Who Among Us?

Who among us hasn’t ordered-up a massage from an escort service, or fudged a few dates and accomplishments on their resume?

The most interesting news this week has been about resignations of high level bureacrats for relatively low-level crimes. We are not talking about officials taking bribes or giving away state secrets – we are talking about two things everyone[1] does: getting naked with strange women and lying on one’s resume.

Credible Lies
The dean of admissions at MIT resigned a few days ago. She admitted that she had lied on her resume 24 years ago to get the original job at the university.

Now, most of us have fudged a detail or two, but this gal invented two or three degrees. after dropping-out after only a few semesters in school! This is real creativity…. and balls.

I think if someone can get away with a lie about credentials, then there is no foul. Who got hurt? The poor overeducated candidate who didn’t get the job? At the stage where the interview is with the hiring manager, qualifications don’t count. The fictitious degrees got the MIT gal in the game, but she scored the points herself. The losers didn’t get the job because the hiring manager didn’t like them as much. Period.

It makes you wonder how many people, if forced to take truth serum, might admit to a fabrication of the truth that got them started on the road to success. The pompous among us will say that “Integrity is important.” But that is just horse shit: the fact that some “unqualified” people can actually excel at a job they were not “qualified” for, shows us that the vetting system is flawed. People who can demonstrate those flaws should be revered, not castigated.

I say that lies are important social lubrication. They often make interactions go smoother. Imagine a world where the absolute truth reigns:

How do I look: “Actually, you look a bit haggard.”
Nice to meet you: “Really? I was a little bored.”
Here’s that report you asked for, Boss: “Bend over the desk again and let me gaze at your lovely breasts.”
Have a nice day: “I’m late because of traffic, the kids are all sick with the flu, my wife is tired of my shit, I have nagging rectal itch, the boss thinks I am a procrastinator, I have a hangover, none of my friends will talk to me, and I just discovered a lump on my left testicle. Have a nice day? [expletive deleted] you!”


DC Call Girl Ring Investigation.
The head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly resigned Friday after he was “outed” by the D.C. Madam during an investigation into an alleged high-priced call-girl ring.

I admit that I was one of those who was willing to forgive Bill Clinton’s on-the-job dalliances ( I consider in-office bj’s from zealous interns as just one of the perks that goes with the title of “The most powerful man in the world”).

Abrogation of trust is one thing, fibbing about one’s sex life – even under oath – is somehow on a different plane.

Heck, I am willing to give a “pass” to anyone who can get their work done, and still feels in the mood for hot naked sex. Unless it can be found that he gave away state secrets or was using the power of his office in a corrupt manner, how were American citizens hurt by this factotum’s “massages”? Perhaps it is seen by some to be an embarrassment to the administration - I don’t think so.

It will be interesting to watch the reaction of people who (like me) were eager to exempt Bill Clinton from the lied-under-oath accusation. I hope I don’t see them hurling self-righteous stones at the other guys’ glass house.

But seriously, maybe this guy’s abrupt resignation - should be the model for all public figures who find themselves caught “with their pants down.” At least this saves us the hassle and psychic energy of the usual he-said, she-said disinformation cycle.

The real criminal – who should be burned at the stake - is the Madam who is snitching on her clients to stay out of jail. That is truly an unforgivable abrogation of trust.
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[1] Well, almost everyone. Those of us who haven’t done it in real life have probably "sinned in our hearts".

Bad News

The airwaves are always filled with news of tragedy and death. Lately, though, it seems that the news is more awful that we can bear. All week it has been the VPI shootings and the video clips of the shooter, tearful biographies of the victims, recaps of other mass killings, and on and on.

Most of us (who have time to listen during the day) were probably releived to hear the radio talk shows changing the subject, to replay celebrity asshole Alec Baldwin's child abusing rant to his 11 (or is it 12?)- year-old daughter who did not take his scheduled call. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon to condemn Baldwin's obviously poor parenting skills. A judge even issued a restraining order based on the content of the phone message.

The fact that a private phone message was leaked for the world to hear - and ridicule - is not nearly as amusing as it seems at first. The backstory is tragic and disheartening. A story of beautiful people who are rich and stupid. People who willingly create fodder for the papparazzi press and who squander the public good will by selfish and nasty acts.

