Employed!

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overjoyedThis just in: I have a job! I don’t start until next month, but I have received and accepted a written offer of employment. What a load off!

I left my last job in the middle of May. It’s been a difficult few months. Fortunately I have savings, and a supportive partner, so I made it through without living like a pauper. But watching my bank account balance shrink steadily, with no end in sight, was scary. I’d never been unemployed before, really. I have worked more or less steadily since the middle of high school, when I got a part-time job working for a local photography studio doing digital retouching and other fun stuff. I found a work study job shortly after arriving on campus when I went to college, and I got an internship (which turned into my first full time job) my last summer before graduating.

I’ve always been very independent. With scholarships, student loans and work study jobs, I supported myself through college with virtually no financial help from my parents. I do not come from money. In fact, when my parents bought me a new computer to take to school with me (I remember, it was a 166MHz Pentium…ooh!) they borrowed the money from me, and paid me back over a year or two! Computers were not cheap back then. So, it was tough for me to have to rely on anyone else. For a few months I was in the 47%, and I wanted badly to get out of it. I bet Mitt Romney, up in his gilded tower, doesn’t realize how many people just pass through that territory temporarily when they hit a rough spot, or enter it when they retire after a lifetime of hard work.

Looking for a job these days is among the least pleasant things one can do in the developed world. It can be mind-numbing, soul-crushing, and self-esteem-destroying. I couldn’t count the number of times I submitted a resume and heard absolutely nothing back. I even had an in-person interview and was never contacted by the company after. What happened to common courtesy? At least a few employers had the decency to send me a form email thanking me for my submission, but telling me they didn’t have a position for me at this time. Those were the exceptions. The vast majority of the time it was like tossing your resume into a black hole. There were jobs I was sure I could do that I wasn’t even being considered for. After awhile I started to think I’d never find anything, that no one would hire me for something that I wanted to do. I doubted my own worth as an employee and as a person. At times I wanted to give up, but I couldn’t. It was just incredibly frustrating!

In the end, this employer found me, through my profile on LinkedIn. In fact, every real job I’ve had, the employer has contacted me, usually after finding my resume on a job site. Never have I found my own job. Even for my job in high school, I was approached by a teacher who was asked by the employer to recommend someone. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s an interesting factoid.

Well, the search is over and I’ll have a steady paycheck in a few weeks. I can now rest easy for a bit. If I’ve learned one thing from this experience, it’s that unemployment is something I never want to go through again.

Is Your Religious Freedom At Risk?

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I’m a bit late to the game here, as this was posted on 9/05 and I didn’t see it until it was linked to by Truth Wins Out. But it’s very relevant and fits in well with what I’ve been blogging about, so it’s still worth sharing here.

The piece is How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions by Rev. Emily Heath. Go read it!

Done reading? Welcome back. It seems like certain religious folks have as much trouble understanding religious freedom as they do freedom of speech. Perhaps intentionally? Is this piece going to open any minds? I don’t know, but we can hope.

Today is Yom Kippur. To all my Jewish readers: umm…happy atoning?

Fired Up!

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Bill Clinton speaking at DNC 2012Did you watch the Bill Clinton speech at the Democratic Convention last night? If not, you probably should. If you’re a Democrat you must, because it was a great feel-good speech for us. If you’re undecided, you should because he sets the record straight on many of the attacks (largely unjustly) aimed at President Obama by the Republicans at their convention, and you need to know the truth if you’re going to make a decision. And finally, I think even Republicans should watch. First, it’s always good to know what your opponents are up to and second, you also need to know about the lies and twisted facts being thrown at you by your own party elite. Also, it might scare the pants off you…and it should!

One warning though. Apparently the speech was long. I know this because the talking heads on TV told me so when it was done, but frankly I didn’t notice. When Bill Clinton gets fired up–and he was on fire last night–there aren’t many people in the political arena who can deliver a better speech.

Let’s pull off to the side for a minute and talk about something that Republicans are probably talking about. The whole Monica Lewinsky thing. I will never condone or excuse how President Clinton behaved, in terms of the affair or the investigation. It was unbecoming of a husband, a father and especially a president. It will forever be a stain on his otherwise amazing legacy. That being said, I’m over it. He screwed up, got caught and got humiliated. That was a long time ago, and it’s time to move on.

And all that doesn’t change the fact that he’s incredibly smart, charismatic and an excellent speaker. And–in terms of governing–was a darn good president. He knows his stuff, and he spent 8 years in the office himself, so when he talks about Obama’s performance, he has a great deal of credibility. To paraphrase a bit, he said no president, not himself or any other in history, could dig us out from under the mess the Republicans left the country in just four years. And that the message from the GOP convention was basically that Obama hasn’t been quick enough to fix what they broke, so let them back in. Ha! Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But that’s more or less what they’re saying. Well, that and outright lying.

