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No Facts Allowed

August 14, 2012 by

Opinions are great, everyone has them and even if they are poorly informed, we can’t create exceptions. The well informed may be easier for party conversation, but the misinformed are sometimes great provender for our social sharing. Truthfully, perhaps it is the misinformation and those who are so plugged into remaining misinformed that should be our highest priority of this silly season that is this election season. Everything, every single

Tree of Knowledge, something we should all be striving to grow

last thing flows from being well informed, knowledgeable and having fact-based information. Without a clear understanding of both present day, as well as the historical basis for decisions it is impossible to form well-informed opinions.

Do not get me wrong, I am not so presumptuous to believe that five (5) people given the same facts will arrive at the same opinion. In all likelihood, they will not. Each person, given the same facts will have still brought their own personal history, education and bias to the table prior to being presented with the facts. Based on these personal details, each person will form an opinion. If asked to solve a problem (non-mathematical), each person will apply their own skills and history to the solution, despite having been given the precise same facts.

However, you are not allowed your own facts!

It is that simple, there is nothing ambiguous about the above statement; or is there?

I will be damned if I don’t think there might be something wrong in the water we drink or the air we breathe these days, because it seems we are indeed allowed our own facts. It appears one can say anything, pull anything out of thin air and repeated often enough it becomes accepted truth.

Satire becomes Truth, repeated often enough.

Lies become Truth, repeated often enough.

Barack & Hillary working together to bring Socialism to America

Let us take a couple of my favorites as examples.

Barack Obama is a Socialist, or a Communist, or a Fascist, or practices Islam.

Well no, he is not a Socialist. In fact, he is a Centrist Democrat, a moderate. The following are Socialists.

Name Famous for Name Famous For
Hugo Chavez President Venezuela Friedrich Engels Godfather of Socialism
Norman Thomas Presbyterian Minister, Author, Activist Helen Keller Activist, Lecturer, Author
George Orwell Journalist, Literary Critic, Author Eugene V. Debs Founder IWW, Social Democratic Party
Francis Bellamy Author of the Pledge of Allegiance, Baptist Minister Cornell West Educator, Philosopher
Albert Einstein Scientist Bertrand Russell Philosopher, Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Howard Zinn Historian, Educator Naomi Klein Author, Activist
Karl Marx Father of Socialism John Dewey Philosopher, Educator
Bernie Sanders Mayor of Burlington, US Representative Tommy Douglas Baptist Minister, Premier of Saskatchewan

The names in the table above are all admitted Social Democrats or Socialists, some are early versions some are still alive and working in their fields of expertise. There is clearly a wide base of knowledge in that group, everything from Philosophy, Science, Authors and Educators and oh my Politicians. Odd, I simply can’t find our current POTUS on the list, not because I decided I wouldn’t put him there either; no it isn’t that at all. It is for this simple reason:

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED YOUR OWN FACTS!

Here is another fun filled falsehood.

America is a Christian Nation.

No, it is not. Never has been. Never was intended to be. There isn’t a single shred of historical evidence to support the statement. On the other hand, there is significant evidence to support the historical view the United States of America was founded as a Nation that would be respectful and welcoming to all faiths and would be governed under Secular Law.

Another fun filled Fact:

Socialism ≠ Communism ≠ Nazism ≠ Fascism

These are all distinctly different political systems and in some cases economic theories. They are not the same. In fact, they have little to do with each other except in the minds of the ignorant.

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED YOUR OWN FACTS!

We are in the silly season that is the Presidential campaign season. Thanks to the brilliance of SCOTUS we have the Citizen United ruling, making money talk and corporations people. Truth and Facts have taken a back seat to propaganda and outright lies. The problem is Citizen United was simply the Chocolate Sauce on the Sundae, since the 1980’s our public education system has been dumbing down our citizens so propaganda becomes the bar to climb over and it is a low bar indeed. Truth shouted on street corners is ignored in favor of the most egregious lie.

Both sides have their Pac’s, both sides have their defenders and both sides are able to distance themselves from these no holds barred swift-boaters. What should we do as responsible Americans? How do we distance ourselves from the garbage and educate ourselves on what is factual and best for our nation?

I will leave you with this, this is one of the lies, this is what the Conservative listens to and believe.

All I can say is you are not allowed your own facts!

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nevermore Forever

August 6, 2012 by

I sat back yesterday, I watched and I wept. Yes, I wept. In fact, I am still weeping, I can’t stop my tears from falling.

Israelites encounter undrinkable, bitter water on their journey

Every single time I read anything about the Sikh temple murders I start crying again. Not because I am personally related to any of the victims, rather because I am connected through my humanity, through my empathy and through my compassion for their loss.

