Well, a charming Christmas present - our management have screwed the pooch, and we are not included in the final round of bidding for the contract I'm working on, so the job will evaporate in May. There's a vague promise that 'some of us' might be moved to other contracts, but honestly that just feels like a feeble figleaf to hide their ineptness.
Oh well, at least I've got a few months to find somewhere else - not a great prospect for a 53 year old IT specialist though, I suspect this will get ugly.
Showing posts with label bastards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bastards. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Not so much regulatory capture as regulatory rape
From the FT
Mr Dimon’s comments come as Wall Street executives and Republican members of Congress are starting to attack regulation as anger at the financial industry subsides.[...]
Spencer Bachus, the Republican chairman of the House financial services committee, has said that regulators are there to “serve” the banks and warnedJesus, poor deluded me, I thought the regulators were there to serve US and protect us from the rapacity of banks. So much for that.
the Treasury not to hurt Goldman Sachs’ shareholders when it writes new rules implementing Dodd-Frank
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Tougher than that
Well, great news and bad news.
First, the great news, despite medical predictions and all expectations, my mother seems to have recovered from her operation: her kidneys have revived and resumed function, her lungs seem clearer, she's conscious and speaking. Not sure how her heart is, but this seems to be immensely hopeful!
Apparently the Thompsons are even tougher than I thought.
I'd write more about it, but my heart is too full of relief and joy.
The not so good news, my wife got fired last Friday (last thing in the afternoon of course, have to get the whole day's labour from her first). This is more than a little unexpected, as her employer seemed to have a high regard for her, before he got hospitalised with his own serious complications (pneumonia, kidney failure & other stuff).
But apparently his substitute, untrained and insecure, felt threatened by her competence and training and talent, and insisted on her dismissal because 'he couldn't get along with her'. As far as I can tell, that mostly consisted of a complete inability to delegate any work to her or anyone else, and to self-manage by constant flirtation with the edge of disaster and putting himself under unnecessary pressure (the old Hero syndrome I've seen so much of in the IT industry, basically).
We also found today that her previous wages cheque had been bounced for lack of funds. She got to the bank and cashed it directly today, so it's apparently cashflow, not malice, but a fairly good sign that the business is deteriorating rapidly - the october accounts weren't even sent out til the end of November, so the cashflow problem is just going to snowball unless someone starts actually managing the business.
Karmic revenge doesn't normally operate that quickly :)
First, the great news, despite medical predictions and all expectations, my mother seems to have recovered from her operation: her kidneys have revived and resumed function, her lungs seem clearer, she's conscious and speaking. Not sure how her heart is, but this seems to be immensely hopeful!
Apparently the Thompsons are even tougher than I thought.
I'd write more about it, but my heart is too full of relief and joy.
The not so good news, my wife got fired last Friday (last thing in the afternoon of course, have to get the whole day's labour from her first). This is more than a little unexpected, as her employer seemed to have a high regard for her, before he got hospitalised with his own serious complications (pneumonia, kidney failure & other stuff).
But apparently his substitute, untrained and insecure, felt threatened by her competence and training and talent, and insisted on her dismissal because 'he couldn't get along with her'. As far as I can tell, that mostly consisted of a complete inability to delegate any work to her or anyone else, and to self-manage by constant flirtation with the edge of disaster and putting himself under unnecessary pressure (the old Hero syndrome I've seen so much of in the IT industry, basically).
We also found today that her previous wages cheque had been bounced for lack of funds. She got to the bank and cashed it directly today, so it's apparently cashflow, not malice, but a fairly good sign that the business is deteriorating rapidly - the october accounts weren't even sent out til the end of November, so the cashflow problem is just going to snowball unless someone starts actually managing the business.
Karmic revenge doesn't normally operate that quickly :)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Third World Plumbing in a First World country
Cat actually asked me to write this one, as she's fairly terminally disgusted with the plumbing here, and I can see her point.
Of course, it's not Third World, we aren't talking holes in the ground, it's just kinda ... Second World, well intentioned, badly designed, appallingly constructed, which is how Russia has been described to me (often).
What really appalled her, in our last place, was having the toilets back up into the shower stall, while she was trying to have a shower. The underlying cause of that one was tree roots gradually crushing/lifting the combined outlet pipe, but she - well both of us really - were appalled that the toilet outlet pipe and the shower drain would be combined, rather than separately piped into the sewer mains.
