do a little bookkeeping, handle all the IT work, run some business process reengineering and the odd task.  The entire business is quirky and dysfunctional – but the once-cute charm of assorted quirks has worn thin to annoyance.  The dysfunction is growing by leaps and bounds. 

Quirks and dysfunctions?  Yeah.  Imagine a VP of sales (read: the entire sales and marketing department) who can't make sales calls.  He simply struggled with getting out the door to meet existing clients or cold call new ones. We don't know whether he was phobic, not clear on the job requirements or simply unqualified to do the job.  Worse, many of the existing clients actively disliked him.  Since he was either remote or abusive with employees, staffers could only wonder whether he was much different with customers.  Sales had dwindled to nearly nothing over the last several months, leaving far too many idle hands.  A blow-out between the VP of Sales and the CEO this past week finally brought this situation to a head.  The VP quit.  The CEO is hiring a family member to move into sales, even though this person has no experience in the industry.  I try not to dwell on it as staffers and I scramble to close loopholes and seal up security in the wake of a disgruntled ex-employee. 

Imagine, too, the challenge of trying to make it look like everything is going along swimmingly to the rest of the world, not uttering a peep to clients about the mess behind the scenes.  The remaining staff should be happy with the improvements to their formerly hostile work environment, one might think.  But the non-existent sales and the continued dysfunctional flubbing of execution merely make us all edgier and more defensive than we have been; putting on our game face is rough going.

I had to cut my hours back to less than 20 per week since we simply don’t have enough work.  The CEO is peeved off at this cost-cutting measure – but frankly, he’s got no real experience operating a business of this nature.  He simply can’t see the business doesn’t have the cash flow to keep me on full-time.  He may have to be clubbed alongside the head before he comprehends this point since sales forecast and revenue forecast reports of $0.00 don’t seem to register with him.

The reduced hours are both a curse and a blessing; I’m officially in the hole for earnings in August and the month has just started.  The sitter costs more than I’ll make each week (daycare must be booked by the week, not by the day). 

But now I have more time to blog about it.

Heh. 

Another wish granted: more time to blog.

12:17:26 PM    comment []

One of my recent lost posts made the observation that the U.S. media is far from liberal -- but progressives are already quite aware of this.

The next time some smart-assed right-winger whines about the so-called liberal media, you might point out that Al Jazeera provided full-time coverage of the Democratic Convention last week.

In fact, Al Jazeera had more coverage than NBC, CBS and ABC -- combined.

Pretty damned sad when the Arab world is more interested in democracy in action than our own media.  Maybe they should democratize us soon.

On a lighter note, a big thanks to C-SPAN for their straight-forward coverage; there were no cut-aways to commentators as there were on the other media outlets.  Even PBS was a let-down, cutting away in the middle of speeches like Carol Moseley-Braun's instead of simply covering the speakers in action.

Wonder what the coverage will be like for the Republican Convention?  Want to make some bets?

11:04:02 PM    comment []

I can't post reliably right now.  I keep getting a TCP/IP 10060 timeout error from Radio

Worse, I've lost several posts when they went into vapor.

Grrrr!!!

12:47:15 AM    comment []

DAMN!!!!!

If you can download Wesley Clark's speech from the Democratic Convention tonight, go for it.

Fuckin' A, Wesley!!!!

Choose a Leader!!!!

9:56:43 PM    comment []

It's a bittersweet place I've arrived at in motherhood. It used to be that the kids would simply go to the other room or fall asleep in the evening when mature programming was on television. I'd pick them up and tuck them in and get on with the adult part of my life sans kids -- at least for a couple of hours.

Not any longer.

My daughter has been glued to my hip during the entire convention, watching my reactions; she's seen my tears, heard me laugh, listened to my ranting at the screen when the broadcast cut away at an inappropriate moment or when talking heads make truly stupid comments. I can't hide out any longer, I'm under intense scrutiny.

It's challenging, since the scrutiny isn't passive. She's asking many questions that I want to answer but just not now, not in the middle of Howard Dean's speech or Barack Obama's speech...hold that thought, honey, just a second, I have to ask of her.

She wants facts, figures, relationships, the hows and whys, she wants it all. At the same time she's terrified of the immensity of all of this, what it means. She says she's scared of it, isn't ready to vote.

