Vandalism

I know that I probably brought this on myself...

Wednesday I had a shitty day. Work was shitty, I was working alone; the weather was crappy; my back hurt. I could go on and on with a litany of reasons to curse Wednesday until I was blue in the face. Wednesday was so horrible that it refused to die. It laid in waiting, hiding until I had forgotten about it and came back to bite me in the ass this morning on Friday.

With the weather being crappy Wednesday, the pool here in our apartment complex was closed. If it's rainy, the management here just leave it locked. If the day starts out nice in the morning, rains at midday they lock it up and close it the rest of the day, even if the late afternoon's weather is flawless. But Wednesday, being a bad day, naturally had crappy weather to go with it. The pool was closed. Locked up.

As I am about to pull into my driveway, which is directly across from said pool, I see a teenage girl inside, in her bathing suit and a teenage boy climbing over the fence in his bathing suit. Having just finished an especially bad day at work and just being a miserable son of a bitch at that particular moment, I was overtaken in a wave of misanthropy. Normally, I would not care if some idiots were climbing a tall, wrought iron fence with sharp appendages atop, to get into 50 degree water. But I had just finished a day where it seemed that everyone around me did whatever they felt like with disregard to attendance policies, compliance issues or even just simple logic. Everyone around me at work was a mental case and I often feel like the only sane, responsible adult in the whole hospital. I was going to be damned if I was going to come home and be witness to the same idiocy at home as well.

Instead of turning into my driveway, I continued down the road and around the corner to the rental office. That's right; I ratted them out. I'm not proud of it, but I did it.

The property manager took off for the pool and surely lambasted those kids and drug them out of the pool and possibly even dragged them by their ear to their apartment and embarrassed them in front of their parents. ...she doesn't play around, believe me.

I had forgotten about the whole thing until this morning. I head out to the car, sit in the driver's seat and as I am looking at the building I see that someone had poorly drawn that stupid Bam Margera logo on the building in spray paint. Shaking my head, I turn over the car's engine, turn to my right to look over my shoulder and see that my back window had been spray painted. I get out to look and see that my tailgate has also received a touch of paint as well.

I look up and down the length of the parking lot. Mine was the only car vandalized.

Payback, evidently, for Wednesday. Next time I'll let the little shits freeze their asses off in the pool...

hmmm

So, I have an idea for a book, or at the very least a short story. I have the whole arc of the tale mapped out in my head. I could sit down and bang out the outline of it in probably about 10-15 minutes. Writing it would be, I think, fairly easy.

But I am afraid to start it.

What if it sucks? And I mean really, really sucks. Would I know enough to know that it was complete and utter garbage and therefore save myself the embarrassment of actually sharing it with someone. I generally take criticism fairly well, but I don't know if I could take someone that I really care about that the story I've spent hours pouring myself into was a big, steaming pile of shit.

What if it was slightly mediocre? An amusing little ditty with serious structural flaws and a meandering narrative... a highly descriptive narrative with a charming voice whose story kind of falls on its face? Would I maybe feel good enough about it or fool myself into believing that it's not half bad and subsequently submit it to a number of publishers and be utterly crushed by rejection?

Maybe I might write it and never show it to a living soul (but you and I both know my ego is way too big for that!) I don't know... I've never been this chicken about anything creative before. As an actor, I've gone on stage in my underwear, broken down the fourth wall and gone out into the audience and interacted with them. I produced and directed a play in college. I've put my drawings into various shows. Why is this so different? Why is this so paralyzingly terrifying?

YIKES.

Wingnuts Unite!

If you were wondering where all the the crazy-ass, right-wing, nut-bags are hanging out online these days, they are congregating here.

Yahoo! Buzz was probably envisioned as a site where people of similar interests can converge and have a conversation. ...Or even as a place where lively, healthy debate could be held in a public forum. I'm sure that's what it was until the crazies took over. But now there is never an article where somehow the discussion doesn't get distorted into a hateful denouncement of the Democratic Party and President Obama, no matter what the subject.

No, really...

Don't believe me? Here's an article about Jessica Alba. Here's one about the Octomom. Here's one about Donald Trump taking control of his casinos; you don't even have to scroll down the page for that one... And these aren't even political stories.

The political stories are the ones where the hate is served the same way I like my coffee: hot and bold. Don't get me wrong; I think that people should be allowed to say whatever they please and are entitled to their opinions. What troubles me is that the loonies that congregate to these pages are so off-base, uninformed and hateful that it's down right scary.

Think I'm exaggerating? Take a look at this discussion about President Obama setting up a new regulatory agency to protect consumers. If you don't want to click over to that page here is one of the insane rants, posted by a person who calls himself "AMERICAN" whose avatar picture is the iconic Shephard Farey Obama image with a sniper sight superimposed over it:

"ARE YOU PEOPLE STARTING TO WAKE UP NOW !??!?!?!

YOU ELECTED AN ISLAMO FASCIST D!CKTATOR NAMED OBAMA.

A DEVIL IN WOLF'S CLOTHING, IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING.

OBAMA'S ONE GOAL IS TO ULTIMATELY RUN THE WORLD AS AN ISLAMIC STATE.

