Broken-hearted Blog.

The Malcontent just finished packing the moving truck of two close, well beloved friends who are moving 10+ hours away by car.

As one might guess, a person who goes by "The Malcontent" warms up to few people, though I recognize that I've been graced with an unusally deep and rewarding group of friends.

Today, however, I am overwhelmed with sorrow, and blogging simply isn't going to happen again until Monday.

There is plenty of time for the reading and writing of blogs on those days we are chained to our desks. If you can, turn your computer off and go spend some time with someone you adore and whom you don't get to see enough.

(Or, as I plan to, call your Grandmother. She misses you.)

Keeping America's Capital Safe...From Candy!

Ah, the land of freedom and liberty! As long as you don't want candy in Washington's metro....

I ride the D.C. Metro everyday. Instead of arresting a woman for finishing a candy bar, how about arresting the guys who physically shove you to get into or off of the Metro?

For simple assault in D.C. under DC ST § 22-404, "Whoever unlawfully assaults, or threatens another in a menacing manner, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or be imprisoned not more than 180 days, or both."

Let's enforce that one for a while.

What's with the asterisks?

Yes, astute readers of The Malcontent noticed that in the preceding post on Tom Ridge, asterisks were used in place of a vowel and a consonant in the f-word.

It was a quote, folks. The faithful reader quoted is a man of sensitivity and breeding (though not so cultured as to avoid the use of "ass"), and we reflect his comments accurately.

As for The Malcontent, well, we love the f-word. We drop the f-bomb in conversations with 3-year-olds, even while recognizing that we are teaching them a form of conversational laziness that avoids more complex descriptive or emotive language.

But, that's how we roll at The Malcontent. We don't give a poo.

Tom Ridge, wastrel.

Tom Ridge has announced that he may step down after the November election. (You know, when his boss will get defeated. Again.)

Why? According to the AP wire stories, "he needs to earn money in the private sector to put his teenage children through college."

Homeland Security Secretary pays 175,700 dollars a year.

As one faithful reader of The Malcontent put it:

Where the f**k are they going that you can't afford it on $175k a
year? Presumably his family did some financial planning?

Seriously though, I'm concerned that we have someone in charge of
keeping my ass safe from terrorists that couldn't even figure out how
to put away money for his children's education. He's had 18 years!
It's not like they popped out and said "Dude, I'm going to Harvard next
week."

Well said.

Seriously, Mr. Ridge, couldn't you have just used the tried and true "I need to spend more time with my family"?

(For those of you fortunate enough to live outside of the Capitol Beltway, "I need to spend more time with my family" is generally seen as high-ranking federal governmental appointee shorthand for "I need to quit because I suck at my job" or for "I made my boss mad, but he won't fire me, because that looks bad.")

Blogarama.

Hey, The Malcontent was just listed on Blogarama! In appreciation, we added a Blogarama button to the site--because here at The Malcontent, we are shameless publicity whores.

Alabama. Backwards and frustrated.

Alternate headline? "Stupid Law Upheld by 11th Circuit Court of Appeals."

And shame on them.

The law in question is Alabama's statute which prohibits the sale of "sex toys" as part of their "Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act" (see Section 13A-12-200.1 et seq. of the Code of Alabama, where it says, more exactly, it is "unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any....device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value").

The law prevents the sale of such devices entirely. That's right. Not to minors, but to legal consenting adults in full possesion of the faculties, rights and privileges accorded them by law. No vibrators for you, Alabamanians. (Bizarrely, the Court asserts--despite there not being any specific statutory exemption--that the sale of "ordinary vibrators or body massagers" is allowed, as they are not "designed or marketed" primarily for the "stimulation of human genital organs." Sure they aren't. Sore muscles, you know.)

The ludicrous idea that the adult people of Alabama need to be protected from the sale of sex toys is laughable. I say this because the court itself noted that the "use, possession or gratuitous distribution" of sex toys is not proscribed. So, you can give out all the dildoes you like, just don't sell one.