We should, all of us be connected to them, weeping for them and reaching out to them in their pain with our sympathy. We should all be standing shoulder to shoulder with them offering our human compassion. We should all be offering to mourn with them.

When will it be enough?

When will there be enough innocent lives piled at the door of the NRA and those who do their bidding for sane people to say ‘no more’.

When will we say we have seen enough senseless death on our streets, in our town squares, in our public buildings, our schools and places of worship to demand change and stand up to the bullies. When will we stop, as a nation and a people, kowtowing to these tyrants with corporate money and an agenda that has nothing to do with our safety, our peace of mind and everything to do with xenophobia and fear-mongering. When?

Isn’t enough?

What will it take for us to change the hearts of the heartless?

I am not going to throw statistics out there of all the innocents dead this decade, or even this year; these numbers are easily found. I am not going to rail at those who demand their rights in the face of the horrifying and senseless violence; this clearly falls on deaf ears. I will only say this; I am speechless, heartbroken in truth at the depths we have fallen, the bitter water we drink and call it sweet.

I leave you with this, because this is what the victims will not have –

525,600 minutes or another Season of Love

Filed Under: Guns & Violence, Society Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Slide to Perdition Part 2

August 4, 2012 by

It didn’t use to be this way. I stand by this statement, this view of the world as I continue down my exploration of our Slide to Perdition or the Red Hat Series.

I am an independent consultant and I work out of my home much of the time, this means I have an office in my home. My office has two desks so I can work effectively on either my laptop or at my desktop computers. I have bookshelves full of books focused on what I do for a living. My office is a true working office, this is where the phone system for the house is hardwired and where the internet is hardwired, my server is here along with other backup. My office is the hub, if something goes wrong in my office we are in deep doodoo.

I love my office, I picked this space because it is in the front of the house and I have a big picture window. I can see when UPS drives up and when the neighbor’s dogs are running the streets (again). I can watch the Magnolia tree up the street bloom, it is beautiful and the teenager next door make-out with her boyfriend. All this being said, it is still my office. I spend a significant portion of my time in this one single room of the house when I am not with clients at their offices. This means my office must function, telephones and cable must work all the time and for this, I pay a very pretty penny.

Now, I don’t know about where you live but where I live there isn’t a competitive market for phone and internet services. Sure, you can get your television on Satellite or Dish, and there are a few different ways to get internet services each less reliable than the next. There are also several ways to buy land line services, but if you spend any amount of time on international calls, again these services become less reliable and more costly (always read the fine print).

When we moved to the Dallas area, we hunted for the best service group we could find at the best price. We had purchased a brand spanking new house so could add connections where we wanted and needed them. We settled

All the stuff you need?

on a bundled package from the only game in town, shocking I know but at the end of the day, they were the best price and the only one who provided all the services we needed. Only one problem, they failed to do the job they were paid for properly…..did you see that coming. Of, course you did.

Fast forward, three years after the original cable was laid I called them to mark the cable so we could add a walkway without cutting the cable. They marked it, no they didn’t. Their mark was 7 inches off and we found out they hadn’t buried the cable deep enough. Needless to say, my contractor cut the cable and I was suddenly without Internet or a landline. I called the cable company, here is the conversation:

Me: My cable has been cut and I don’t have service, when can you be out to fix it?

Cable Representative: Next week, our next appointment is Tuesday between noon and 6pm

Me: That is 6 days from now; I cannot be without Internet or phone service for 6 days. I run a business from my home and this will shut me down.

Cable Representative: We don’t show this as a business account. This is a residential account. There is nothing else we can do.

Caustic and Mean
With a Script

Me: Are you kidding me? If this were a business account when would you be out here?

Cable Representative: Tomorrow

Me: And how much more would it cost me to convert my account to a business account?

Cable Representative: $78 per month + taxes

Me: So, despite that it is your fault the cable was cut the only way I get service from your company is to pay $78 + taxes per month extra. If I convert today, will you be out tomorrow?

Cable Representative: Yes

Me: Fine, convert the account to a business account, immediately.

I take full advantage of my status as a business account holder. That day though, that next day when they came out to lay new cable I had my contractor there to watch them. He made certain they buried it to the correct 6 inch depth rather than what they had done before which was barely under the surface. He made certain they stayed right there while we tested every connection in the house, wouldn’t sign off the work order until we did.

The fascinating and twisted part of this entire situation was the complete lack of concern shown by this company for their customer. There are a few reasons there was no services to the house, they are:

  1. Their contractor had originally not buried the cable to the required 6 inch depth.
  2. Their contractor had not correctly identified the location of the cable.
  3. Frankly, they contract these services and do not hold their contractors to any standard.