Quite a bit of the plumbing, electrical and other basic infrastructure seems to be like that: just not well-thought-out, and often poorly implemented. For instance, some dimwit in the 60s thought it would be a good idea to wire houses with aluminium (sorry, aluminum haha) wire, which was cheaper, but has caused endless problems.
Another, and this still appalls me, is that the electrical plugs are largely just 2-prong, i.e. there is no earth! This is gradually being phased out (bad pun) but this stuff is still being sold and still installed in houses, despite the minimal savings and the truly lamentable lack of safety. Aside of anything else, it also means any appliances you have which have 3-prong power points, requires a converter plug in order to even fit (the plugs & sockets are also disastrously designed so that plugs are forever falling out of the wall - I have had it seriously recommended to me by electricians that you need to bend the prongs in order to alleviate this!)
Part of this is, I'm sure, because there are few or no regulations compared to NZ, England, or ... well, the civilised world*: and of course that varies state by state, as there are essentially NO federal regulations on anything like this. Part of it - and I'm sure a lot of Americans would say all of it - is that we're in Arkansas, which is regarded as relatively backward & third-worldish by most of the USA**. But a lot of it is just the cut-the-corners, minimise-everything attitude that has become more and more prevalent with the last 5 decades or so.
Bah, youngsters today! Standards are falling! Everything is worse!!
But seriously, I've had people I work with, supposedly educated and intelligent, tell me that many houses*** are, and should be, built to only last 30 years because they'll get pulled down and replaced after that anyway. Which (a) I doubt, and (b) results in insta-slums, because they look like crap after one year, and start literally falling apart after 2. Cost-efficient for the builder, I'm sure, not so much for the owner.
That, again, is a kind of tangent though, because the plumbing, electrical & stuff I am ranting about is in middle-class housing - pretty much all the houses we looked at buying, and at least the next tranche above, i.e. the ones we looked at but couldnt have afforded, all had these afflictions. I am assuming that the really affluent houses don't ... but when I stop to think about it, I'm probably wrong about that too: this is more a disease of the spirit than an absence of wealth: the shonky fly-by-night attitude of casual disregard.
Enough grumpy old rants for one day :)
*yes that's a bit harsh, I agree.
**except for Mississippi and Alabama which in the same boat
*** Many = poor peoples, i.e. black people and po' white trash
Of course, it's not Third World, we aren't talking holes in the ground, it's just kinda ... Second World, well intentioned, badly designed, appallingly constructed, which is how Russia has been described to me (often).
What really appalled her, in our last place, was having the toilets back up into the shower stall, while she was trying to have a shower. The underlying cause of that one was tree roots gradually crushing/lifting the combined outlet pipe, but she - well both of us really - were appalled that the toilet outlet pipe and the shower drain would be combined, rather than separately piped into the sewer mains.
Quite a bit of the plumbing, electrical and other basic infrastructure seems to be like that: just not well-thought-out, and often poorly implemented. For instance, some dimwit in the 60s thought it would be a good idea to wire houses with aluminium (sorry, aluminum haha) wire, which was cheaper, but has caused endless problems.
Another, and this still appalls me, is that the electrical plugs are largely just 2-prong, i.e. there is no earth! This is gradually being phased out (bad pun) but this stuff is still being sold and still installed in houses, despite the minimal savings and the truly lamentable lack of safety. Aside of anything else, it also means any appliances you have which have 3-prong power points, requires a converter plug in order to even fit (the plugs & sockets are also disastrously designed so that plugs are forever falling out of the wall - I have had it seriously recommended to me by electricians that you need to bend the prongs in order to alleviate this!)
Part of this is, I'm sure, because there are few or no regulations compared to NZ, England, or ... well, the civilised world*: and of course that varies state by state, as there are essentially NO federal regulations on anything like this. Part of it - and I'm sure a lot of Americans would say all of it - is that we're in Arkansas, which is regarded as relatively backward & third-worldish by most of the USA**. But a lot of it is just the cut-the-corners, minimise-everything attitude that has become more and more prevalent with the last 5 decades or so.
Bah, youngsters today! Standards are falling! Everything is worse!!
But seriously, I've had people I work with, supposedly educated and intelligent, tell me that many houses*** are, and should be, built to only last 30 years because they'll get pulled down and replaced after that anyway. Which (a) I doubt, and (b) results in insta-slums, because they look like crap after one year, and start literally falling apart after 2. Cost-efficient for the builder, I'm sure, not so much for the owner.