Maybe it is the association of filthy money with the beautiful expression of human sexuality that the Alabama legislators find objectionable. It's Mammon, not Priapus, that they fear. Soon they will ban all commerce! (Note the deft application of reductio ad absurdum argumentation. Or is it?)

A law that seeks to prevent legal adults from engaging in non-harmful, consentual, private sexual behavior is patently offensive to freedom-loving civil libertarians like myself.

The Court's ridiculous opinion can be downloaded from their site. Law.com's reporting of the decision can be found here. The friends of liberty and the constitution? Here.

For those of you wondering more about the free expression, reproductive rights, and rights of sexual privacy issues that this case raises, don't worry--we'll be coming back to this case, I'm sure.

Dahlia Lithwick, brilliant (as usual).

I came in fired up in general this morning, ready to rip into government generally and some branches in particular. Then, in my morning reading, Dahlia Lithwick really hits the mark about this election when she says:

What is at stake, in this election, is whether we value the notion of being a nation that's ruled by law as opposed to rulers. This isn't just a voting issue. It's what used to launch revolutions.

Man, if that wasn't exactly what was on my mind. Read the rest of her excellent article, which is more generally about the issue of the Federal Bench, on Slate.

Ceding the field for the day.

Given the spate of blogging at the Convention, I have ceded the field for the day.

Go ahead, you know you want to.

Kicking Ass

BostonDparty

Smart Ass

OxBlog

Talking Points Memo

Not Geniuses

Dowbrigade News

And the big list at CyberJournalist, if you just can't get enough.

Am I still me?

For my job, I spend a lot of my time reading and thinking about "human enhancement technologies." The brilliant Carl Elliott has written a thoughtful essay on the transhumanism movement that is a terrific read, even if you don't expect to live forever.

Eeek! A Woman with Backbone!

Teresa Heinz Kerry tells an obnoxious reporter to "shove it" and sets off a mad press frenzy. (Hell, even worthless gasbag Rush Limbaugh admits that "everybody has wanted to tell a reporter to shove it.")

Why, who does she think she is? Oh, yeah, someone who doesn't feel compelled to let members of the press run rough-shod over her simply because they think it's their due. The reporter was editor Colin McNickle, who works for the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune Review (owned by right-wing nutjob Richard Scaife Mellon) . Your pals in the Fourth Estate have got some pretty thin skin, eh, Colin.

The Vice-President drops the f-bomb on a member of Congress, and there is a bit of hoopla, but when a woman speaks her mind (and without obscenity), then there is concern about whether she's inappropriate, whether she's a loose cannon. Hey, she's not going to be negotiating national and foreign policy positions--that's going to be John's job.

I'm with Hillary on this one. You go, girl.

The economy of happiness.

More money, more happiness? Well, no, not exactly. But still, economist Robert Frank's article makes some interesting points about how to spend your money so as to virtually insure no increase in your happiness or well-being.

A tip of the blogging hat to the good folks at Arts and Letters Daily for pointing this article out to the ignorant masses, including me.

The flip-flop flap.

OK, the "flip-flop" attacks have got to stop. If this politician changes his mind, or that politician changes her mind, they're wafflers, flip-floppers, etc. This weak charge is then trotted out by the opposing candidate as if it were some moral flaw. It is this moronic attack that is currently being leveled against Kerry by Bush.

It's called learning, folks. When people who are guided by reason acquire new information, sometimes it changes their mind. This should be a desirable thing--we want leaders and decision makers who can broaden and deepen their understanding of issues and act in ways that takes all the information available into account.

If you never change your mind on anything (or at least, not once you've said it publically), then it seems to me that either:

1). You are of the opinion that you already know everything. This is mere arrogance.

2). You can't learn new things. This is being ineducable, and it is tragic.

3). You don't feel you need to learn new things, even though you know there is more to be learned. This is laziness and smells of duplicity as well.