I stand by my view of us as a nation. We are meaner and so driven by the bottom line we fail to value people. What if I had been a housebound person,

Where in Hades is the Fire Extinguisher?

someone with a health condition whose only access to the outside world was television, internet and the phone; I would have no access for 6 days because this company did not see me as important of valuable?

Is this what we are coming to; is this who we are? Worse, is this truly who we want to be?

Filed Under: Series: Red Hat Moments Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Slide to Perdition Part 1

August 3, 2012 by

I am reminded today of how much our world changes during economic downturns, how everything about the world changes some for good and some well not so much. This time though, this time I think it has been worse than others times, I have to ask myself, why is that what is different? I believe there have been some very real changes in the social dynamics, as well as, business dynamics of this nation. Sure, we complain about the perceived and very real slights but we don’t seem to be willing to take any real action to change course. Instead, we continue to pour oil on the slide to perdition and plant not only our own asses but those of the next generation so we can give them a push almost as if we want to see just how hard they will land.

Did you read that, scratch your head and say to yourself Val has gone off her meds, wonder what she is rambling on about this time? I just want to talk about some observations, provide you with my personal aggravations some that you also might encounter, things I notice these days that I think weren’t like this before, things I have heard everyone complain about yet we continue to live with. I have to say first, this might be a bit of a rant, yeah I might sound a little like some old women sitting on the front porch shaking my cane and in a wavering voice stating the obvious;

‘It wasn’t like this when I was young!’

Clearly not, when I was young things were indeed different. First, when I was young, there was a complaint department; every single last company in the country had one. The funny thing about the Customer Complaint Department was there were real people in that department, they answered the phone and spoke respectfully to you when you called. They were concerned that you were not happy with their companies product or services and they were committed to finding a way to ensure not only were you happy this time, but that you would be a return customer. These days, not so much, if at all. In fact, if you get a live person on the phone their goal is to convince you it isn’t the product that is the problem it is you, after spending 30 minutes on hold and another 60 minutes asking the person on the other end of the phone to repeat themselves as they speak some language other than your own, you will find out that — You are the problem and even if you aren’t the problem, well it doesn’t really matter cause there is not one damned thing

Just one of many off-shore call centers

you can do about it; no refund and no competitive product or service, tough nuggies.

Oh Val, really aren’t you being a bit harsh you ask. No, I am not. I am not at all. That much vaunted and wonderful free market has created a nightmare. The only thing trickling down is products made of toxic materials and made-to-break for which we pay 1000 times more than the components used to build them. They will break and when we try to return them for service or because our child becomes ill, we find they can’t be returned or the warranty ran out the day prior to them breaking. I dare you, walk through your house and grab ten random items, I will bet eight of them were not made in America, do not even have American parts. I will go one-step further, if you picked up any electronics if you call their Help Desk, you will not get anyone on the phone who speaks English as a first language.

You are likely thinking to yourself right now, that is a bit over the edge Val, a little off sides. Well maybe it is, perhaps that was a bit on the cruel side, I am not feeling charitable to business today. In fact I am feeling downright uncharitable to businesses that don’t stand by their products and services.

Yesterday was two weeks without air conditioning on my second floor, the part of the house with my office and my husband’s music room, frankly where we spend a large part of our time. For 26 years and three houses, I have maintained a home warranty on my house through the same company. On average, the cost of this service has been $38 per month, so the total price I have paid for peace of mind has been $11,856. This year the cost went up and new conditions were added to my contract, new conditions such as the 24-hour wait time for emergencies, another increase in the co-pay. I thought these new conditions weren’t great, especially during a recession but still this is the best Warranty company around, or so I thought. Until yesterday when I found out the part required to fix my air conditioner was on back-order, had been on back-order two weeks ago and after two weeks in 105 degree weather I still wouldn’t have my air conditioner fixed, they hadn’t bothered to call, look for an alternative …. Nothing. I had to call them. When I did, because I hadn’t received confirmation of my appointment, the only excuse was:

‘We don’t call when there is a back-order, that isn’t our problem to notify you.’

So, I am just a little cranky. I have more of these stories. More of these observations of what the ‘free market’, Globalization and Outsourcing has done to us; I think I will tell them this weekend. Frankly, I think we are meaner people over all. Meaner of spirit, meaner in our manners and in our compassion toward each other. I think we are uglier. I think we are turning into a nasty and mean nation of greedy,

Where in Hades is the Fire Extinguisher?

self-serving and self-righteous prigs. Those who have will do anything to keep what is theirs; including lie, cheat, steal and grind those they believe are beneath them into the ground. Those who have been convinced they can join that club will do anything and say anything to slide in beside them.