That, again, is a kind of tangent though, because the plumbing, electrical & stuff I am ranting about is in middle-class housing - pretty much all the houses we looked at buying, and at least the next tranche above, i.e. the ones we looked at but couldnt have afforded, all had these afflictions. I am assuming that the really affluent houses don't ... but when I stop to think about it, I'm probably wrong about that too: this is more a disease of the spirit than an absence of wealth: the shonky fly-by-night attitude of casual disregard.
Enough grumpy old rants for one day :)
*yes that's a bit harsh, I agree.
**except for Mississippi and Alabama which in the same boat
*** Many = poor peoples, i.e. black people and po' white trash
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Omg jfk wtf and all that slang
Welcome to Arkansas - this is so appalling I couldn't believe it, but apparently it's true:
When the fire chief of Jericho, Arkansas, finally got fed up and went to court a few days ago to challenge his second traffic ticket in as many days, the town's entire 7-man police force showed up for the hearing. And then shot him.
After the shooting, Martin said police chief Willie Frazier told the sheriff's department he was disbanding the police force "until things calm down." The sheriff's department has been patrolling the town in the meantime.
I just love the 'until things calm down' bit ... so as soon as the press have packed up and gone away, these vile execrable excuses for human beings will be back, abusing their power and gouging any passers-by of spare cash on any excuse, no doubt.
Welcome to Arkansas, monkeys, and nuts, to misquote Shakespeare
When the fire chief of Jericho, Arkansas, finally got fed up and went to court a few days ago to challenge his second traffic ticket in as many days, the town's entire 7-man police force showed up for the hearing. And then shot him.
Seriously. Apparently a scuffle broke out and one of the cops pulled out his gun and shot the guy in open court. He's OK, but the police department, which was already in deep trouble for its habit of ticketing everything on wheels that rolled through Jericho, has been disbanded and all outstanding tickets have been voided. The town's part-time judge has quit too. And nobody knows what's happened to all the ticket revenue.
Apparently the (county-based) Sheriff's department is now investigating the disappearance of all the ($150) fines levied by the police department: and the Police apparently had also been abusing their power by issuing tickets on the nearby interstate (motorway) which is outside their jurisdiction.After the shooting, Martin said police chief Willie Frazier told the sheriff's department he was disbanding the police force "until things calm down." The sheriff's department has been patrolling the town in the meantime.
I just love the 'until things calm down' bit ... so as soon as the press have packed up and gone away, these vile execrable excuses for human beings will be back, abusing their power and gouging any passers-by of spare cash on any excuse, no doubt.
Mayor Helen Adams declined to speak about the shooting when approached outside her home, saying she had just returned from a doctor's appointment and couldn't talk.
"We'll get with you after all this comes through," Adams said Tuesday before shutting the door.
A white Ford Crown Victoria sat in her driveway with "public property" license plates. A sales brochure advertising police equipment sat in the back seat of the car.
Of course, as of Saturday she still hasn't made any public comment.Welcome to Arkansas, monkeys, and nuts, to misquote Shakespeare
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
A nasty little trick
Well, I got a bit of an object lesson yesterday. A couple of weeks ago, I received an offer of a credit card through the mail, and as I still need to broaden & improve my credit history here, I thought it would be a good idea to take this up*, so I completed the application and sent it off, after reading through it fairly carefully.
Yesterday, I got my first statement for this through the mail (before I'd even received the card, which I thought was a bit keen in itself). For a card with a $250 credit limit, they were going to charge me $5.95 as a monthly fee, plus an initial $70 signing-up 'fee', so my brand-new credit card would have an actual initial credit limit of $175.
I went back and re-read the initial offer I'd been sent, to make sure there was no mention of monthly fees or of an initial signing fee, which - of course - there wasn't, and then phoned them to inform them that I hadn't agreed to this fee and that I did not wish to use this card & to close the account immediately.
The poor girl on the other end was obviously going through pre-written scripts, and first gave me the 'but this will help repair** your credit' line, then started telling me that I would still have to pay the fees as the account had been opened: but something I said*** must have triggered a different branch in the script, because she switched me to a guy who assured me the account would be closed and the fees reversed out (altho this may take up to 30 days).
Somehow I suspect if I'd sounded, ah, less educated, or female, the bullying to cough up the initial fee would have continued rather longer. Of course, now I'm going to have to both watch to see that they do reverse this, and to make sure that it doesn't appear on my credit history.