HE IS USING OTHER FOREIGN DICTATORS TO OFF THE RESISTANCE OF JEWS, CHRISTIANS, AND EVEN SOME ATHEISTS.
THIS IS WHY HE NEEDS IRAN'S REVOLUTION TO FAIL.

ONCE OBAMA HAS ELIMINATED REVOLUTIONS, HE WILL BGIN TO TAKE OUT CUBANS, KOREANS, VENEZUELANS, ETC WHO HELPED HIM BECOME THE NEW ONE WORLD LORD.

THE WORLD IS HEADING INTO A NEW DARK AGES THANKS TO OBAMA...


IF WE DO NOT FIGHT BACK NOW"

It's just insane... what's even crazier than that rant is the fact that as I am writing this there are five people who are agreeing with this hateful windbag. There are over 300 comments in that thread and the overwhelming majority of them are along the same lines.

Esquire, my favorite magazine, had a great article that touched on this. In that article it talks about the board of county commissioner from Warren County in Ohio who turned down $373,000 of stimulus money that was supposed to go towards addressing trasportation needs in the county's rural communities. One of the commissioners was quoted in the story saying, "I'll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama's filthy money."

Wow!

Dr. Tiller

Let me declare a few things if they are not immediately obvious:

1. I am a left-wing, liberal nut of a Democrat.
2. I am a Christian.

No, the two are not incompatible.

What the really fervent Christian pro-life (anti-choice really) people simply do not get is that no one actually wants to have an abortion. No one can come to the conclusion to have an abortion easily unless they are completely dead inside, emotionless. It is a decision that will haunt you for the rest of your life; it is as emotionally and morally painful as it is physically. It is an act of desperation. Anyone in their right mind would not want to see the number of abortions performed in this country to rise, no matter what their political or religious views might be.

Do I agree with the decision to have an abortion? No.

Do I think that a woman should have the right to choose to abort her unborn child? Yes.

Again, the two are not incompatible.

Abortion is ethically and morally horrific. But so are a lot of other things that are also legal in this country: alcohol, tobacco, gambling, the raping of our environment, slaughter of innocent animals (shooting wolves in Alaska...), and in some places prostitution and bygamy. All of them are equally abhorrent in the eyes of God yet not only are some of these act legal but sometimes condoned by the government on some level. But just because I or anyone else finds these things distasteful doesn't mean the government should be trying to outlaw them. People will drink themselves into oblivian, destroy their lives. Tobacco kills. Gambling destroys families and brings out disgusting behavior in people. And on and on...

And while I do not agree with abortion, I would never presume to take away someone's choice to have one. It's not my decision to make; it's theirs. And the decision will continue to be made even if abortion is made illegal. The criminialization of abortion will only force scared young girls into dirty alleys to be mangled with coat hangers which can result in serious infection, death, unintended sterilization. As well as the same feeling of despair and guilt that would hang over them if they were to have the procedure performed safely in a sterile environment in a clinic.

I would never presume to take conrtol over someone else's life, even if I think that they are making a bad decision. I do not possess the arrogance to dictate to someone else how to live their life.

Dr. Tiller's murder is domestic terrorism, pure and simple. He was killed in the name of the "sanctity of life." If that is not the stupidest, most hypocritical load of shit I have ever heard in my life I don't know what is.

George Carlin said it best:

"Pro-life, these people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors, what kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do everything they can do save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?"

An AHA moment!

I was reading an article somewhere, it may have been at salon.com and I had a Eureka moment. I was thinking to myself, "Why are conservatives so outspoken? Why is there this constant, unending uproar about everything and anything from the right?" which got me to thinking about the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives. Now, I do not mean differences about ideology and policy; that's obvious. I got to thinking about behavior.

For instance, all this uproar about Sonia Sotomayor. Most polls I have seen show that about 70% of the general public approve of the president choosing her for the Supreme Court. And when I go on the political ticker blog on CNN.com or Yahoo Buzz about political stories there is this huge, loud vociferous protest in the comments. And it's disproportionate; the 30% disapproval translates into at least a 50% percent negative amount of comments on CNN. And let me tell you, Yahoo Buzz is overwhelmingly owned by the far right.

So I was thinking to myself, why is this? Here is my theory:

Conservatives have an almost pathological need to prove that their views are right; to prove to EVERYONE that they are right and anyone whose opinions vary from theirs in unequivocally wrong. And it's not just an ego thing, they're zealous about it. Now, I chose the word "zealous" very deliberately. It's almost religious and evangelical; like they are on fire to go out and tell anyone who is willing to listen about their views. They digest the talking points about different issues and repeat them as if they were gospel: 

• Sotomayor will not be true to the Constitution because her empathy will cause to make rulings based on her feelings instead of the law
  
• She's a reverse-racist because of the quote where she says, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
• She's a liberal activist because she said that policy is made in the court of appeals.

And on and on... you've heard or seen them all, probably. In this instance and in every other instance, incidents and words are taken out of context and misconstrued to their advantage. 