The rest of us are left out in the cold, or in my case puddled in our own sweat wondering just what in the fires of Hades has happened, and where the extinguisher is.

Filed Under: Series: Red Hat Moments Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Career Trajectory at Fifty-Five

July 30, 2012 by

Let’s talk about some of old adages we use to accept as truth, but not so much any longer.

  Age before beauty
  Practice makes perfect
  Experience is the mother of wisdom

What has changed you ask? Better, what exactly am I referring to when I say these are no longer truths within our culture?

These I think are more apropos for today:

  Hype and arrogance trumps experience
  Blame the other guy or circumstances beyond your control for your failure
  Two in the bush for half as much makes perfect cents

Why do I think this, it is a fair question. Honestly, this is about career progression and how those of us who have not been fortunate in our bonus checks, must navigate the ever-increasing rough waters we find ourselves in as we age up and out of our career relevancy.

My career and educational path was not a straight line, by the time that sheepskin was in my hand, the shine was slightly tarnished and I had a few years of work behind me. What that first degree gave me was the burnish I needed to move up the ladder, be taken more seriously and yes, be paid a little more for the work I was already doing.

As a woman in the world of business, you may move up, usually more slowly than men; this will depend on your willingness to throw others under the bus in your climb to the top, including your friends and family. My rise

The difference truly men are willing to go to great lengths

through the managerial ranks was impeded only by lack of corporate / political sophistication; encumbered by my failure to identify my enemies and my belief that ethics and quality outweighed arrogance and a penis. It didn’t, not even once.

In my thirties I was handed a gift, a career opportunity that would change my trajectory and open doors that might not have opened otherwise. I walked through those doors; I also walked through University doors once again and pursued a Masters to polish my credentials, one more time. This gift didn’t come without sacrifice, including playing in an entirely new sandbox with much different, bigger and more aggressive dogs. There were pros and cons to this career gift such as:

PROS

  • Challenging work
  • Fascinating, always new experiences
  • Travel, national and international
  • Education, lots of it
  • Decent income and decent opportunity for women, myself included, initially

CONS

  • Long hours, 70 hour weeks were the norm
  • Long weeks away from home, it wasn’t unknown to be away two to three weeks at a time
  • Dog-eat-dog mentality within the industry
  • Ten years ago the industry was outsourced badly

Career Relevance and Age

I don’t think of myself as old, irrelevant or outdated. Truth be told, I think of myself as damned near in my prime. I am experienced, knowledgeable and unencumbered by many of the outside influences others might still have. I no longer want to move up the career ladder, been there done that and found I didn’t all that much enjoy some of the jobs I landed in. Now I know the jobs I enjoy and am happy when I am doing them. I love challenging work and love to produce quality results, whether for an employer or a client.

I have worked as both an employee of consulting firms and as an Independent Consultant. There are clearly pros and cons of both. The problem with independence is the market is no longer geared toward individuals and their

How it feels, stop and all

capabilities or past references. In fact it is rare to find an opportunity that isn’t through one or many off-shore farms that advertise on the boards, set the rates (low) and nine times out of ten will rarely talk to you if you are (1) a woman; (2) American.

Does the above statement sound bitter? It is not bitter; it is simply the truth of what has happened in our market today.

What is happening?

I did not think at fifty-five my future would be no-future or at least as frightening as it is. I didn’t think that all my work my 70 hour weeks, my time away from hearth and home, my investment in certifications and additional

degrees would result in nothing. Just a career that came to a screeching halt in my prime. What I thought was I would do my consulting time, I would learn my craft and prove myself (I did this in some of the most difficult

environments there are) and then I would go to work for the last fifteen or twenty years of my career in some capacity as a full-time employee. I would earn a decent living, with benefits no less. I would mentor younger members of an enthusiastic team. I would write books about my experiences. I would be a visiting lecturer at local universities about quality, ethics in business and values, how to do things right.

What I didn’t realize is at fifty-five I am old and perhaps the best I can hope for is Wal-Mart Greeter.

Filed Under: Work & Employment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to the Revolution

July 16, 2012 by

“For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated, how many white families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we have wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?

So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome.”

Where did we go wrong? I am inclined to believe complacency plays a large role but more than this is the determined actions of those shadow and moneyed figures who have for nearly 60 years worked aggressively to turn back the hands of time.

Some believe this is a dial back to the 1950’s; a time when the little woman met hubby at the door with a Martini and dinner was on the table at exactly six pm. Dysfunction hidden behind a wall of smiles and silence, everyone in agreement to speak softly and pass the mashed potatoes. Children, bright and shiny faces smile up at their teachers and learn by rote their ‘A,B,C’ and who the enemy is, the big bad Communist behind the brick and razor wire www.sitcomonline.comwall.