I tried switching to BBC news which does not sensationalize the headlines. World war three would be reported dryly and in depth, then the news would turn to a dispute about the space width between painted lines in a Kensington car park with equal drama and thoroughness.

Even better, I've also been switching to the AM station that used to host Al Franken's Air America network. (Despite the constant assertions by political conservatives that the media is dominated by leftist commies, it was the only liberal talk station in the Boston area.

For some reason, people who listen to talk radio would rather listen to fascist neocons than to treehugging global warming alarmists. Personally, I think anyone who isn't suspicious of both parties, and who finds themselves polarized to the point where they are convinced that the (uninformed) other side is ruining the country, is totally full of shit. Air America was deeply flawed; it passed up the opportunity to argue a rational case in favor of progressive ideas, and instead devoted itself to mocking the players on the other (conservative) side. There was plenty of material, to be sure, but good, fresh and funny is hard to do, day in and day out. Stale humor is worse than watching weather forecasts for Nebraska.

Anyhow the Al Franken network is defunct - at least in Boston. Now that station plays Latino music most of the day, and the ads and news are mostly in Spanish, so I cannot understand anything they say.

Come to think of it, listening to salsa music and incomprehensible spoken word is a huge improvement over hearing the constant namecalling and snide innuendo of political talk radio.

More Evidence

Today it is a balmy 70 degrees. The sun is bright and the sky is fair weather blue. I feel the need to get out into the garden and start raking, but recent events compel me to take notice of further evidence of the benefits of procrastination.

Napoleon (1) used to say, "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good." And the big Nor'easter storm that blew into New England last Monday, dumped half a foot of rain in some places, knocked down power lines, and created a storm surge that remanded 3 Nantucket beachfront homes to Davy Jones' locker. It was the same storm that had wended its way across America from the western plains, through Illinois, and into the Atlantic belt. Untold thousands were stranded in airports around the country. Thousands more had to leave their threatened homes and places of work. All in all, maybe a million people would say that the storm caused them to not have a nice day.

So, you are asking, where is the good news? Well, for those people who did not get their taxes done last Tuesday, the Mass Dept of Revenue and the IRS announced an extension for taxpayers who were affected by the storm. The extension was noted to be specifically for those who lost power or suffered a loss which would have legitimately prevented them from filing their returns at the last moment.

In typical bureaucratic toothlessness, Revenue officials stated that they would not require any proof of hardship from those claiming the extension. Thus, virtually anyone who did not get their taxes done by the deadline had a free no-fault bonus of 3-5 days. This regardless of the fact that they may have been toast warm, dry and fully powered.

It just showed that those of us Last-minute-tax-filers who complied with the rules (I took my returns to the Post office just after lunch on Tuesday - in the drenching rain!) missed an opportunity to put it off for up to another 5 days. As Napoleon often said, "The worst waste of time is to needlessly comply with a meaningless deadline."

(1) Fritz Napoleon - A homeless man who begs for spare change on a corner near the cafe where I often go for bagels and coffee. He was a former contestant on a TV reality show called "Trading hos, " which featured pimps from different 'hoods and the often hilarious entanglements when a righteous Dude is thrust into different locale and finds himself representing an unfamiliar stable of working ladies. The show was cancelled after the first week and replaced by the mesmerizing Anna Nicole Smith documentary.

April Showers

It has been unseasonably cold, wet and nasty for at least two weeks here in the western suburbs of Boston. My “daily” walks have been curtailed, and the yard/garden has been too wet for any of the normal springtime activities. My wife has remarked that my mood seems darker and my normal jovial personality has been drifting into negative territory.

The news has not been helpful. Last week, all anyone talked about was Imus’ botched joke getting him fired. This week, we have been besieged by 24 hour coverage of the terrible mass killings on the Virginia Tech campus.

For many years, we listened to the Imus-in-the-Morning program and enjoyed its irreverent over-the-edge humor, interesting guests and focus on the issues of the day. During the past year or so, we had been turning the program off, or switching to muzac instead of enduring the unfunny skits and lame attempts to be outrageous. Worse, Imus frequently devoted unseemly amounts of airtime (and the commercial breaks seemed like at least half of every hour of the show) to personal promotions of his ranch, his kid, his wife, his brother, his charities – all tedious and unfunny. His annoying and cynical use of this pulpit drove me to turn him off on a regular basis.

