Willful Ignorance...

...or maybe its just a highly editorialized view of reality, but either way it's dangerous and seems to be growing greater with each generation. Or maybe I've just become hyper-aware of my own personal editorialized view of reality in the last few years and this is my reaction to it.

Either way it's pissing me off.

Take Nymwae's story about the Fiestaware and her co-worker's reaction to it. Granted, the woman is not the brightest Crayola in the box, and I think she's contradictory just for the sake of it (or at least to be snide to Nymwae), but it's the online stuff she was referring to that triggered this particular rant.

You have been warned.

Is it so hard to at least consider the possibility that you might, just might, be wrong about something. Anything? Even just on a small scale, like being willing to admit that the pretty platter in your cabinet could possibly be a hazard to your health in the long run? Is it a driving need to be right all the time? Or is a need to prove other people wrong? (And, yes there is a big difference.) Is it learned or inherited, and if it's either, can it be undone?

And the "glowing" pretty in the cabinet is the tip of the iceberg. Take today's politics. When did the Holy Inquisition start again? Because I could swear that differing opinions were what made this country great, not what what made it weak. When did expressing an opinion that isn't in the party line become heresy? If we worried more about what was best for the country and less about making sure our party was "right," would we still be scraping the bottom of the barrel for school funds? Does expressing my concern or outright doubt about the direction of out country make me any less American, and does your devotion to the President make you the true patriot? The last time I checked, we were all living in the same country and we should be able to respect each other. Right?

No! God, no! It's the Cold War, only now the enemy is the Republican across the street, not the commie down the hall. Now, I'm all for a nice dose of schadenfreude, but what's happening today is more akin to character lynchings. (Not that they're all entirely undeserved, but still.) You can't fight back, you can't win, so what do you do? Blame the other guy! Makes for a nice news cycle, but does it get us anywhere?

When did we all put on blinders? When did we decide that it wasn't OK to admit the other guy has a good point? When did "my way or the highway" become de rigueur for everyday life? Didn't anyone teach us to share? Teach us to respect each other? Teach us to listen and learn and look at everything and everyone around us as a whole, not through whatever-colored glasses we're wearing this week?

Can't we all just get along?

conrats

Evidently I'm having one of those days. You know the ones I mean, the ones where little things that you normally just shrug off get stuck in your head. Like a festering wound, oozing and burning, these little things just sit there eating at your very sanity. And you'd chew your own arm off to stop them from bugging you.

I mean, I spent about half an hour sitting at my desk irritated at the font the new LadyBoss has chosen for her e-mails. It's not hard to read, it's not blinky or overly stylized, I just don't like it. So every time I got an e-mail from her I had one of those gut "grrrrr" reactions and I had to repress the urge to just delete it to get it out of my inbox.

But I digress. It's a font, I'm letting it go.

Then "conrats" happened. And my world collapsed into a fuming pile of inconsolable irritation the likes of which my cat can't even replicate on her worst day. (And those of you who know, realize that's quite an accomplishment.)

"But who the what where and why?" you ask. Let me break my irritation down.

First, the initial salvo. Apparently there's a new Manager in another division, and someone thought everyone needed to know. So this nifty little "please welcome so-and-so," e-mail goes out to the entire company. Name, rank, and mini bio follow (mourners please omit flowers would probably be a little overdramatic, no?), and my irritating sh*%-o-meter goes up a notch.

Because I know they're coming. Its inevitable. They can't be stopped and one must endure the painful platitudes of... The "Reply To All" Addicts. All companies have them, all companies mock them, and yet they still exist.

Now my company, in the last six months or so, has had three separate training memos sent out about abusing the RTA button, but still I start getting the little e-mails. "Congratulations!" "Welcome!" "Glad to have you!" And so on, and so on, and so on. All the while the meter's climbing.

And then it came. The one-word, RTA message that had me halfway into a scathing e-mail on proper account usage before I deleted it.

"conrats"

This sent me over the top. How many e-etiquette rules have we broken? Let's find out.

