Monthly Archives: August 2018

Job search update, 05/05/14

Job search/Job prospects, Motivations, Thursday posts

Positions applied to in April 2014:

Administrative Secretary – Johns Hopkins University – Req. No. 60760
Secretary II – Salvation Army – Pos. No. 179010
Administrative Secretary – Johns Hopkins University Welch Center – Req. No. 60914
Casual dining busperson – Horseshoe Casino
Countroom representative – Horseshoe Casino
Kitchen worker – Horseshoe Casino
Steakhouse busperson – Horseshoe Casino
Steward – Horseshoe Casino
Valet cashier – Horseshoe Casino
Administrative Assistant – Service Corporation International

Tuesday, 04/29/14. Disliking the fact that I’m dependent is the exact opposite of wanting to become independent. By virtue of attention as gravity, the former is actually likely to keep me dependent. It also just plain feels bad, and diverts the energies I need to do the latter. Being happy, in contrast, will make life easier for me and the men around me.

Monday night in the line going up from the basement to supper, we passed the laundry room, and this guy working there called hi to me, and then said, “He’s always happy.” On the one hand, if he only knew. On the other hand, if that’s indeed how I come off to people, that’s a blessing.

To everyone.

(Originally posted 05/05/14.)

Prayer for the dead

Justice, , , , , , , , , ,

When one comes across a story like that of Kendrea Johnson[1], Victoria Martens[2] or Brian Williard[3], one may be moved by a desire to somehow help the deceased, and question what one can do, since the person is, after all, dead.

In the previous post, I said of Kendrea, “You just want to take her in your arms, hug her, and make all the darkness go away.”  Actually, you can — if, at that moment, she is willing to be embraced.  Your intuition will tell you her status in that regard at any given moment; or, may direct you at wholly unexpected times that, at this moment, that is so.  See “Following guidance.”

There is a Jewish expression, “z’l,” meaning “Zikhrono livrakha,” “May his memory be for a blessing.”  The corresponding form for a woman is “Zikhronah livrakha,” “May her memory be for a blessing.”  A corresponding Gentile expression is “O.B.M.,” “of blessed memory.”  Every time one uses such an expression, one honors the person who has passed on, and this is not without its effect beyond the veil.

[1]Related: Give up the word “deserve.”
[2]Related: Forgiving the cosmos
[3]Related: Grief and sublimation
 

The human being’s infinite capacity for evil

Clippings, National news, OUR BEST POSTS, Thursday posts, World News, , , , , , , ,

(Originally posted 02/23/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.  Reblogged 04/30/14.)

Colo. teen heard on 911 call saying he killed girl

Jessica Lynn Howell

‘Why is it dark?’ asks blinded Chinese boy

Man Accused In Rape Of Toddler Breaks Down Door To Get To Victim: Police

Arthur Morgan, III
Man gets life for tossing daughter, 2, into creek
Lawyer: NJ dad doesn’t deny tossing toddler in creek

‘I hate this life’ – Slain girl’s journals focus of grandmother’s murder trial

A theory of campus turmoil

National news, , , , , , ,

Jack is a short, skinny, old white man with short, wiry gray hair and a short, wiry gray beard.  He uses a walker.  He’s been with us about three weeks.

Every day, he gets more irritable, more combative and more obscene.

Q.  What’s up with this?
A.  It’s so nice here, he can’t stand it.

Related:  Learning curve

Been there, done that.  I had a temp assignment at yet another major, prestigious law firm.  The atmosphere here was unlike that at any other law firm where I’d worked.  No cursing.  No stress.  On this one lawyer’s birthday, his secretary baked him a big cake, that he shared with staff, including people he didn’t even know.  Some unknown person paid my way to the offsite office Christmas party.

I didn’t know how to act.  I began to act like it.  They kept me on for six months, but I’m not welcome back.

Some months ago, riding a bus northbound on York Road, I gazed out the window wistfully as we passed Towson State University.  That campus: the vast, manicured lawns; neatly trimmed shrubbery; stately buildings; utter tranquility.  Young people of one background can be utterly happy there.  Young people of a different background might can’t.

It’s a question of how much malice pervades the world in which one grew up.

The reality is that some grow up in a world where one must be eternally vigilant for one’s own personal safety.  Where walking down the street, one may meet intense hostility at any time, and must be ready to answer that with hostility of one’s own in order to survive.  Where “watch your back” isn’t a metaphor: one turns one’s head slightly with every step, right and left, so that with every step one’s peripheral vision takes in 360° — lest some predator be stalking who means you bodily harm.

For such a person to be thrust into a world where none of that is necessary, can be unsettling.

Perhaps the pent-up hostility, previously essential to survive, may begin to come out.  Certainly the former real threats and danger can be succeeded by new, imagined ones.  One persists in feeling that the whole environment is hostile.

And one may want to respond in kind.

I have no solutions.  It may only help, to understand where some of these folk come from.

1) Do for yourself …

OUR BEST POSTS, Poverty, , ,
<– Home 2) Give up the word “deserve.” –>

… exactly what the poor need to do for themselves.

On the one hand, I will shortly dispel the notion that wealth means you don’t have the same needs.

On the other hand, unless you do these things for yourself, you’ll never understand what they need to do for themselves — the what, the how, the challenges, the work.  Absent that, there’s no way you can possibly make yourself useful or helpful to them.

Continue reading 1) Do for yourself … →

2) Give up the word “deserve.”

Justice, , , , , , , , , , , ,
<– 1) Do for yourself… Home 3) Get your hands dirty. –>

John C. Dorhauer’s “An Open Letter to White Men in America” begins:

Dear White Men,

You are persons of privilege.

You didn’t earn it.

This distresses me far less today than it did when I first read it.  Maybe I’ve become more comfortable with having things I don’t deserve.  More likely, I’ve lost all interest in whether people have things they don’t deserve or deserve things they don’t have.

I encourage you to lose all interest in it, too.

Continue reading 2) Give up the word “deserve.” →

4) Invest your own money.

Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, , ,
<– 3) Get your hands dirty. Home 5) Pray for the public schools. –>

Mitt Romney does.

Again, don’t use the state as a proxy.  On the one hand, the taxpayers have no need to bankroll your personal altruism.  On another hand, the “underclass” are, by definition, folk The System cannot reach; no state action has any real effect on their lives.

Three sectors come to mind: employment; homeless shelters; and low-income housing.

Continue reading 4) Invest your own money. →