Recruiters 40

I’ve documented the kind of idiocy one experiences in pretty much every interaction with every recruiter ever. (You can search on recruiters in the box to the right of this post and scroll through years of the stuff.) Honestly—there may be decent members of the profession, but I’ve not encountered them more than once or twice in the past 20 years.

Recently I’ve somehow got onto email lists from a couple of outfits that send me “great opportunities”; I wrote about one of them last year. There’s another one that emails me daily; lately that’s been creeping up to twice a day. Like Dave, the Kimble Group clearly scrapes job postings that may hold one or two keywords from a profile you’ve posted somewhere (possibly LinkedIn) from a plethora of job boards, slaps them into an email and bungs it out.

And—as with Dave—I sometimes wonder what the hell Kimble are thinking in their scraping algorithm. Viz:

Although, I concede there are a few crossover elements between product management and pest control, but nowhere in any of my online profiles do I mention mass murder.

The price of the morning paper

You may not be aware of this, but today is World Press Freedom Day, a UN declaration meant to drive awareness of the contributions made to civilization by members of the Fourth Estate around the world. Sadly, in 2018, the environment in which journalists work is increasingly hostile, encouraged by dictators and democratically-elected dictator wannabes on all continents.

Thomas Jefferson once said of democracy, “Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.” Well, times have certainly changed, eh?

Reporters without Borders puts the United States at 45^th out of its annual listing of 180 nations WRT freedom of the press. That means we’re behind all Nordics (who pretty much have a lock on the top slots), Burkina Faso, Namibia, Estonia, Samoa, Surinam, and all Western European nations except for Italy.

Woo-hoo—we haven’t killed any journalists this year. So far. But the Kleptocrat and his fellow info-phobes are pushing for ever tighter restrictions on press freedom, and the threat is very real. He’s declared journalists “enemies of the American people” (a phrase borrowed from Joseph Stalin, although I’m betting that he has no sense of historical irony, since he has no sense of history); they’re subject to arrest while covering events; they’ve been physically assaulted, as well as being doxed and receiving death threats. Increasingly US reporters’ electronic devices are subject to search at US borders, and foreign ones are denied entry.

You’ll no doubt recall his campaign rallies that featured reporters penned in while his cultists threatened them, with his gleeful egging them on.

Meanwhile, one of Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops’ besties and role models, Rodrigo Duterte (The Philippines, number 133), famously announced, “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.” The definition of “son of a bitch” amounts to, “if you print things I don’t like,” which of course is echoed in the White House today. Unaccountably, Duterte hasn’t executed any reporters this year, either, although one was murdered a couple of days ago by person or persons unknown.

Vladimir Putin (Russia, number 148) also hasn’t officially killed any journalists this year, but many have been murdered in crimes that go unpunished, and he’s got a lot of reporters and bloggers in jail.

In general, bringing news to your doorstep, your TV or your device is a dangerous business. Last week alone, nine journalists were killed in Kabul in a bombing attack that appeared to target them; another was shot shortly thereafter. Last month three reporters and their driver were kidnapped and murdered in Ecuador. Another three have been killed in India since the beginning of the year. The global toll last year was 82 murdered; so far this year 32 gave been killed, and we’re not even halfway through the twelvemonth.

Here’s a graphic from Reporters Without Borders:

Most of these journalists aren’t even officially war correspondents; it’s just that—these days—the line between combat and non-combat zones has blurred, literally and figuratively. It’s an appalling thought that we here in the land of the First Amendment are sinking into shithole status, thanks to the ministrations of the GOPigs, but here we are.

Yes, I know that there's plenty wrong with the basket of odds and sods that constitutes "the media" these days. And there are plenty of propagandists passing themselves off as journalists. Moreover, the whole business model of delivering news and commentary has suffered multiple body blows during the Internet Age, and it's often hard to tell news from entertainment. (And don't even get me started on that bastard known as "infotainment". Nonetheless, Mr. Jefferson was right.)

Something I recall from my days working on a daily paper is that journalists outdrink just about any class of professionals (including the three branches of the military I’ve been associated with)—with the possible exception of cops. I don’t know about you, but this evening I believe I’ll lift a glass to those stalwarts who risk their safety and their lives to keep me informed. God love ya, all of ya.

Career path

For those who recall Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, I’ve got this photo of a modern-day chimney sweep concern in England.