Parenthentically, until you've lived here it's hard to appreciate how important the credit score is, and how grotesquely powerful (and unsupervised) the credit ratings agencies are: there are endless horror stories of people getting identities stolen or just confused, and spending literally years and thousands of dollars in trying to get the agencies to recognise and amend their own errors (and of those errors repeatedly popping up every few years even after they are supposedly fixed). This may be just urban myth, but the extent of the stories makes me think that it's something that will - in a while - get addressed by the government in some way: at the very least, it is crying out for some legal remedy (a regulatory agency & appeals court would make the most sense, I think, but god knows what Congress will come up with).
Mind you, the whole financial services industry is absolutely rotten to the core: I'm not talking here about the financial whizkids that have invited the latest sturm-und-drang on all our heads - that is actually just the capitalist system going through it's usual spastic spasm, by and large, and those idiots will be with us always (see Jay Gould and many others). No, what I'm thinking of is the rotten stuff like:
* Credit card companies that will jump your interest rate from 18% to 39% if you are late in paying - not just if you're late in paying their bill, but if you're late in paying any bill, like the electricity bill. Oh, and then the interest rate doesn't go down again for 12 months, of course
* Banks that will always process all your cheques & withdrawals in a day, before considering any deposits, and if any of the withdrawals render you overdrawn, will bounce your payment and charge a $50 fee for this
* On top of that trick, when they have the opportunity, rather than reversing the largest withdrawal of the day, they will bounce the smallest payment first, continuing until the "overdraught" is eliminated - thus maximising the number of bounce fees they can charge. Of course, the bounce fees are also deducted, and can then cause more withdrawals/cheques to be bounced (if there are any), or the imposition of an extra $100 'unauthorised overdraught' charge.
I could go on - at some length, I might add - but why bother? you get the idea. The books are rigged, and unless you are scrupulously careful at all times, you are vulnerable: and they will rip you, every chance you can get. The ultimate Bastard society, I guess.
Well, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised: that's always been the reputation of the States, in the end: a wild west where the devil takes the hindmost.
sigh more tomorrow.
* As the credit ratings agencies consider the number of sources, and also the amount of uncommitted credit, in rating your score: so a couple of totally unused credit cards will actually boost the score substantially - just one way in which they prove their weakness to being gamed.
**ha!
*** I wish I could work out what exactly triggered this
Yesterday, I got my first statement for this through the mail (before I'd even received the card, which I thought was a bit keen in itself). For a card with a $250 credit limit, they were going to charge me $5.95 as a monthly fee, plus an initial $70 signing-up 'fee', so my brand-new credit card would have an actual initial credit limit of $175.
I went back and re-read the initial offer I'd been sent, to make sure there was no mention of monthly fees or of an initial signing fee, which - of course - there wasn't, and then phoned them to inform them that I hadn't agreed to this fee and that I did not wish to use this card & to close the account immediately.
The poor girl on the other end was obviously going through pre-written scripts, and first gave me the 'but this will help repair** your credit' line, then started telling me that I would still have to pay the fees as the account had been opened: but something I said*** must have triggered a different branch in the script, because she switched me to a guy who assured me the account would be closed and the fees reversed out (altho this may take up to 30 days).
Somehow I suspect if I'd sounded, ah, less educated, or female, the bullying to cough up the initial fee would have continued rather longer. Of course, now I'm going to have to both watch to see that they do reverse this, and to make sure that it doesn't appear on my credit history.
Parenthentically, until you've lived here it's hard to appreciate how important the credit score is, and how grotesquely powerful (and unsupervised) the credit ratings agencies are: there are endless horror stories of people getting identities stolen or just confused, and spending literally years and thousands of dollars in trying to get the agencies to recognise and amend their own errors (and of those errors repeatedly popping up every few years even after they are supposedly fixed). This may be just urban myth, but the extent of the stories makes me think that it's something that will - in a while - get addressed by the government in some way: at the very least, it is crying out for some legal remedy (a regulatory agency & appeals court would make the most sense, I think, but god knows what Congress will come up with).
Mind you, the whole financial services industry is absolutely rotten to the core: I'm not talking here about the financial whizkids that have invited the latest sturm-und-drang on all our heads - that is actually just the capitalist system going through it's usual spastic spasm, by and large, and those idiots will be with us always (see Jay Gould and many others). No, what I'm thinking of is the rotten stuff like:
* Credit card companies that will jump your interest rate from 18% to 39% if you are late in paying - not just if you're late in paying their bill, but if you're late in paying any bill, like the electricity bill. Oh, and then the interest rate doesn't go down again for 12 months, of course
* Banks that will always process all your cheques & withdrawals in a day, before considering any deposits, and if any of the withdrawals render you overdrawn, will bounce your payment and charge a $50 fee for this
* On top of that trick, when they have the opportunity, rather than reversing the largest withdrawal of the day, they will bounce the smallest payment first, continuing until the "overdraught" is eliminated - thus maximising the number of bounce fees they can charge. Of course, the bounce fees are also deducted, and can then cause more withdrawals/cheques to be bounced (if there are any), or the imposition of an extra $100 'unauthorised overdraught' charge.