Only in the modern political circus would someone hold logic, reasoning and critical thinking to be bad things. The desire to mindlessly cling to a decision--despite receiving additional information that would lead any rational actor to change course--is folly, not leadership. These cynical and mean-spirited attacks on Kerry strike one as the actions of a candidate with nothing positive to offer about himself.

Shame on you, Mr. President! While you may be proud of promoting a short-sighted, uninformed, and provincial approach to political action, the founding fathers likely would be sickened to the point of nausea.

The men who developed the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were lovers of reason, logical thought, and open debate. It was their willingness to listen to one another, and to change direction when they saw they were heading in the wrong direction, that gave us our country.

Go ahead, Mr. Kerry--change your mind when new information calls for it. Most of us mere mortals understand how that works--we do it ourselves.

Atom Feed Enabled.

I have no idea what this really means or entails, but it apparently makes it easier for my friend (and others) to check The Malcontent out.  And trust me, if you don't write any better than I do, you want as few barriers to people reading you as possible.

Foetry: Fair and Balanced Poetry?

Now that's what I call making the world a better place! 

Someone should make these guys part of the real Department of Homeland Security. Because when bad free verse takes the cash prize, the terrorists win.

Now if they would only train a crack team of commandos to stop high school students from writing love sonnets and poems about death.....

See the Boston Globe story here.

Homeless Voters

So, a friend just emailed me about National Homeless Voter Registration Week, which runs September 26-Oct. 2 this year. Now, admittedly, I had never thought about this issue before, but it seems quite reasonable that you should not lose your franchise to vote (particularly in state-wide or national level elections) simply because you are without shelter.

This lead me to wonder what the laws are governing the registering of voters who do not have a place of residence--that is, in what district do you register to vote, if you don't live anywhere in particular?

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty has a Model State Homeless Voter Registration Act, which is available at the website for the National Coalition for the Homeless. A thought-provoking document (at least for us nerdy-lawyer-types), it points out just how hard it is to ensure that everyone who wishes to participate in elections gets the opportunity to do so.

The sun is still hot!!

Todd Purdum's analysis in the New York Times online edition provides a very interesting bit of perspective on the likely impact of the 9/11 commission report, but the general thrust of the article kills me. 

The headline encapsulates my complaint.  (Heads are usually not the responsibility of the reporter, but of the copy editor) 

"Swift Action on Advice From the 9/11 Commission Is Unlikely" is like reporting "Ocean swimmers likely to get wet." I mean, come on, what a crazy idea. A slow-moving federal government? Next you'll be telling me that multinational corporations have an undue influence on national policy, or that money buys you access to power, or that the media is fair and unbiased.

New motto? "All the news that's fit to print not news." 

A wee example.

So, not 10 minutes after I made my last post, I got an email from one of the folks I talk to regularly about their job. Just to give you a flavor of the feelings that the average person I talk to is expressing, I have quoted from his email (with permission). He is an lawyer specializing in intellectual property issues, at a moderate size boutique firm.

I really, really need a new job doing something else.  I almost quit about 20 minutes ago and the more I think about it the more I want to, except that the "rational" side of me is arguing not to throw a good paying job away with nothing else lined up.  I don't think I can take this job anymore.  Have no interest or sense of urgency whatsoever. Problem is I can't think of what else to do that has even the remotest interest to me and make a living and maintain health insurance.  I thought the job would be better by now but it is just sucking the life out of me.  Feel completely trapped.  And a vacation isn't the answer as I just dread having to come back to this hell hole.  I know that resigning will make me feel better for a couple of days but that is all, then the frantic pace of trying to find something new to do will drive me over the edge.

His email is pretty typical of what I'm hearing.

Does anybody like their job?

OK, so I'll go with what I know.

Lately, it has occurred to me that nearly everyone I know hates their current job. A couple dozen people talk with me regularly about what they do for a living, and usually they ain't so happy. My impression of wide-spread dissatisfaction was so strong that I did some unscientific polling and the vast majority of those I asked expressed a strong visceral dislike for their current employment situation.