You’ll want to enlarge and read the copy under the Citroen logo in the lower right area. We can expect to find similar over here in Red states.

Surgical strike

When I had my hand operated on two weeks ago, my expectation of being able to go to work the next day turned out to be a complete pipe dream. First off, there was the soft cast that was the size of a tree stump. That effectively made it impossible for me to wear clothes that would be work-suitable, but it also rendered me incapable of using a mouse with my right hand.

Since I’m currently building out the financial models of a business plan in spreadsheets, that kind of put a crimp in things. I did go back to work last Monday, but I had to use my left hand for mousework, which is to say: I spent a crapload of time not getting much done.

I kept finding things that require opposable thumbs and/or flexible wrists. Like turning the key in my car’s ignition, releasing the brake and shifting the manual transmission.

Last Tuesday I saw my orthopedic surgeon for the post-op follow-up, and swapped out the soft cast for the hard one. It was an interesting process:

First of all, the orthopod removed the cast and had me wash my hands. I took the opportunity to get a couple of kludgy left-handed shots of the wounds. This one is the incision where he enucleated the bone and shoved the bunched-up tendon into the resulting cavity. (Everything's still swollen in these shots. I still have to remember to elevate my hand to reduce the swelling. I look like Stonewall Jackson.)

This one shows the main incision, as well as the smaller one halfway up the arm, where he snipped the tendon that got pulled up into the base of my wrist

Cool, huh?

Then the assistant came in and wrapped the hard cast. He asked me what color I’d like; I said, “Give me something that won’t show dirt.” So this is my wrist now:

It’s considerably smaller than the first one. Although I still can’t grip anything between thumb and fingers, I do have greater freedom of movement. I can comb my hair, and brush my teeth, and changing sheets is almost okay. And I can kind of kludge the mouse. So, yay!

But I still can’t get it wet, so I have to wash dishes one-handed, and stick my arm in a plastic bag in the shower. And I’ve been banned from heavy lifting and gardening, which latter is a real pisser. This is about the only time between winter and mosquito season where you can get out and dig in the dirt.

But—worst for me—I still cannot hold a pen or pencil in my hand. I’m a writer; I’ve not gone one single day without putting instrument to paper since I was six years old. Until now. Therapy for me is uncapping an Italian fountain pen and feeling my thoughts flow across the pages of my journal. That’s off the table for another two weeks at least. This is a hard one. (Hoping the IRS can make out the writing on the check I sent them.)

Still—I’m looking forward to being on the other side of this, to being able to use my hand, with opposable thumb and without pain.

Paschal moon: a brief, dreamy kind delight

Final day of National Poetry Month, so we’ll go out with another heavy hitter.

Like Dorothy Parker, William Butler Yeats loved not wisely, but too well. The main passion of his life was Maud Gonne. He once stated that her (first) rejection of his marriage proposal (in 1891, two years after they met) marked the point at which “the troubling of my life began”. He proposed three more times over the next ten years, and was turned down every time. The man she did choose, John MacBride, was an appalling, abusive human being, but he shared her deep, radicalIrish nationalism, which Yeats did not. After her unsuccessful attempt to divorce MacBride, Yeats—who had supported her in the effort—finally physically consummated the relationship, but even that was…unsatisfying, and their friendship faded after the single sexual encounter.

Even so, when John MacBride was executed following the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Yeats proposed one final time to Gonne. And one final time she said no. Frankly, the proposal was kind of by rote, and he was somewhat relieved by her response. Then, the 56-year-old poet started going middle-age crazy. He developed a fixation on…Iseult Gonne, Maud’s 21-year-old daughter by her pre-MacBride lover Lucien Millevoie. Iseult followed in her mother’s footsteps by rejecting Yeats’s 1917 proposal.

By now he was feeling a desperate urge to produce an heir, so within a few months of being shown the romantic door by Iseult, he proposed to 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees. That relationship was a success, and produced two children, though he took lovers throughout his life.

Well, anyway, the Yeats-Gonne relationship really scarred the poet deeply, as witnessed by today’s entry.

“Never Give All the Heart”

Never give all the heart, for love

Will hardly seem worth thinking of

To passionate women if it seem

Certain, and they never dream

That it fades out from kiss to kiss;

For everything that’s lovely is

But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.