I could go on - at some length, I might add - but why bother? you get the idea. The books are rigged, and unless you are scrupulously careful at all times, you are vulnerable: and they will rip you, every chance you can get. The ultimate Bastard society, I guess.
Well, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised: that's always been the reputation of the States, in the end: a wild west where the devil takes the hindmost.
sigh more tomorrow.
* As the credit ratings agencies consider the number of sources, and also the amount of uncommitted credit, in rating your score: so a couple of totally unused credit cards will actually boost the score substantially - just one way in which they prove their weakness to being gamed.
**ha!
*** I wish I could work out what exactly triggered this
Monday, June 22, 2009
Hands
Well, I had something of a shock on Friday afternoon. I'd better preface this a bit:
We had an announcement from the company a while ago that it was intended to off-shore a proportion of the US jobs to our Indian subcompany, in order to reduce the cost of support, and offer cheaper contracts*: however, it was stipulated that this replacement would be done by natural wastage (i.e. people resigning or moving), and there would not be lay-offs made to cause this.
As part of taking on Indian contractors & getting them up to speed, we had a contractor join us: he came over to the US for a couple of weeks on-the-spot training, then went back to India, where he is working Indian hours (i.e. from midnight-ish onwards, on our clock). As we didn't have anything like enough work to justify another team member, we were told this would just be a small part of what he is handling, & it was implied he would work on other contracts. This seemed a good idea, as it meant we had someone who could handle out-of-hours emergency calls without one of us getting dragged out of bed at 4 a.m.
However, on Friday, one of our DBA's was laid off, officially for 'financial considerations', and the Indian contractor moved into that slot.
On one hand, this seems like an egregious violation of the company's policy, and, if not illegal, certainly unethical on the face of it.
On the other hand, we all know the person being replaced has been recalcitrant and unwilling to cooperate or share knowledge, or really be helpful to newer team members or the team manager, so you have to wonder how real the so-called financial considerations are, or whether it's just a polite way of avoiding the truth: someone simply no longer willing to do the job.
On the third hand, do I really want to trust working for a company that would do this (although it is true, I have no idea whether the person concerned may have had warning(s) about this beforehand)?
On the fourth hand, who am I kidding? Trust? Trust any employer in this market? It's not New Zealand, there's no presumption of fair play here, and people would just look at you as though you grew a 2nd head if you talked otherwise.
Well, something to mull over I guess. I haven't said (& wouldn't suggest), but it seems to me the guy concerned could appeal to our company's Ethics Committee about this, and have a good chance of having his appeal upheld - assuming that the company actually says what it means about its' Ethics which ... well, let me only say, it turned out to be incredibly flexible when I relied on it in the UK.
We had an announcement from the company a while ago that it was intended to off-shore a proportion of the US jobs to our Indian subcompany, in order to reduce the cost of support, and offer cheaper contracts*: however, it was stipulated that this replacement would be done by natural wastage (i.e. people resigning or moving), and there would not be lay-offs made to cause this.
As part of taking on Indian contractors & getting them up to speed, we had a contractor join us: he came over to the US for a couple of weeks on-the-spot training, then went back to India, where he is working Indian hours (i.e. from midnight-ish onwards, on our clock). As we didn't have anything like enough work to justify another team member, we were told this would just be a small part of what he is handling, & it was implied he would work on other contracts. This seemed a good idea, as it meant we had someone who could handle out-of-hours emergency calls without one of us getting dragged out of bed at 4 a.m.
However, on Friday, one of our DBA's was laid off, officially for 'financial considerations', and the Indian contractor moved into that slot.
On one hand, this seems like an egregious violation of the company's policy, and, if not illegal, certainly unethical on the face of it.
On the other hand, we all know the person being replaced has been recalcitrant and unwilling to cooperate or share knowledge, or really be helpful to newer team members or the team manager, so you have to wonder how real the so-called financial considerations are, or whether it's just a polite way of avoiding the truth: someone simply no longer willing to do the job.
On the third hand, do I really want to trust working for a company that would do this (although it is true, I have no idea whether the person concerned may have had warning(s) about this beforehand)?