1. Misuse of the "reply to all" button.
2. Spelling counts. The word is "congrats," and that's not even a word, it's an abbreviation.
3. While the usage of punctuation is debatable in one-word e-mails, I'm already irritated, so here we are.
4. It's called capitalization, look into it.

Now I'm as guilty as the rest of you when it comes to the last two, and I have my spell-check set to 11 to keep me from flubbing #2, but that's not my point. This is:

If you're sending an e-mail to a co-worker you have never met, how do you want to present yourself? As a professional, courteous, and intelligent resource, or as a lazy, ignorant, and inattentive slacker who tosses off an e-mail with the forethought of a drunk Hollywood Celebrity. Whoops! Maybe that's not the impression we're trying to make...

But enough with the rant. Its quiltin' tme

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Of all the... people are just stupid. Somewhere in Oregon a woman decided to call 911 to get the phone number of a cute cop that had come to her house.

*thwack*

The f*%$. The cute cop went back to the house, and arrested the woman. Ha!

Dude- 911?! Are you kidding me?! *shakes head*

So speaking of stupid. (Oooooh- a segue! Cool!)

The Overboss came. The Overboss talked in circles (and circles, and circles, and circles...). And The Overboss went. And there was much rejoicing (yea!).

So where am I job-wise? In a holding pattern, big surprise there, right? But I have slightly more money and carte balance to work overtime if I need it. (Need more work? HA! As if. Although I'll probably still use it just to get s*%# done around here.) It was a lot more of the same, although The Overboss showed me an interesting e-mail from a Vice-Supreme Ruler. How I blipped on her radar is beyond my ken, but blip I did, and she liked the sound. She sent The Overboss an unprompted e-mail lauding my talents.

But get this- and this is where the stupid comes in. We've been in the insane whirling vortex of "not enough hours in the day" for a few years now. There too much work for two "Bosses" and not quite enough for a third. And since the Bosses all get paid on commission, they can't spread the work too thin. Understandable. But now San Antonio's office is having the same problem. So instead of maybe hiring a new Boss to split the time between the two offices and take overflow from each- we are probably getting an, um, a MidBoss (?), which would be under The Overboss and over the Bosses here and in San Antonio.

Unless the MidBoss is going to be a producer his/herself, I don't see how this is going to help us. At All. Just one more dragon breathing down our necks. Yea, indeed.

So back to that holding pattern thing. I'm basically staying put for the next month or so. For three reasons.
1. I asked for and got permission to keep my Minion (temp) until a new Boss gets out here and is settled, so I won't sail back in to the pit of doom I was in during the last restructure. (Unless this Minion is vanquished and I have to conjure a new one. Good Minions are hard to find and hard to train and if I have to start over- Oi vey!)
2. A Boss from Houston is working on the not-so-dearly departed's loans, and since she's been with the company for 7 years, she actually knows what she's doing. (Unlike the last two McStupids that had been sent out here to "help.")
3. I like the current Boss. He's silly. I respect that. I don't want to send him into the dark, dark cave with all the trolls, demons, and other assorted ickies with just a Minion to defend him. So we'll stick it out with him until the new Boss arrives.

Then we re-evaluate. Again.

The raise thing is a good/bad and not really what I'm considering a major reason for staying. It's not what I think I deserve, but this company is REALLY tightfisted and the other divisions are facing layoffs at the moment. I was lucky to get anything. And the overtime will help. (Case in point, here it is, 5:45 pm and I'm still here. Cha-ching!)

So that's it. I'm about to head home. Later y'all!

The teenage wasteland

Earlier today (OK, technically yesterday), an Ebon Butterfly asked me a relatively simple question that sat me back on my heels for a minute, pushed me into memory lane and then sucker-punched me with a sharp jab to my sense of equality in literature. It kinda hurt. And I couldn’t get it out of my head. So I’m passing on my pain on to the rest of you. Two for flinching!

The question asked was: (And this was paraphrased and distilled from several e-mails and clarifications.) Do you remember reading any books aimed at, say 10-20-year-olds featuring a female protagonist who wasn't too flirty/teenager-y or who wasn't too boyish?

The short answer- no.

