I see through your brain

Henry Kissinger died this week at age 100, so Hell just got more tedious. The man who fled Nazi antisemitism in 1938 built a career in US politics that gave him unprecedented power in two Republican administrations, which translated into the deaths of millions in Southeast Asia, Chile and elsewhere.

Power, he said, was the ultimate aphrodisiac (explaining his sexual success despite looking like a constipated toad), the ultimate Axe spray. It’ll take a while to get the stench out of the elevators of statecraft.

Our earworm today was written before Kissinger rode into power with Nixon, but it is one of Bob Dylan’s most powerful polemics against the forces Kissinger represented. Here’s Eddie Vedder singing “Masters of War” as the Dylan 30^th Anniversary Concert.

 

 

 

Moment's rest

 This is a guy I came across last month, resting on what looked like a collapsed bouncy-thing.

I thought he was gorgeous.

 

 

 

ID me

I noticed this the other morning:

Any idea what it is? 

I mean, my guess is a nest. But is it mammal (squirrel), avian (bird) or insect (wasp)?

 

 

 

Cross communication

Had several interviews last week, which in itself is odd, it being Thanksgiving, with a maximum of three working days for most people in the US. But it got…odder.

We were toddling along fine; I told him about my experience, he told me about the opportunity and the company. Then he said, “Okay, I’ve some logistics to get out of the way.”

Well, I thought that was a segue to the question of compensation, but no.

Recruiter: This job requires reporting into one of our US offices, either Tampa or Salt Lake City. Are you okay with relocation, and if so, to which?

Me:

Recruiter: I thought I mentioned that in my email…?

Me:

(He had not. It would have kinda stood out if he had.)

So, that was a hard stop.

I hesitated on whether I should point out an error on their website, but what the hell—I wasn’t getting the job anyhow, so I sent him a reply to his initial email (which did not mention the relocation thing) and directed him to the solutions page, where three inches of text separated a repetition of the same statistics, but with one number changed.

It’s not clear to me why you’d repeat this data on the same page, but if you’re going to do that, you should not say that the decrease in alert triage and response times is 58% in one instance and in the other it’s 52%.

As of yesterday, they hadn’t fixed it.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Joy in the hood

For the first time since the 8^th, I walked my morning circuit yesterday. It’s taken that long for me to feel able to venture out without danger of hawking up part of my lungs. Nature welcomed me by sending chipmunks, mockingbirds, crows and a hawk to greet me.

Also—maples said hi.

Plus, Friday I had my first yoga lesson in six weeks. Man, did that feel good, even if I was a bit coughy.

I’m grateful for all of it.