On the fourth hand, who am I kidding? Trust? Trust any employer in this market? It's not New Zealand, there's no presumption of fair play here, and people would just look at you as though you grew a 2nd head if you talked otherwise.
Well, something to mull over I guess. I haven't said (& wouldn't suggest), but it seems to me the guy concerned could appeal to our company's Ethics Committee about this, and have a good chance of having his appeal upheld - assuming that the company actually says what it means about its' Ethics which ... well, let me only say, it turned out to be incredibly flexible when I relied on it in the UK.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Persia
Well, the more I watch the events in Teheran - inasmuch as we get to see anything of them - the more depressing it seems.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful that the people are demanding some real democracy: with any luck, in time that might lead them in the direction of more freedom, which would be a tremendous blessing.
But, when I see the people who are likely to benefit, it's a whole other story, as they say. Mousavi is a moderate, but only by comparison to the alternatives: by any external measure, he's still a mullah, repressive & torture-happy, just a bit less bat-shit crazy when it comes to external affairs, and better trained in buttering up foreign opinion. Ayatollah Montazeri, who appears to be trying to stir things up from within the religious power structure, is as thorough-going a bloodstained tyrant as Khomeini ever was, and his ally Rafsanjani is (merely) a plutocrat who wants better access to western luxuries, it seems.
And of course the current bunch, Ahmadinejad & co, are quite quite crazy.
Still, I suppose someone less elitist and more actually democratic might emerge from the scrum, if it goes long enough - look at how the French revolution evolved.
Of course, the real problem is, there's no real signs of disaffection in the police/military, which is really the sine-qua-non for a successful modern revolution - look at the Ukraine, Russia, & most of East Europe at one point or another.
And look at China after Tiananmen Square for what happens when there isn't a disaffected power structure. Uggh.
Still, so far, the powers that be don't seem to have exerted their military power to suppress the protests, so it's impossible to say for sure - maybe there's more disaffection than is obvious to us, or maybe the Supreme Leader (Khamenei) is losing his taste for bloodshed: and faltering determination at the top is just as lethal as disaffection in the military (and we're back to Louis XVI & the French Revolution again).
Of course the problem with that is, look how the French revolution evolved - first more democratic, then democratic tyranny, then massive bloodshed, then reaction into military tyranny. Oh goodie, just what we need in the middle east, another tyranny looking to foreign wars to curb the popular dissent.
Maybe I'm just being too pessimistic: after all, we've been blessed by quite a few miraculous liberations in the last quarter century, even if we totally squandered the possibilities of some of them (hello, Russia & Bill Clinton, I'm looking at y'all) - when I consider the freedom and hope in eastern Germany, and the liberation of Poland, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Roumania, Bulgaria, and - most miraculously - the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which I never thought would be pried out from Russia's hands, there must be some cause for hope. So maybe, maybe, maybe, it'll come out right, somehow.
[Later Update] So it appears I was too optimistic about Khamenei, his dander is up and he's committed to the current fraud. Terrifying.
[Heartrending Update]
* * * * * * * * * * *
The one thing about the whole situation that I find completely outrageous, is the rank and rancid Republicans here, criticizing Obama for not speaking out strongly in favour of the protestors, as - how did one put it last night? - 'representative of the US, the symbol of liberty and fairness in the world.' How stupid can you be? Doesn't he get it that the US is not a symbol of liberty, or of anything but rank oppression, in the Middle East?
And of course he does get it, he's just playing this for domestic political advantage - he's one of the many demented fools that - until last week - were urging the bombing of Iran in order to eliminate it's possible future nuclear facilities (despite Pentagon planners pointing out that this is impossible, short of a prolonged nuclear barrage over the bulk of Iran, which would also, yanno, destroy all its oilfields).
It's one thing I do find quite alarming, that the right here view everything solely through the prism of domestic advantage, and are so bitterly furious at losing power, as though they had a divine right to it, that they will resort to any craziness to criticize the current administration. It is a common occurrence to hear Obama reviled as a tyrant by radio talkback hosts here, and much worse than that - and that's even if you steer clear of the real crazies, who claim he's a muslim, or he isn't an american, or ... eh.
I think being in Arkansas, and immured in the middle of these people, is having a detrimental effect on our tempers, if nothing else.
Anyway, back to it - more next week
Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful that the people are demanding some real democracy: with any luck, in time that might lead them in the direction of more freedom, which would be a tremendous blessing.