It is the world of Beaver and Wally Cleaver.

The fifties were a time many look back on with great affection, considering this the idyllic time in our nation’s history, but was it? What is it about the era that is so attractive to so many; shall we explore the difference sixty year’s makes in the history of a nation and our memories.

  • Taxes – could it be we had a lower marginal tax rate during the idyllic 1950’s? Is this what the attraction is? No, this isn’t it, the average top marginal tax for those wonderful ‘job creators’ during this time was 85%, that’s right one of the highest rates in our history; of course back then we didn’t call them job creators, we called them wealthy and expected them to contribute to the health of our national coffers for the good of the nation.
  • Jobs – we had them back then, at least some of us did. Minorities weren’t in the workforce in any meaningful way, certainly not as a threat to the “American” way of life! Women? Well we have put awww.squiddo.com real dent in things! Our numbers have grown since the 50’s by 394%. We have girded our dainty loins for battle and skipped blithely into every single arena of high crimes, chicanery and flimflam and demanded our seat at the table! I suppose this does cause angst, the competition likely makes many uncomfortable.
  • While we are talking about jobs – we should look at the other reason we had jobs, fair trade policy and practices! That is right, since the 1950’s our borders for trade have sprung wide open. While this prying loose of trade polices began after WWII, the grease was applied by the Lord of Free Trade, President Ronald Reagan with GATT and applied even more liberally by his predecessors in trickery, right up through present day WTO trade agreements. These agreements keep import Tariffs at all-time lows while doing nothing to address trade imbalance with those nefarious ‘Favored Nations’ and slips through the cracks the idea that Americans are ill prepared, to stupid even to fill the jobs available in the market those requiring on-going infusions in the tens of thousands from other, smarter temporary forces of resources who will work for half as much while Americans languish.
  • Civil Rights – perhaps the most reprehensible problems of the time machine bunch. Why you ask? What we are seeing today is a return to the policies and programs of that time, a return to a time of Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson; a time when it was legal to separate, abuse even kill a man or woman based solely on the color of their skin. Segregation, voter suppression and separate but equal were all at play and fully supported by the courts and those elected to offices both high and low.
  • Now we have the issue of SEX, that’s right SEX. Blue laws throughout the land controlled who had it and with whom it was legal to have it with, even in some cases in what position it was legal to have it in and on what does of the week. But it wasn’t just sex it was the purpose of sex and women were the receptacles, the bearers of children! Both contraception and abortion were illegal in all cases. In most states so was pre-marital sex but only women were ever prosecuted as lewd women. Men? Well they were just being men.

“ I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Recognize the above? No? It is the original Pledge of Allegiance written by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), a Christian Socialist who frankly would be rolling in his grave were he to know that his simply pledge of commitment to the Flag and Country has become such a historical point of contention. The Pledge of Allegiance was said in schoolrooms throughout the nation daily by schoolchildren from Kindergarten Wikipediathrough High School, with exactly the words above.  It was not until June 14, 1954 by Joint Resolution of Congress after being introduced by President Eisenhower the words ‘One Nation Under God’ were added to the Pledge, hardly historical and certainly not the intent of our Founding Fathers.

So let’s do a quick synopsis, shall we? What do these historians want to return to?

  1. Higher taxes
  2. Jim Crow
  3. Voter Suppression
  4. Segregation / Separate but Equal
  5. Protectionism, return of tariffs
  6. Blue Laws, criminalization of Abortion and contraception
  7. Removal of God from Public sector including money and Pledge of Allegiance

No, I don’t think they want the list above. They want a selected set of the list above. Clearly, we are moving on a fast track toward achieving some of these. I think President Johnson had it dead to rights in his Civil Rights speech of 1965; the enemy is poverty, ignorance and disease. It is truly unfortunate today we have all these running rampant and even being promoted.

What think you?

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Family Threads

June 24, 2012 by

“We just worshipped him, treated him like he was a little god.”

“I know there were days I wanted to beat the hell out of you for it.”

Wondering whom this conversation was between and whom it was about? Well, last night I hosted a family dinner and that was just one of the short reminiscing I and my Wife-in-Law’ (WIF) had about our youngest son. Putting that conversation in context, I was the second voice the one that wanted to beat the hell of her, after I said it we both cackled while the son in question looked on bemused.

This is our blended family:

Family Threads Extended

I have known my WIF and her current husband for 28 years; I married her ex, when our shared sons were four and seven respectively. With only a few exceptions (barring blood relations), these are the longest standing relationships I have. I was legally married to our ex, the father of our shared sons for 14 years, from 1984 to 1998, I did not live with him that entire time and did not have what anyone would consider a traditional marriage, the one constant though, I adored my two stepsons, they owned me heart and soul. Every single time I considered leaving my marriage permanently, they were what kept me, they were what held me I could not bear to lose that connection.