Now, I use a totally crap phrase like "current employment situation" (worthy of your average Human Resources double-speak bastard) because of variation in the reported sources of animus towards the job. Some liked what they do, but hated where they worked. Some liked where they work--actually, usually with whom they work--but hated what they actually do. And some, particularly the lawyers (who were oversampled in this survey), hated what they did, where they did it and with whom.

Let me hasten to point out that almost every one with whom I spoke holds a comfortable white-collar job, with decent benefits, adequate pay and reasonable hours. (Again, the lawyers are excepted--very long hours, with obscenely high pay and usually good benefits). Many are working in their chosen field, or at least in their chosen sector (education, nonprofit, corporate). They are not, as a whole, very negative folks.  But they all express a strong desire to do something else for a living.

Why is this?

Management seems to play a large role in a lot of cases. Most of the folks who kvetch to me are in their late 20s-early 30s and report working for managers in the 50s who engage in rampant cronyism when it comes to hiring, promotion, bonuses, work assignments, and perks. In several cases, management hires personal friends or former colleagues as high-priced consultants to come in and do things that the staff is perfectly qualified to do (in some cases, exceptionally qualified).

I don't really understand why you would hire bright, motivated, gifted employees and then do nothing with them--no career development, no mentoring, no promotions from within the organization. It is counterintuitive, short-sighted, and leads to bad morale.

And, if my experience as a senior staffer is any indicator, management and senior staff constantly complain about how the junior staff is always turning over, with little reflection about why that might be. My personal feeling is that many, if not most, of the managers in organizations are people with little or no desire to actually lead. They take the rewards of leadership, but little of the responsibilities. This is not a new idea, but we never seem to learn from it.

If you really like your job, comment or email me here.
If you really hate your job, feel free to do the same.

Comments!

OK, I just figured out how to enable comments on this thing.

Now if I just had something to say........

Still waiting.

Just Googled "blogger's block" and was glad to see I'm not alone. Cold comfort.

Blogger's Block.

To have a forum, then to have nothing to say. It's pathetic.

I, who am usually chock-a-block with opinions (some of which are actually informed), am struck dumb. While I believe that it may just be a lingering malaise related to near-complete work dissatisfaction, it has really robbed me of my ability to write. I am two weeks over deadline on a freelance piece, my day-to-day work dribbles out in an unsatifying stream. And this blog? Wheezing towards lift-off.

I am afraid to become just another yammering political gasbag ("Too late!" cries the Peanut Gallery. "F#@k you!" replies our intrepid blogger.) and equally afraid of becoming an introspective self-referential mope-jockey whining about what to write.  

Waiting for the block to break.

Waiting.

You can run, but you can't hide...

Well, I know I'll be sleeping more soundly tonight!  One kooky hate-filled former wunderkind and the world's most powerful interior decorator are facing the slam.  United, of course, they formed the Axis of Pretty, Pretty Chess.
 
The evildoers can no longer force us to live in fear. Finally, we are all free to wear white shoes after labor day, abandon the use of place cards at dinner, and use the Saint George's Defense with abandon!

Lies! Filthy lies!

It is worth noting, that this entire blogging process is fraught with deception and trickery (or at least my entire blogging process is, and will be for the foreseeable future, 'cause I'm crooked like Fox News. You've been warned.).
 
Example? The apparent first entry of this blog was written a couple of years ago, when I first tried The Malcontent out.  I then screwed with the date in the editing process today. Everything got reordered, with new times, new dates, and the like. It's pretty crafty. It conceals the fact that I have been doing nothing on this site for a couple of years ('cause I'm not merely crooked, I'm also lazy). I changed the date back a few months, just so I don't forget I'm slack.

The Malcontent 2.0!

Reborn! Again! 
 
Umm...but not "born again." Definitely not. That's entirely different.
 
OK, after having this blog since October of 2002, and posting to it approximately annually, I am trying, once again, to actually do some blogging. Bear with me--I'm technically incompetent, and highly amotivated by nature. I am, occasionally, funny. I doubt that is enough, but who knows?