No problem, hon, I tell her, you'll be ready in eight years.

And I remind her that if her father was home this evening he would be nagging at me to be more even-handed and less partisan, not to overly influence her young mind.

Fuck that.

I don't say that, but she knows I'm thinking it. I tell her that she should care deeply about this matter of choice, that not caring enough landed us in a place where the rest of the world no longer considers this country a partner or a friend.

She says, Yeah, my brother went to Iraq and he didn't need to.

God, that is so bittersweet.

10:52:28 PM    comment []

Who'd have guessed it?

 
You're a Hula Boola Pope.
Take THE HULA BOOLA TEST today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

2:38:32 PM    comment []

George, let's face it.

You're not much of anything.

Let alone an elected official.

12:42:00 PM    comment []

Just a shout-out, a hearty thank you to Rob of Emphasis Added and to his lovely partner, Eunice, for their hospitality and companionship while I visited in Seattle last week.  I had the exceptional opportunity to be able to travel there on business, doing work that I enjoy while meeting and spending time with wonderful people in a stimulating environment.

Damn, it doesn’t get much better than this!

Rob and I have been ham-and-egging on a project; he's the brains, I'm the brawn.  Rob throws me an interpretation of the client's topic and its value proposition; I do a "Colin Laney" and surf through patterns for recognizable content; Rob assembles the rough hash I've gathered into a delectable, cogent statement using the glue of his intellect. In the end it's a highly useful product from which the client can make real value.

This past week marks the first time I've met a fellow Salon blogger face-to-face, let alone a virtual business cohort.  I think my spouse had trepidations that he kept to himself, but I really didn't.  Rob has been blogging only slightly longer than I have here in Salon, and in that time has proven himself to be a witty, highly-engaging, intelligent comrade.  We've had quite a number of intra-blog and meta-blog discussions over the last couple of years that allowed us to fill in some of the big blanks about each other.  You could say that our Salon blog has been our reputation system; we've been able to authenticate each other as we blog.  We've learned to trust each other and continue to learn about each other as we work together.

In no small way, Rob and I are at the cutting edge of the future.  We're a loosely tied collaborative entity, working towards a specific, time-finite goal.  Who knows what we'll be doing in another couple weeks or months?  Who will our team members be at that time?  What skills and experience will we need of our as-yet undetermined partners or projects? 

There are larger questions ahead that aren’t confined to the work Rob and I have been doing.  How will other knowledge-based businesses migrate to this model?  Can non-knowledge-based businesses – those with tangible products – make this leap as well?

And what about you, how will this concept impact you in the years ahead?  Are you ready for this, a ether-bound guild of co-workers that come and go as demand expands and contracts?  I suspect some of you are already there, or are more ready than you realize.  I know in a heartbeat I’d select filchyboy or xian, or The Barbaric Yawp, The Raven or Dave Pollard, Paul Hinrichs, Neva or Mark Hoback, or a number of the rest of my fellow Salon bloggers if they were available and I could recruit them for the right project.

Maybe it’s just a matter of time before we co-brand and become our own collaborative organization. 

Is the future ready for us?  I sure hope so!

12:05:20 PM    comment []

That's how many miles I've logged in the last three weeks.

2000 or so on the road, from upper Michigan to Kansas.

4000 or so back and forth from Michigan to Washington state.

Damn.

Not only does my backside feel excessively flat, but my body clock is completely screwed up, too.

More blogging once I've caught up here around the house.

What 's new with you?

11:01:54 PM    comment []

Sorry, gang, been too doggone busy to blog.  The last couple of weeks have done me in -- too much time on the road or on projects, just too many balls in the air.

What do you do when you have too much on your plate?  Do you cut blogging or something else?  I know I'm quite ready to ditch the daytime contract work with a local manufacturing company to make room for other stuff, including blogging.

Hope to resume blogging on a more regular basis when the dust settles this weekend.  Fill me in on what I've been missing this week and last, okay?

2:16:22 AM    comment []

...jiggety-jig.

13 hours, four 10-minute long stops, three grade-school kids, two partially-deaf in-laws, spouse and me, stuffed into a Suburban.

There should have been a label: Warning, contents under pressure.

Sure glad that's over and done!

1:40:44 AM    comment []