Not to say that liberal politicians don't do the same thing; I would be remiss to say that it doesn't happen on both sides. It most certainly does. The difference is that the conservative "base" absorbs these distortions and disseminates them until they becomes pervasive. There are hard-core liberals who also do this, but not on the scale that conservatives do.

So, these distorted facts are accepted as actual facts. Those who disagree with these "facts" are more often than not painted as un-patriotic, socialist, immoral, etc. Even people within their own political party are suspect if their views do not fall into this narrow framework. They call them RINOs: Republicans In Name Only. ...I've never heard anyone ever referred to as a Liberal in name only.

This tactic was brought into their playbook and perfected by Ronald Reagan, the conservatives' messianic figure. For Reagan there was little to no gray area on subjects: right/wrong, moral/immoral, patriotic/traitorous. He spoke plainly and ground the issues down to their most basic essence and painted his views as right and patriotic; those who held an opposing view were wrong and at the very least, less than patriotic. It still echoes through the GOP platform to this day.

This has escalated over the last eight years to the point where the ultra neo-conservative movement really cannot sustain itself any longer. Republicans have fallen out of favor with the American people over the mishandling of the economy, the destruction of the environment, the bloating of the government on their watch, the nearly-botched war in Iraq, torture, etc, ad infinatum... If they had been more inclusive and governed from the center and with less arrogance, they would have led our country down a much better path. But they continue to disavow and belittle moderates within their party and as they do so they will have less and less appeal to the average American. It is going to be a long time before the reins of the party are wrested from their hands. The moderate wing of the party has to become much more vocal and find their own charismatic leaders who are able to drown out and eventually cancel the noise emanating from the far right end of the political spectrum.

Until then, we liberals will take care of the country for you...

Worst boss in the world

I have a fairly new boss and I hate him.

Now, I will admit that hate is a strong word and people bandy it about and it has a tendency to lose its impact as it is used more and more. So let me make this clear: with all possible vehemence and with the taste of raw spite in my mouth, let me say,

"I hate my boss"

Not to blow my own horn, but I am a good, productive, conscientious worker. I was stretched thin by my job for years working ten hour days for years without complaint and without help. I've done everything in my power to make myself indispensible to my coworkers. Less than a year ago, I finally got help at work and I am thankful. But that means that I had to, understandably so, cut back my hours. And now with the economic downturn, not one minute of overtime is allowed. So when the clock strikes five I have to be out the door no matter what. That means if I need to drop off paperwork in the lab (I'm now in a different building on the hospital campus) I need to go over to the lab before 5:00. 

Yesterday I to go drop off paperwork for the couriers, so I went to the lab on my way out the door. Unbeknownst to me a request for a housecall was faxed to the lab late in the afternoon. The office that faxed it to the lab never called to let us know that they wanted a last-minute request and sent an email and let a voicemail message on my coworker's phone to make sure that it was all set an hour after they faxed it... 

Needless to say, it wasn't taken care of. The next morning at 7 am, my coworker came in and saw the request, entered it to the system called the phlebotomist out on the road and the patient was drawn - no delay in patient care. At 8 am (after everything was taken care of) the office called and left a voicemail message on my phone to see if the request had been taken care of. If they had checked their fax machine they would have seen the confirmation sitting there in the tray.

This office like to cut corners and do this sort of stuff all of the time, mostly because I've worked extremely hard to create a good relationship with this clinic, not to mention they are also part of the hospital. In spite of this, in spite of the fact that it was their cutting corners and submitting this request in a sloppy, irresponsible manner, they complained to my boss.

Now instead of talking to me about what happened after the complaint, my boss sent me an email saying "it has been pointed out that there was no one in the office between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00." 

He left the office at 3:15. He walked past my desk and in his usual, awkward way said goodnight to me! Not only was I in the office, so were the transcriptionist and one of the pathology secretaries! So I replied, with a dash of faint sarcasm, exactly what transpired and when and that there were in fact 3 people in the office at that time. I also told him that in spite of the fact that I left the office a few minutes early to go to the lab that I told the secretary where I was going and that I was punching out from over there, just in case someone did call for me.

It's like I am stuck in the movie "Office Space." If the job market were not so bad I'd be giving out resumes like they were on fire.

Ennui

365 :: 03.08.09 :: day twenty-four
Originally uploaded by BigMisterC

Is it wrong that I don't feel like working? That I don't feel motivated to work for a boss or organization that gives me the impression that they neither want nor care about my opinion? Less than 6 months ago I was excited to come to work, felt like I was making a difference here at work, that what I did made a difference. I don't feel like that any more. Now I feel like I could just not show up any more and no one would miss me.

I know that, indeed, that is not the case. I have worked hard and long to make myself indispensile and I know that there are a lot of plates that I and no one else in the lab keep spinning.

A while back I had the oppurtunity to change departments, to switch to I.T. and become a lab informaticist, an I.T. person who would work solely for the laboratory. It would have been more money, easier hours and less work. But I have been holding out for a supervisory position that is supposedly being created for my department. One of the techs in the lab took that position and here I am... a year later almost... still waiting for that position to materialize.

I am really running out of patience.

I really feel like I am being crewed over.