But, when I see the people who are likely to benefit, it's a whole other story, as they say. Mousavi is a moderate, but only by comparison to the alternatives: by any external measure, he's still a mullah, repressive & torture-happy, just a bit less bat-shit crazy when it comes to external affairs, and better trained in buttering up foreign opinion. Ayatollah Montazeri, who appears to be trying to stir things up from within the religious power structure, is as thorough-going a bloodstained tyrant as Khomeini ever was, and his ally Rafsanjani is (merely) a plutocrat who wants better access to western luxuries, it seems.
And of course the current bunch, Ahmadinejad & co, are quite quite crazy.
Still, I suppose someone less elitist and more actually democratic might emerge from the scrum, if it goes long enough - look at how the French revolution evolved.
Of course, the real problem is, there's no real signs of disaffection in the police/military, which is really the sine-qua-non for a successful modern revolution - look at the Ukraine, Russia, & most of East Europe at one point or another.
And look at China after Tiananmen Square for what happens when there isn't a disaffected power structure. Uggh.
Still, so far, the powers that be don't seem to have exerted their military power to suppress the protests, so it's impossible to say for sure - maybe there's more disaffection than is obvious to us, or maybe the Supreme Leader (Khamenei) is losing his taste for bloodshed: and faltering determination at the top is just as lethal as disaffection in the military (and we're back to Louis XVI & the French Revolution again).
Of course the problem with that is, look how the French revolution evolved - first more democratic, then democratic tyranny, then massive bloodshed, then reaction into military tyranny. Oh goodie, just what we need in the middle east, another tyranny looking to foreign wars to curb the popular dissent.
Maybe I'm just being too pessimistic: after all, we've been blessed by quite a few miraculous liberations in the last quarter century, even if we totally squandered the possibilities of some of them (hello, Russia & Bill Clinton, I'm looking at y'all) - when I consider the freedom and hope in eastern Germany, and the liberation of Poland, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Roumania, Bulgaria, and - most miraculously - the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which I never thought would be pried out from Russia's hands, there must be some cause for hope. So maybe, maybe, maybe, it'll come out right, somehow.
[Heartrending Update]
From NIAC, a translation of a blog post:
"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow's children..."
* * * * * * * * * * *
The one thing about the whole situation that I find completely outrageous, is the rank and rancid Republicans here, criticizing Obama for not speaking out strongly in favour of the protestors, as - how did one put it last night? - 'representative of the US, the symbol of liberty and fairness in the world.' How stupid can you be? Doesn't he get it that the US is not a symbol of liberty, or of anything but rank oppression, in the Middle East?
And of course he does get it, he's just playing this for domestic political advantage - he's one of the many demented fools that - until last week - were urging the bombing of Iran in order to eliminate it's possible future nuclear facilities (despite Pentagon planners pointing out that this is impossible, short of a prolonged nuclear barrage over the bulk of Iran, which would also, yanno, destroy all its oilfields).
It's one thing I do find quite alarming, that the right here view everything solely through the prism of domestic advantage, and are so bitterly furious at losing power, as though they had a divine right to it, that they will resort to any craziness to criticize the current administration. It is a common occurrence to hear Obama reviled as a tyrant by radio talkback hosts here, and much worse than that - and that's even if you steer clear of the real crazies, who claim he's a muslim, or he isn't an american, or ... eh.
I think being in Arkansas, and immured in the middle of these people, is having a detrimental effect on our tempers, if nothing else.
Anyway, back to it - more next week
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Maundering
I spent too much of yesterday & last night, thinking about the women in my life: starting from Shirley (naturally enough) but considering most of them, and realising how damaged they all were, from their childhoods. There's a temptation to think that I only choose damaged women, either from lack of confidence or from broken-wing syndrome, but actually I don't think that's it, because it extends to women I've only known as friends, or even in some cases just acquaintances, and they all seem to be damaged.
Not all in the same way, for sure, but far too many are broken in such similar ways: and almost all looking for a father-figure, to make it right, or (as Shirley) to repeat the same pattern of damage, it seems.
I suppose the same is true of men (like I care): and lo, there are both Paul and I, hitched to strong, bighearted blondes :) Which doesn't really bother me as I don't see it as broken so much as a point of healing. I figure everyone is condemned to either seek out their mother/father, or seek out the diametric reverse, there doesn't seem to be much escaping from that.
But looking at Shirley's history (and Kay's, and Amanda's, and Michelle's, and Linda's, and ...well, you get the idea), & the cycle seems to be, to pick up with someone like dear old Dad, endure a repeat of the same treatment (whether beatings, being ignored, being manipulated, or whatever), breaking up messily and at great length, then - immediately! - stumbling into the next iteration of the same cycle: and despite my efforts, I've never really been able to help any of them break out from this vicious circle.