In the early years of my marriage, it is safe to say my WIF and I were not the best of friends. I suspect we saw each other over the gulf that so often exists at the end of marriages. I know my ex remained enraged for years over what he believed was unfair treatment, as his wife I took his side. Overtime, the scales dropped from my eyes and it was easier to see that both sides had a story to tell. I don’t know when my WIF and I started to drop our animosity and find common ground; it was before her ex became my ex though.

I asked my WIF if I could write about her in my blog, as we were chatting she casually said, ‘you could call me the Baby Mama’.

My eldest, who is quite grown up at thirty-five, with a horrified look on his face replied for me, ‘you will not do that!’

These are my sons, who I adore.

They still have to do what I say

For 28 years they have held my heart, filled a hole I thought would remain empty forever. The first weekend they visited after I married their father, they confronted me with this epiphany;

‘We don’t have to do what you say, you aren’t our mother!’

Spoken with true attitude and conviction by two children I was convinced were demon seed at that point in the weekend. My WIF had informed me she didn’t believe in spanking, it was obvious. To say we had different views on childrearing would have been an understatement!

There have over these many years been ups and downs, tears and laughter. There was a time when I thought I lost them and my heart would remain broken forever. We healed and here we are a family. The minister at our eldest son’s wedding several years ago tried to figure out who we are, specifically who we are to each other. When he had been introduced to us separately, it was as ‘My Mom’. Her husband was introduced by name, so clearly not ‘Dad’, my husband for obvious reasons, also not ‘Dad’. Finally the minister couldn’t stand it his curiosity got the best of him; he found us sitting together chatting and simply asked. Bless her, she said;

‘We’re the mom’s, we both divorced their Dad.’

Family is a funny thing, how we ultimately form the bonds of love and hang on tight, sometimes without even realizing those bonds are wrapping themselves around us. We have added new marriages, grandchildren, new partners and perhaps soon new grandchildren. We are fortunate I think.

Baby Mama….Wife-in-Law

One is the name she gave herself last night to tweak our son. The other is the name we gave to each other because we couldn’t find another that described our family relationship properly and the bond we shared.

This is my Wife-in-Law and I, who I will always be grateful to for sharing her brilliant children with me and curing the hole in my heart.

The Two Moms

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Generations Lost

June 20, 2012 by

Children Lost

Another generation, not ours, not even our children’s but a next generation of children. Children lost to poverty, poor health, illiteracy, ignorance, hate and yes, even hopelessness and violence. You might be shaking your head as you read these words, saying not in my backyard, not my grandchild or not any child I know. I can only ask you to think, to consider are your assumptions really true? If this is you, wake up! You are either living in a very rarified position, away from the rest of us, or you are blind too what is truly happening in what was once possibly the greatest country in the World.

1 in 45 children are homeless today, living either on the street or in homeless shelters.

1 in 5 children will go to bed hungry tonight, during the summer months this is even more devastating as there will be no school lunch program so they may remain hungry through the day. Of course, many states have already cut the school lunch program from their budget so they will already be use to the daily hunger especially at this time of the month when food stamps have stretched as far as they will go. We can dress this up all we like (Food Insecure = HUNGRY) but the simple fact is, they are without food.

50,000 children sleep on the street in this country at any given time. These are the runaways, the at risk children.

250,000 families with children are in shelters at any time. This number doesn’t account for families living on the street or in their cars, families squatting in empty buildings or on park benches.

National Alliance to End Homelessness

To make it more real, perhaps easier to see the numbers:

National Alliance to End Homelessness

Youth violence, a nice way to say our young are killing each other without remorse; their weapons include their fists, guns and even words. Bullying is on the rise along with suicide. Our Juvenile Justice system overflows with the spillover to the adult prisons; the coffers of the for profit prison system in nearly every state of the union overflowing. Youthful offenders, boys and girls as young as twelve remanded as adults for crimes even a decade ago they couldn’t have imagined and now they commit without understanding the consequence, they will have a lifetime to consider though as they sit in cells and on yards never intended for them. Wasted lives, wasted futures, wasted potential and all our futures are at risk, as an entire generation turned more antisocial, even sociopathic.

What were we thinking in our Greed and Self-Absorption, what did we think when we failed so miserably to provide communities and schools for all the children of this nation and not just our own. Did we really believe we could draw invisible lines, build invisible walls high enough and escape with our ‘White Flight’ and the wretchedness and purity of our selfishness wouldn’t follow us, is that what we believed? Those birds have come home to roost, each generation becoming more entitled than the last; each generation in this millennium more inclined to demand their place at the table while contributing nothing. It is our fault for training them and providing nothing but our own sense of entitlement, our own self-absorption and lack of compassion, along the way. What will we do now?