But here’s a looooooong explanation behind what I DO remember and why I think that is. It is way more info than could be contained in an e-mail, and it isn’t what she was asking for, pre se, and it probably won’t really help her in her current pursuit. But it’s where memory lane dumped me out, and since I was still winded from the trip I decided to look around a bit before wandering on….

What I remember from my middle-to-high school reading adventures was mostly mass-market gender bias and genre pigeon hole-ing.

Guys got the action-y, power-laden fun adventure stories.
Girls got the "Walk in the Park"- types. (You know, the popular/cute guy falls for the outsider girl and she dies of cancer at the end. Or outsider girl comes back to become prom queen.)
There were the cautionary tales starring girls, a la "Hello, My Name is Alice" (drug addiction).
There were the after-school specials like, "The Face on the Milk Carton."
The only real adventures with strong female characters were the detective dramas (a la Nancy Drew, but they were skewed a bit older) and the outright fantasy/horror dramas, think, R.L. Stine, or a PG-13 B-grade horror movie in print.

But while the females were the heroines, they were also mostly damsels in distress, and they were RE-acting; they were fighting off psychos, and they only very rarely proactively went after the "bad guys" or went on solo adventures.

Series books were also popular. Sweet Valley High, The Babysitter's Club, the aforementioned Nancy Drew.... Yes, I read them avidly, and remember them fondly, but after awhile it was like there was a random plot generator somewhere just spitting out various combinations of the same characters, swapping out plots, locations and villains.

When I really wanted a female lead with real power and the wherewithal to use it, I headed straight into the classics (tinged with whatever gender prejudice was popular the decade/century it was written) or to the adult fantasy/sci-fi section. I was tired of being talked down to, so I traded up.

And here’s why I wasn’t finding anything “my age”…

It’s easier to win the lottery, than write a book that hits the best-seller lists.

When it comes to that particular age group, genre often determines gender in whatever you're writing but money talks. Genre books are “safe” and reliable performers in their demographic market, because people know what they are getting and they know already if they like it. It’s the allure of the Brand Name.

So when a publishing house finds something that sells, they ride that horse ‘til she’s dead (and then they usually beat her a few times after that ‘cause they can.) The genre guidelines are tight, because if you stray from the base, you’ll loose your audience. We don’t want new Coke, we want our Classic Coke. After all, Nancy Drew is still solving mysteries, folks. She hasn’t changed a whole lot over the years, but the changes that are made always cause a stir, and some of them have been rescinded because, well, they’re changes, darn it! (Boy, we’re whiny consumers aren’t we?)

Say you're aiming for the middle, the 15-yr-demographic. Mass-market appeal is what's on the TV, in movies, and in the music surrounding us/them everyday. And most kids outside of Hogwarts don’t have spell books, cursed amulets, or evil sorcerers in homeroom with them. (Hmmm, maybe they should.) Most of the teen genre books are basically the author taking what's hip and on TV, and distilling it down to the salient elements. I'm surprised they don't sell product placement in those pages. (Or maybe they do, it's been awhile since I strolled down the teen aisle.)

Pop Culture, not the One Ring, rules them all.

Forget books for a second, look at just the products that are marketed to teens today. It's really gender-biased, all the way down the line. Boys in commercials have cars/bikes, action and sports stars, video games, angst-ridden comic book heroes and powerful anti-heroes. Girls are targeted for make-up, cheerleading, pop starlets, teen hunks, and ultra-cool, omni-texting cell phones so they can gab all the time and everywhere. And never underestimate the power of peer-pressure and the “I-want-what-they-haves” in this age group.

Eowyn who? I wanna be like Paris Hilton, she has cool stuff!

And adult fiction is much the same, don’t get me wrong. You have the wildly popular Chick Lit genre. (See Bridget Jones in all her Ya-Ya glory!) And there are the wildly popular action/thrillers. (Paging Mr. Tom Clancy, the President would like you to tell him how to stop the terrorists now.) There is the legal/medical/cop genre, but as those jobs are gender-biased to begin with (an entirely different rant altogether), it’s obvious who the majority of those protagonists are going to be.