Depressing thought, really.
Thank god Cat went looking for the opposite of her father, for that matter.
But it also makes me wonder if this is an artefact of our generation - at some level, I can't see it, why would it be so unique? On the other hand, where the women are reacting to distant/absent fathers, does this mean that our generations' fathers were more distant and less involved than their parents in turn? I suppose there's some plausibility to that - until I think of Victorian childrearing & realise that parenting in the 20s & 30s & 40s must emerge from that hideous pall. So, no, we must all go through this I guess; although prior to the 60s I guess it just wasnt really discussed openly.
Oh well, enough blithering for the day
Not all in the same way, for sure, but far too many are broken in such similar ways: and almost all looking for a father-figure, to make it right, or (as Shirley) to repeat the same pattern of damage, it seems.
I suppose the same is true of men (like I care): and lo, there are both Paul and I, hitched to strong, bighearted blondes :) Which doesn't really bother me as I don't see it as broken so much as a point of healing. I figure everyone is condemned to either seek out their mother/father, or seek out the diametric reverse, there doesn't seem to be much escaping from that.
But looking at Shirley's history (and Kay's, and Amanda's, and Michelle's, and Linda's, and ...well, you get the idea), & the cycle seems to be, to pick up with someone like dear old Dad, endure a repeat of the same treatment (whether beatings, being ignored, being manipulated, or whatever), breaking up messily and at great length, then - immediately! - stumbling into the next iteration of the same cycle: and despite my efforts, I've never really been able to help any of them break out from this vicious circle.
Depressing thought, really.
Thank god Cat went looking for the opposite of her father, for that matter.
But it also makes me wonder if this is an artefact of our generation - at some level, I can't see it, why would it be so unique? On the other hand, where the women are reacting to distant/absent fathers, does this mean that our generations' fathers were more distant and less involved than their parents in turn? I suppose there's some plausibility to that - until I think of Victorian childrearing & realise that parenting in the 20s & 30s & 40s must emerge from that hideous pall. So, no, we must all go through this I guess; although prior to the 60s I guess it just wasnt really discussed openly.
Oh well, enough blithering for the day
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
AT&T Blues...... again
Well, that was interesting: my internet access disappeared on Saturday night, sometime between 10 and 11. Not that I did anything, y'understand, it just ... went away. So, I tried AT&T helpdesk, but they only operate til 7 p.m.
Sunday after breakfast, I tried again - after negotiating their very hostile voice-response program, I eventually got to talk to a technician, who took me through all his standard fixes, without any result. His conclusion? there was some problem with the setup of my PC, and I should either
(a) call Microsoft for support, or (b) call AT&T's out-of-scope helpline and pay for support. I did point out that this occurred without my intervention or changing anything on the PC, but this apparently did not matter.
So, I called Microsoft help, and they wanted $75 to help me. That seemed a bit silly, so I said no, and called the AT&T helpline. It turned out, they wanted $129 to help me! although, to be fair, that would let me call with other problems for free, for the next 6 months. Obviously they expect quite a few problems in any six month period.
I restrained my temper, declined the offer, and asked if they could tell me who to contact, to terminate my account with them. This, it turns out, is the Billing Department, who aren't open on Sundays, so I noted the phone number.
Ten minutes after this, again without my having taken any further action, my internet access was restored.
Nothing like a little revenue-gathering exercise, is there.
Sunday after breakfast, I tried again - after negotiating their very hostile voice-response program, I eventually got to talk to a technician, who took me through all his standard fixes, without any result. His conclusion? there was some problem with the setup of my PC, and I should either
(a) call Microsoft for support, or (b) call AT&T's out-of-scope helpline and pay for support. I did point out that this occurred without my intervention or changing anything on the PC, but this apparently did not matter.
So, I called Microsoft help, and they wanted $75 to help me. That seemed a bit silly, so I said no, and called the AT&T helpline. It turned out, they wanted $129 to help me! although, to be fair, that would let me call with other problems for free, for the next 6 months. Obviously they expect quite a few problems in any six month period.
I restrained my temper, declined the offer, and asked if they could tell me who to contact, to terminate my account with them. This, it turns out, is the Billing Department, who aren't open on Sundays, so I noted the phone number.
Ten minutes after this, again without my having taken any further action, my internet access was restored.
Nothing like a little revenue-gathering exercise, is there.
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