Generations Lost used the following sources and my own broken heart:

http://www.familyhomelessness.org/LookingIntoLight/

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2011/HUDNo.11-121

http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/state-of-americas-children-2011/intro.html

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm

http://www.endhomelessness.org/content/article/detail/4361

Filed Under: Society, Sociology & Evolution Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Where have all the Flowers Gone, Boomers and Feminism

June 19, 2012 by

When I was born in 1957, society was on the cusp of change, women, particularly in the West, were beginning to shake off traditional roles and demand their place in the offices and the boardroom. I was born in the last cohortwikipedia.com of the Boomers, the generation of rebels and idealists. Mine was the generation swept up in the second wave Suffrage, rebranded Feminism and ignited by the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Mine was the generation who wanted more than marriage and a house in the suburbs, who are now struggling at the end of our careers and wondering just what in the hell happened.

My generations coming of age began in 1967, better known as the Summer of Love, it ended with the start of the Reagan years in 1981. During the intervening years we saw many changes in our thinking, our social views and even across the approximately 69,000,000 members of the Boomer Generation still alive, there is a greater divide than in other generational cohorts. Perhaps this is why we struggle so with the loss of all we gained during the great uprising of our youth, the time when we were still fresh, rebellious and idealistic.

It was during this time we pushed for freedom to choose a career and delay marriage and motherhood; we thought we won. We won the right to access contraceptives whether we were married or not (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965). Through the generosity of a single woman, Katherine Dexter McCormick hormonal birth control was developed by Gregory G. Pincus and finally brought to market as an oral contraceptive in 1960. We saw our right to health privacy and body integrity affirmed (Roe v. Wade, 1973). In 1972, we saw the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), sponsored by Martha Griffiths (D-Michigan) in the House and Sam Irvin (D-N.Carolina) in the Senate, pass with bi-partisan support.

What you might not know about the ERA:Wikipedia.com

Finally, in 1994, then Senator Joe Biden a legislator of our generation drafted and passed with broad support the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA HR3402, 1994, 2000 and 2005) which until this year has been reauthorized with little opposition. The 112th Congress is still battling to reauthorize VAWA this time, thus far the Senate passed the reauthorization with new provisions reflective of our times while the House in a very partisan vote said ‘Nay’ and is busily rewriting for the third time their offering with reduced funding and of course changed provisions.

Some things you might not know about women both locally and globally:

  • Women perform 2/3 of the world’s labor, this includes both paid and unpaid
  • Women make up 51% of world’s population and 50.9% of the US population
  • Women with children make up 13.1% of our entire national community, or 8.3 million women. Women globally head 83% of households.
  • Women account for 2/3 of the world’s illiterate adults.
  • Women globally earn only 11% of the world’s income and own <1% of the world’s land and assets. In the United States, on average women earn .77¢ for each dollar earned by a man for the same work.
  • Gender based violence kills more women worldwide than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war. It is estimated one in three women will be the victim of gender-based violence between the ages of 15 to 44.

We hear a great deal of rhetoric right now with the political season upon us. A lot of slogans dancing across our screens and men talking big about morals, ethics and the Right American Way as they beat their drums and flap their gums rapidly to keep the money pouring in. There are billionaires buying elections, Churches crying the blues, talking heads spewing hate and idiots making up nonsensical string theories to scare the naïve into cult like head nodding while they chant the names of their favored candidate or platform meme.

One thing I believe as a woman is true, we have looked away too long. There is indeed a war being waged and we are losing. When I asked ‘what the hell happened’, it was a very real question not just about our jobs but our public life, safety and enfranchisement within society. In 1967, we thought we were moving into a new age of freedoms and opportunities. What we have found instead is a scarceness of opportunity as we approach our retirement. We did not achieve equality for ourselves and our daughters’ watch helplessly as what small steps forward we did take is being stripped from them through legislation intended to diminish them and effectively strip them of their freedom.

The 112th Congress has floated the following:

  • 61 Abortion bills since they have been in sessions, or should I say Anti-Abortion bills.
  • 813 separate pieces of legislation specifically related to health care and insurance, much of which is directly related to the Affordable Health Care of 2009.

What the 112th Congress hasn’t done is focus on putting our nation back on track and working in a bipartisan way to fix what is ailing us. Instead, what we have seen is women being pushed further and further down, across the nation laws are being passed that are draconian in nature and elected officials are using language that even a decade ago would have seen them run out of the office. Meanwhile, women are being silenced for saying VAGINA.

What is next?  Will we be back to begging in the streets when we grow too old to sell our wares?