The powerful, female, solo adventurer is still mostly constrained to the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. They can get away with greater gender equity because the characters are placed in un-reality where the "normal" rules don't apply. But sci-fi/fantasy doesn’t (and unfortunately never will) have the audience to be economically anything other than a niche product.

And adults are usually targeted for niche products, not teens. We control the income, and we demand the supply, and we don’t care what the other kids are reading.

There are exceptions that prove the rule and smack everyone upside the head, and say “Look at me! You don’t see me often, but I’m really fun at parties!”

Harry Potter took off in the teen/adult world, and, strictly speaking, it shouldn’t have. Initially at least, it was exclusively distributed as a kid’s book, and so far as kid’s books go, it was a very depressing premise. Can you imagine the full series pitch? “Orphaned boy with a horrible family makes some new friends at a new school, but a savage murderer comes back to life, and he kills lots of people. The lead character will get a Godfather, but he’s gonna have to go on the lam- he’s a convicted murderer who turns into a dog occasionally. You like it?”

But the kids weren’t scared of it, and the darkness that would have killed most any other book in the kid’s section, saved it because it made it palatable to adults.

People who might not normally pick up a "kids book," grabbed this one by word of mouth. (I know I did.) The marketing folks picked up on this quickly, but it was (and actually still is) marketed mostly to the kids. It’s the same with the “Series of Unfortunate Events” books. (Or the Golden Compass, The Chronicles of Narnia….)

It’s a very sticky wicket. These genre-busters, the ones that light the world on fire, they all pull elements from all over the board; they have to, it’s a matter of literary survival. Male/female, happy/sad, action/emotion, it’s all there. What would be the kiss of death and a betrayal of their home genre becomes their only salvation by pulling in the readers of other genres. And the further away from your genre, the wider you have to cast your net for replacements. The hitch is to pull enough from the outside to replace what fell off behind you. And for every successful Harry, there are hundreds of Toms and Dicks out there that have fallen by the wayside.

I think it’s what Neomoniker was referring to about the darkness, Butterfly. The character concept is solid and definitely not cliché. But because it’s not what you normally see, the darkness would pull in some boys to replace the girls who won’t care for an adventuresome heroine.

Soooo, the answer is still, no, I don’t think there are any/many examples of the type of character you’re looking for, at least not that have hit big in the world as it is now. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t think there can’t be, or that there shouldn’t be.

People do win the lottery, after all. It’s what keeps the rest of us playing. So if you need any help scratching off any tickets, let me know.

The Peeps Must DIE!!!!!!

I AM NOT ALONE!!!!

It's a sign!!!

I don't get it.
So every morning I drive to work and on my way there's a sign. No, not a sign from God- a road sign.
"Guardrail Damage Ahead"
First time I thought, wow, someone must've really nailed one and maybe pushed it into the road. But I get to the guardrail in question, and it's only dented. It's barely bent enough to make room for the little orange cone in front of the bend.
So I drive on thinking, maybe the sign is a warning 'cause they're going to have workers out later today fixing it.
Weeks pass. I mean weeks. And there's still this huge sign with an itty-bitty dent. No change whatsoever. (Well at some point, the old cone was stolen/removed and they put out a shiny new one, but you get my point.)
And you know how once you notice something, you see it everywhere? Yeah, same here. All these big signs warning of damage of varying kinds. Having half of the entire rail ripped from the ground merits the same signage as the itty-bitty ding.
Some rails get repaired, some are still damaged, but there are always signs. "Signs, signs, everywhere the signs, blocking up the city and-" um, where was I?
Ah- yes! And I'm wondering- why?
Do they think we're going to drive safer if we know the guardrail's damaged? If that's the case, than all these signs I see are crying wolf. For every serious damage zone I see, there are easily a dozen dingy little dings. And if those dings are enough the damage the structural integrity of the guardrails, then we have more problems than we thought we did.
And it the city's soooo concerned with guardrail damage, why don't they fix them faster? Or do they just fix them when they go to put out another sign and realize they've run out?
It's not a hole in the ground, or a bump in the road that I'm gonna hit every time I go by. (Or at least one would hope I don't hit them everyday, right?) It's just a ding, a dent, I see worse damage from hailstorms.
(sigh) I just don't get it.

