Where's my four leaf clover?

Haven't posted in awhile.

Things have been bad. Employed, unemployed, employed, unemployed...

When I was in High School, I knew someone that had many auto accidents. Every time He'd had a car for awhile, someone would rear end him, or blow through a stop sign to sideswipe him... It was always classified as the other person's fault, and he'd always end up with a better car out of the deal.

I thought, "this can't be random chance, he's doing something, or NOT doing something". I figured there was something wrong with his driving habits to cause so many accidents. The man ended up in the hospital for several of these accidents, so I didn't believe it was deliberate.

I just thought that since I had almost NO accidents and he had so many, there must be some difference, some habit that caused him to be more vulnerable.

Now? I'm not so sure.

My brothers got a nice job right out of college. They work for a big company, they have training and health benefits, they keep earning more and more money, and they get more and more well-off.

Me? I do it all, and I do it well. I work hard, I accomplish everything put in front of me. I just always seem to be in position of losing out. I'm in a department that is closed down, I'm put in a bad political situation that ends up with me being let go for something completely out of my control.

Life isn't fair, I know... But some people seem to be in a continual situation of sacrificial lamb.

It's the worse possible situation. It's frustration, it's the feeling of being in a pit and continually clawing your way up without any purchase. It's being closed in, trapped, not able to get any purchase, and the sheer frustration of knowing how capable you are but not being able to show it.

Maybe... Maybe some people are just born to frustration. If some people are born to situations that allow them clear sailing their entire lives, might not some be born continual no-wins?

I've never known this kind of hell. How many of our most capable people have died in situations of quiet desperation?

Is success luck? It's definitely not simple capability. Maybe it's combination of the two, with luck being the most important.

Fully Caffeinated

Ok, for those of you that followed my blog in earlier days...

I'm employed again.

I'm working in a Network Operations Center, which is a bit underemployed for me, but in this market I'll take it and be glad of it.

The schedule is NOT happy happy. I'm on second shift, which I can live with. I work Tuesday through Saturday, which is a bit of a pain.

I get NO holidays though, which is a ROYAL pain. I was supposed to host Christmas for the family this year, but if it isn't on a Sunday or a Monday, I'm not off.

Period.

The pay is about 2/3rd of what I earned at my last job, that's going to take adjustment.

Still, it's a delight to be working again, and there's a lot to learn at this place.

The dynamics are amusing and infuriating at the same time, I'm sure I'll be posting more about those.

NOC work is mad and hectic, with periods of pure boredom.

Speaking of which, time for me to head to work. I want to be there at 3:00 today, which is 30 minutes early.

At least I get to wake up slowly with a nice pot of coffee each day. That's a bit of a luxury.

Don't piss off the natives

This lovely statue is of Napoleon's wife, and sits in a beautiful public park a short walk from the pier in Martinique.

It's not very interesting until you hear the back story. You see, it seems Napoleon's wife was a hero to the slaves in Martinique, she is credited with freeing them.

A short time before my cruise, old documents were uncovered that revealed Napoleon's wife had urged they RE-ENSLAVE the people there.

Result?

The blood red paint splattered across the statue, and the head still hasn't been found.

Can't say I blame them.

By the way, that fetching lady in the picture is my neice. I'm so old...

May I sleep now?

I'm just about set. LG&E restored my power last night. Since my neighborhood was down, AND the individual lines to my house had been ripped free by a falling branch, I'd assumed I'd be down for a week or more.

This was the first extended outage I've ever experienced during cold weather. My brother described it as "camping in a really good tent.

My girlfriend ("J") had a generator she owns jointly with her Ex, so we fetched it. Along with a couple of space heaters, we took the edge off the cold. The last few days turned into working to cope, hooking up the generator, finding a secure place to put it, running extensions lines into the house, getting containers to carry gasoline, filling coolers with snow, and emptying my fridge, moving video game equipment and hooking it up so the kids wouldn't too bored, making supper on my grill standing in the snow...

Nice to be lazy again today, but there's something enjoyable about "survival mode".

Meanwhile, everything I did now has to be undone.

My house.

No power.
No heat.
No phone.
No computer.
No Internet.

Just me & my iPhone huddled in front of a gas log.

Snuggle

Mahatma Microsoft

I'm watching "Gandhi".

I've always had a fascination, and a weak spot for Gandhi. He epitomized a level of wisdom I could never hope to approach.

Here, now, with a glass of whiskey in my hand and a pack of cigarettes by my chair, I wonder how we could apply his lessons to today's inequities.

Today, society's inequites are more systemic, more due to how much of influence our corporate structure has, and how little the mass of humanity has. There is not the central power structure that there was in Gandhi's day.

But, the inequities do exist, and they exist in at an ever increasing level.

I'm pondering. I'm pondering how we could apply Gandhi's lessons to today's inequities. I'm pondering what the moral justification of resistance would be.

This is a work in progress of course, but there is one idea that occurs to me.

Today's corporations employ entire buildings full of people to influence our politics, warp our policy to fit their purpose. They do this without paying the price of the results.

Increasingly, I believe that we should limit the rights to free speach to those that have the right to vote. Corporations have no right to vote, so corporations have no right to free speach.

If a company wants to participate in political activities, they they must bear the responsibilities that come with citizenship. We are all responsible for each other at some level. Companies apply the cold equation of profit exclusively to their actions, yet claim the rights of a citizen that lives, works, and sleeps with fellow citizens.

I think the rights of citizens should not be extended to corporations. If a corporation wishes to lobby the government, display political advertisements, influence public policy, then they must meet a minimal standard for social responsibility.

This concept is just the beginning of what should be set of broad changes. Companies need to be responsible at some level for their workers. They need to offer them training instead of demanding more and more educated workers without contributing enough to education in America.

If they wish to not be responsible for the health of their workers, then they need to abide for certain standards to allow their workers to be responsible for their own health.

The list is endless, we are allowing our corporations to rule our society.

There must be a way of combining the lessons of Gandhi to our current social problems.

I'm going to ponder this.