I will say that he often had good guests, and I would commonly switch to his station at least once during any given morning, hoping to hear an interview with someone who knew what was going on in the world. The format allowed the guest to have enough time to present information more completely than the typical sound-bite headline news or the smarmy morning TV shows. (For example, Joe Biden explained that the reason he chose to announce his candidacy for President on Imus’ show was that NBC would only give him 5 minutes and Imus gave him twenty. )

Imus greatest crime was not being funny. He got what he deserved, but not for the right reasons. The activities of the infamous Al (Tawana Brawley) Sharpton – a conked-out race whore – make him the least qualified to stand in judgment of anyone. He and his fellow partner in racism Jesse (hymietown) Jackson immediately make me want to side with anyone or any organization that they are against.

This week , the non-Imus news has been truly horrible. The unending coverage of the massacre at VPI has been unwatchable. The horror of another crazy guy with a gun running around shooting people at random is another one of the scary things we have to worry about these days. Add it to the list of Terrorist attacks, Tornadoes, Traffic accidents, Bird Flu, and a hundred other ways that “fate” can suddenly take away everything – not because you deserved it, but just because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It got me to thinking about my working days. Over the course of a long career we all bump into people who seemed, shall we say, “tightly wound”? It’s not PC to call people crazy – but they are/were definitely among us. People who you expected to lose it one day and come in to avenge the pain and suffering of their lives by murdering the nearest authority figure: The boss.

I have a draft version of a short story – based on true events – It began when a troubled hi tech office-mate told me about his plan to shoot our boss in reaction to the colleague’s recent demotion and humiliation. He told me in great detail how he was planning to wait in woods next to the parking lot, and when the boss arrived in his gray BMW, fix him in his scope and…bang. As he told me his plans, his voice was steady and evil and his eyes were unblinking, like a snake. I judged him to be insane, and serious. This created a dilemma for me which was both moral and practical. Should I report him? What if he decided I knew too much about his plans? I feared that he would kill the boss, then me -- not necessarily in that order. If you want to know how it ends, you will just have to wait until I finish writing the story.

I never personally considered killing the boss – but come to think of it, if I had killed that sonofabitch CFO who had me fired back in 1987 - I’d be getting out of prison about now. I don’t hold grudges. But, I will admit that I smiled a few years ago, when I heard that he had testicular cancer.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I have forgiven everyone and everything. Over and over is has been proven that life events that seemed like overwhelming crises at the time resolved themselves. Most of the time, we move on to better things.

Hey, the sun just came out. Time for a walk.

About Time (part 3)

I am working on an essay titled “Oops I Didn't do it, Again - (The Arguement in Favor of Procrastination).” In the essay I take hard issue with our overplanned and goal oriented society. The essay examines the deleterious effects of the crazy-busy lives of people – especially those who are working at a career and raising families –who never have time to “Stop and smell the roses”.


When finished the essay examines the positive side of procrastination, which is seen ( mainly by some anal retentive souls) as a chronic illness that some people may inherit. For example, successful procrastinators may put things off until the last minute but they tend to work exceedingly well under the pressure of an imminent deadline. (This is why I can start working on my tax returns on April 14 and finish under the deadline.

I have no scientific evidence that procrastination is inherited, but I believe it to be so after years of observing my siblings and myself. We are inveterate and practiced procrastinators. Yet, somehow, stuff gets done. Dinners get cooked, trips get planned, appointments are kept, lunches are scheduled, deadlines are met - most of the time.

Procrastination may be a personal attribute that drives other people crazy. But you organized people need to recognize that overplanning/overscheduling drives procrastinators crazy too. I think one of the traits that procrastinators have in common is the ability to discern real deadlines (eg April 15th last date for filing last years Income tax return)from fictitious deadlines (The boss wants your status report no later than noon on Friday - as if nothing was going to get done on Friday after lunch....)

One thing about procrastinators is that they seem to enjoy spur of the moment experiences, welcome surprise and are calm in the face of impending crises that send lesser souls into a state of virtual diarrhea.

I have a few paragraphs of the essay completed, but I doubt that I’ll get to finishing it in the foreseeable future. Lots of other stuff to do that seems more interesting right now.