Hmm, Hell got a little colder. Not frozen over, but still...

Georgie finally did it- sort of. He finally admitted some responsibility for going to war with faulty intelligence. Of course he bracketed the comment with the usual line of we were right to go, we're right to stay, and we're going to stay until we're done. But it's the first time I've "heard" him take any responsibility. (Unless someone can correct-me and please do if you have an example, I'd like to read it.)
The link in the title goes to the CNN.com transcript of the speech, but the following are a few excerpts that stuck out at me, complete with my own sketched-out initial impressions:

B:"In an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."
Me: So rumors will do just fine? Where do you even begin to draw this line in the first place? And wasn't that the problem with the intelligence to go to war in the first place- too many rumors and too many mis-drawn conclusions?

B:"When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities."
Me: Remember my "Random thoughts" post about "political oopsies"? Granted that was more of a reaction to the Libby-Cheney-Plame debacle, but this kinda applies as well. Pseudo-kudos to Georgie's advisors for getting the guy to take responsibility, but does he have give it in this back-handed manner? Yes, other governments jumped on the WMD bandwagon, but some of them have since expressed sorrow and regret at the mistake, while still remaining resolute to "stay the course." Taken in context with the rest of the speech, this is almost like he's saying "I was responsible, the info was wrong, but I don't care."

B: "This is an enemy without conscience. And again, such enemy, there is only one effective response. We will never back down, we will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory."
Me: And neither will they- that's the problem with a "war on terrorism". How do you define your victory when there's no one border that contains your enemies? Do we call it when we've chased all the terrorists out of Iraq and into neighboring countries? Do we follow them if that's what happens? Here's an interesting take on that conundrum: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/morton.victory/index.html

B: "It used to be that after American troops cleared the terrorists out of a city and moved on to the next mission, there weren't enough forces -- Iraqi forces -- to hold the area. We found that after we left, the terrorists would re-enter the city, intimidate local leaders and police and eventually retake control.
This undermined the gains of our military, it thwarted our efforts to help Iraqis rebuild, and led local residents to lose confidence in the process and in their leaders."
Me: Ya think? And it only took what, over a year for us notice this was happening? Yup- here's a quote, "Our troops liberated Najaf in 2003. Yet about a year later, the city fell under the sway of radical and violent militia."

There's a lot about this speech that bothers me, but some of it is encouraging. It seems that Georgie is actually taking the time to listen to his nay-sayers, instead of ignoring them outright or attacking their patriotism. (Bottomed-out approval ratings will do that, I guess.) In more of his recent speeches, he's actually taken the time to answer some of the endless questions he's been asked. And while his answers aren't wholly satisfying, at least to me, he is finally engaging in the debate.

And for the record (in case anyone cares) I don't like that we went in using faulty intelligence as a prop, but the regime was horrible (and there are many others as bad or worse out there) and needed to be dealt with. I HATE that we went in almost half-assed and misjudged everything from the strength of the insurgents, the weakness of the existing infrastructure, and the number of soldiers it would take to take and hold positions. It is getting better (slowly), but only after how long? As cheesy as the comparisons to the WWII mobilizations are, there are points to be made. And I have to (grudgingly) agree with one point Georgie makes- while a firm withdrawal date would be heavenly, it's not practically possible.

Raven's dictionary: Inept Weather-Preparedness Day

Def: (noun) Inept Weather-Preparedness Day (or IWPD) occurs when people who don't know how to cope with cold weather run headlong into it.
The resulting hysteria is characterized by early release/cancellation of school/work, panicked rushes to community grocery stores to stock up on goods, general gossiping and over-concern about the latest weather report, and/or rumors of road conditions varying from slightly exaggerated to "You've got to be f*&^%$# kidding me!"