O never give the heart outright,

For they, for all smooth lips can say,

Have given their hearts up to the play.

And who could play it well enough

If deaf and dumb and blind with love?

He that made this knows all the cost,

For he gave all his heart and lost.

This is the sort of thing you expect from poets—that thrill-of-victory-agony-of-defeat in love, so it seems appropriate that it should close us out for this year.

Gratitude Monday: would give treats and pets

As you all know, social media can be a cesspool of the worst humans have to offer. It often seems like there’s nothing but greed, cruelty, baseness, ignorance, viciousness and venality swirling around the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

So for Gratitude Monday today, I’m just going to leave this thread from last month, that started with a tweet from We Rate Dogs.

Apparently there are many, many dogs around the Twitterverse named Rizzo, and they are all very good boys.

Paschal moon: walk not in woe

It’s been a while since we’ve had anything from Dorothy Parker, so we’re due.

She’s the mastery of the stiletto through the intercostals, especially when it came to romance. (Parker was definitely unlucky in love.) Viz:

“A General Review of the Sex Situation”

Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?

She was hardly ever sunny, but she could slow down the pace.

“A Dream Lies Dead”

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

Paschal moon: Find the truth

Today’s National Poetry Month offering comes from a young Tanzanian poet, Zuhura Seng’enge. Only out of university for a couple of years, she’s been writing poetry in both English and Kiswahili since she was 12.

The poem I’m sharing is focused on the African experience, but I believe that Americans could well benefit from following its precepts—both as a nation and as individuals. I recognize that what Seng’enge enjoins is in no way easy, but even so…

“Do Not Fear the Past”

Do not fear the past.
It is ugly
but it is ours,
Do not hold on to lies
That you were fed when you were young.
Learn the history of your people
Find the truth
to free your soul from evil
Learn the Qur-an
Learn the bible
Find the meaning of life and religion.
Do not fear the past.
It is painful
but it is real
Blood was spilt and people died
but love and unity had survived.
Learn the tongue of your ancestors
Reconnect with the roots of your blood
Find the knowledge
That was stolen
Find the life that was robbed from us.
Do not fear the past.
Embrace it
Let it teach you the wisdom of your race
Take its lessons and live by them
Own the identity that was erased.
Do not fear the past,
Do not hate it.
Do not fear the past,
Learn about it.
Let it teach you
Let it nurture you
Let it remind you, of who you are

Paschal moon: the allotment of death

One of my friends yesterday gave me stick about the poem by Hughes not being by Ted Hughes. So, what the hell.

I’m not actually a huge fan of Ted, largely because he was such an utter shite of a human being. (I have the same disdain for Fitzgerald and Hemingway, although I recognize Fitzgerald was in fact a master of language. Hemingway was just a pisher through and through, and I think his writing’s crap on top of it.)

Fun fact: my contempt for him did not stop me applying for a ticket for the memorial service held for Hughes (he died as Poet Laureate of Great Britain) at Westminster Abbey. But as it turned out, I couldn’t attend, because the sales guy I was working on a project with threw a wobbly about me leaving work for half a day.

“What does it matter?” he squawked. “He’s dead!”

(This sales guy was a piece of work. I found out later he’d been shagging the Queen of the Admins, a woman who personified the phrase “having ideas above her station”. They were both married to other people.)

Anyhow, here’s a little something from Mr. Sylvia Plath.

“Hawk Roosting”

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

Paschal moon: the rape and rot of graft

It’s hard for me to comprehend how any sentient being can look at what’s going on around us and not see the fluorescently-glaring institutional racism that infuses every aspect of our life. Even more than the Nazi torchlight rallies that are increasingly emboldened by the state of politics, I look at the fact that cops can safely arrest mass murderers—if they’re white—while black kids are riddled with police-issue bullets for Walking While Carrying Mobile Phones, and I just fucking despair.

This is the 21^st-Century version of lynching, and we don’t seem to have an Ida B. Wells to shine a light on it.

Well, we do have Langston Hughes. In previous iterations of National Poetry Month I’ve given you some of his shorter works—“Hold Fast the Dream”, “April Rain Song” and “Motto”. Today’s poem is long, I grant you, but it’s something I believe we need in this time of MAGAtry, so read it all the way to the last line.

“Let America Be America Again”

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!