I leave you with this, it is I think relevant and I leave you with one other question is it time to stand back up not only for American women but for all women everywhere.

SOURCES:

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-14.pdf

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

http://www.opencongress.org/money_trail

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-01-26/features/9001070809_1_decency-real-thing-guardian-angel

Filed Under: Society, Sociology & Evolution Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Careers are made to be broken

June 16, 2012 by

I started on a completely different career than the one I am on today. Somewhere in 1990 the IT giants made a dramatic announcement that would panic the world.

The sky is falling, well no but might as well have been. What was really happening was the Millennium Bug or Y2K, the giants of IT had announced no software or internal clocks were prepared for the Year 2000. OH NO! What

Y2K Bug

did this mean for the rest of us? It meant millions of dollars were going to be spent preparing for the year 2000. Software giants would push their products, fortunes would be made and new careers would be launched. It meant a fairly egalitarian new marketplace would be created.

My new career would launch in 1994, I loved it more than my first and would invest and sacrifice, push the limits of my health at times, crawl over broken glass and fight for my right to be there more often than I can count. The problem? While we, those of us here in the US were building this market and sacrificing to do so, it was being slowly ripped out from underneath us. For those of us who happen to don skirts and stilettoes, we have seen our opportunities diminish and our careers, no matter what success we may have achieved previously, lay in shambles at our feet.

I joined the ranks of consultants in 1994 with a fortune 50 company. I was one of the first hired into their new SAP practice, a practice that would grow to thousands worldwide. I remained with them for seven years and achieving great success. I would join two more global organizations in senior roles over the course of the next ten years. By the time I decided to venture out on my own as an Independent the market had changed, Americans and especially women were seeing less opportunity and their incomes greatly diminished.

What is wrong with this industry? We don’t own it in any shape or form in the US and it is our fault. Prior to the Millennium, Bill Gates and other ‘experts’ demanded and won an expansion to the H1B program. This is the government program intended to enable industry, science and education to fill shortfalls by recruiting from overseas. The first wave of recruitment was predominately from India, it was two parts; Insourcing and Off-shoring.

Suddenly we had hundreds of thousands of technically capable but socially inept resources swelling our ranks. The cultural issues were many, the stratification of their own country by caste, religion and frankly gender were pervasive in those early days. It wasn’t infrequent an Indian man would refuse to shake my hand or the hand of a woman client. In many cases communication was insufficient, for all of us.

To further bolster the perceived on-going shortfalls of hands and feet to do work the H1B remained at the pre-Millennium numbers. As recently as 2007 Bill Gates testifiedin front of a Congressional Committee of the need to continue to import talent, as if we didn’t have sufficient skilled resources in the US. Yet, most of us in this industry had been forced to Independent contracting by then, with lower rates and no benefits. Unemployment and

Bill Gates Testifies 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee
courtesy Microsoft.com

under-employment in my industry was the norm, long before the 2008 economic crash. Our problem as Independents? We don’t have affordable access to on-going training, skills enhancements, industry conventions or any of the other opportunities those imported ‘employees’ have. Go figure.

I have been an Independent Contractor for five years.

This year I decided to join a company. There are reasons for this, one of the biggest being my desire to refinance my home. I know, sounds stupid doesn’t it however, the banks don’t like independent contractors no matter how successful we are. The company I joined is India based; I was concerned about this but after several interviews with their partners including their one American partner I was convinced they had culturally assimilated.

I was wrong.

So here I am, palm meet face. My ego is frankly shattering in a million pieces a day. First, because I think I have made a horrifying mistake in judgment. Second because I feel so useless and dispensable. Since February of this year, I have been employed by this company and almost completely ignored. Yes, when someone wants or needs something they seem to remember I am here and happy to help, but I am more of an overpaid secretary than a highly competent professional.

What to do?

I have begged to be allowed to contribute to the Intellectual Capital of the organization, it is something I do well and have done for both clients and employers in the past; to no avail, I am ignored.

I have begged to participate in the sales cycle, I am good at this and have done this in my past career. I am ignored, except when I am needed to build a slide deck, develop a pricing schedule or audit a Statement of Work.

I would of course love to be assigned to manage a project, this is what I was hired to do. I accepted a position below past roles in other organizations so I could do what I love doing, Project Management.

Nothing, Nada, Zilch

Me, I am simply feeling a bit of despair. My ego is bruised and my options at my age dwindling. Dreams maybe need to be changed, I hate this feeling of having no control.

Perhaps this is my future…..

For lack of stimulating work
Courtesy TravelingThought.com

What to do? What would you do?

http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2012-Green-Card-Sponsor.aspx

Filed Under: Work & Employment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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