Common to more temperate-weather zones, this phenomenon is the by-product of hysteria, poor cold-weather coping skills (both individual and institutional), and an extreme desire to do anything but work, go to school, deal with reality, or generally do anything but cozy up with a blanket, a movie and one's Poke-Slippers (see picture above).
It does not take much to trigger an IWPD, generally a forecast of freezing temperatures, a little precipitation, and no way to cope with it is sufficient excuse. Compared often to the ubiquitous "snow day", it is worth mentioning that triggers of that event vary wildly region to region, but is still based on a sound principle of "It's too dangerous to go outside," and should not even be considered a synonym for IWPD which seems to be based on the principle of "It might be too dangerous to go outside."

Long story short- I get off work 2 1/2 hours early, I get to laugh my Rock-Mountain-raised ass off at the poor little Texans, and I get to mock everyone who thinks, as my Nic-knack put it so delicately when she came home, "Holy Hell, it's cold out there!"

Highly insulted by a "Higher" authority

"If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help, because he might not be there." - Pat Robertson on the ousting of the Dover, PA school board in the last election.

Sometimes I wonder if God is just hiding under a rock somewhere, shaking his head, and wondering why His children seem willing to insult, threaten, and belittle each other in His name. Forget the hubris involved in claiming that your word is God's Word, this is just getting stupid.

If God wanted religious theories thought in schools, we would have lost the Revolutionary War, or the framers of the Constitution would have instituted a national religion, or we would have been struck down when Darwin opened his big mouth. Just because parents are too lazy to insist their children learn religious instruction in church, where, let's face it, the people teaching it would have a little more cred than an art teacher drafted into the science department, or too lazy to teach it to their children themselves, doesn't mean that schools have to pick up the slack. And if little Johnny and Jenny come back home from school crying that teacher is teaching different things than Pastor Paul, feel free to refer them to me.

One of the wisest pieces of educational theory I have EVER heard was mounted on the wall of my high school choir room: "When we study religious music it is not to teach you what you should believe, but what others in the world believe." And if you can't accept what others may believe, and think just because yours is the majority religion you have the right to enforce its teaching in a public arena, than you can go be a good little Nazi somewhere else.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T is not a song, and if you think I should go to hell, than I say, "after you."

And please, don't point out that intelligent Design is a scientific theory unless you're willing to admit that the "Designer" in question could be the little green men from a galaxy far, far, away. You can "prove" one as easily as the other.

And I'm not saying that ID has no place in schools, just not in a science class. If these parents really, really want this taught in public schools- lobby to make it an elective. Comparative Creation Theory 101, or Judeo-Christian traditions in Modern Science. Heck, the latter can include topics on the abortion debate, stem cell research, and assisted suicide. We can teach children to listen and debate topics without resorting to "I'm right, you're wrong and you're going to hell."

The link in the title is to the Washington Post article that sums up Mr. Robertson's latest tirade, and yes, while I don't agree with a thing the man says I do defend his right to say it. It's always nice to be reminded why I believe what I believe, even if I have to be offended in order for that to happen.

The link below is to an interesting article by William Saletan, posted on Slate.com. Mr. Saletan covers a lot of the scientific/religious debate in today's politics.
http://www.slate.com/id/2130282/?nav=tap3

Random thoughts

1. Inspiration: Political "Oopsies." (Pick one, there are plenty to go around!)
The thought: The words are "I'm sorry." Why can't politicians learn them? I had a director rant at me once to the tune of- "You're the stage manager and that makes it your fault!" Which is true, if something goes way wrong on/off stage, it generally means the guys in the booth missed something. My respect for this administration (not that there's any to begin with) would go through the roof if someone would just say, "My guy goofed, but he was mine, and now I'm going to fix it." Hell, I'll even take "My guy MAY have goofed."
2. Inspiration: Reality TV
The thought: Why am I watching this? Yup, that about sums it up.
3. I: Work
T.T.: Why am I watching reality TV when I have this? It's like The Apprentice and Survivor are running Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition, only everyone's missing their deadlines, no one gets immunity, and the houses aren't done on time!
4. I: Cats
T.T.: I need a nap.
5. I: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx (I think.)
T.T.: He-he-he. This gets me every time I think of it.

Grrrrrr

The new guy decided he didn't want the job after all.
S*&$!
Not amused. REALLY not amused.
Looking for my happy place....
Let me in!!!!