Romney should be worried right about now. He has no “surrogates” (as the media seem to call these people) that can even come close to Bill Clinton. They clearly don’t want to use G.W. Bush, and even if they weren’t keeping him out of sight, Bill would mop the floor with him any day of the week. G.H.W. Bush was a better president than his son, IMHO, but he only had one term and was defeated by…yup!…Bill Clinton. In fact, unless they hire a medium to channel the ghost of Ronald Reagan (they’d reanimate his corpse if they could) there’s no one out there who can compete.

Sure, Republicans seem to have an irrational hatred for both Clintons, so I doubt he’ll be changing the minds of any of the devoted. But they’re not after Republicans, they’re after that small slice of the population who are undecided or persuadable. If enough of them remember the prosperity of the Clinton years, Bill might just be Obama’s BFG 9000. (Bonus points to anyone who gets that reference without clicking the link!)

—–

Transcript:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57507363/transcript-bill-clintons-remarks-at-the-dnc/
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzDhk3BHi6Q

(Image source: The Guardian)

Similarities

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It’s presidential election time! The candidates: One embattled incumbent, much derided by the opposing party, fights for reelection. The other a man with presidential looks, from a privileged background with a large personal fortune mercilessly attacks his opponent’s record in office.

It’s 2004 and those candidates are George W. Bush and John Kerry.

Not what you were expecting? Oh, that could describe this election too, couldn’t it? Huh!

There are a lot of similarities between this election and that of 2004, but even more between the two challengers. In fact, I’ll go as far as to call Mitt Romney a Republican John Kerry. I doubt I’m the first to make this comparison, since it’s pretty obvious. (I could Google it, of course, but I want to make sure what I write here are my own thoughts. If I later see that I duplicated the thoughts of others, it just lends credence to my argument.)

Let’s look at how Mitt and John are alike, shall we?

  • Religious (John Kerry is Roman Catholic)
  • Born to privilege (and seen to be out of touch with the plight of the common man)
  • Law school educated
  • Possess large personal fortunes
  • Considered to have “presidential looks”
  • Known as a flip flopper
  • Perceived by many to not have much personality
  • Supported more out of hate for his opponent than for his own merits

I think the main thing here is the last point. Mitt Romney doesn’t inspire much passion among Republicans, just as Kerry didn’t among Democrats. I remember writing a blog post in 2004 supporting Kerry; my praise was tepid, and boiled down to “Hey, he’s better than the other guy!”. And that seems to be what’s happening now. Most people don’t actually like Romney, or think he’s a great candidate. He’s the guy that made it through the primaries by being the least offensive choice (that’s my theory anyway) and it’s what the GOP is stuck with. They have mostly been pushing Mitt as the not-Obama candidate. And they must have seen the problem (surely they remember 2004 too) and we saw a thrust at the RNC convention last week to “humanize” Mitt Romney. I laugh a bit whenever I hear that. You know you have a problem when you have to make a concerted effort to make your candidate seem like a human! Will it be enough? I don’t know.

Given the strong parallels between 2012 and 2004, I am hoping for similar results, though not by similar means (I can’t condone “swift-boating”, and I hope no Democrats sink that low). I just hope people’s hatred for Obama (without getting into whether or not it’s justified) isn’t enough to drag them out to vote for someone of whom their opinion could best be summarized as “Meh!”

Chicken and Free Speech

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I am pissed off. At whom, you ask? Well I’m about to tell you. I’m pissed off at the mayors of Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. It’s not because they support equal rights for LGBT citizens; obviously, I do as well. It’s because they opened their mouths and finally gave those gay-fearing right winger so-called Christians a legitimate complaint! Saying that Chick-fil-A is unwelcome in their cities and/or should be banned sounds like a clear violation of free speech to me (and to Jon Stewart).

I’ve been telling people about Chick-fil-A’s issues with gays for a long time, well before Dan Cathy opened his mouth and confirmed his bigotry. I won’t patronize them. I never have and likely never will, unless something big changes. It’s not because of the opinion of the founders/owners, it’s because they put their money where their mouth (finally) is. According to Equality Matters, WinShape Foundation–a charity funded mostly by profits from Chick-fil-A–donated “$1.1M to anti-gay groups from 2003-2008, the last year for which public records are available”. There have also been allegations of employment discrimination against unmarried employees or those who engage in “sinful behavior”.

Needless to say, I don’t much like Chick-fil-A, or the Cathy family. However, for an elected official to say that Mr. Cathy’s statements are grounds for banning the restaurant is completely inappropriate. For once, the anti-equality crowd saying their free speech is being infringed upon have a leg to stand on. And I hate that.

Let’s take a moment to talk about what free speech, in the U.S., is and is not. Many people–on the left and the right–get this wrong. What the First Amendment tells us, in essence, is this: the government shall not prevent someone from expressing an opinion or punish someone for expressing an opinion. It does not say you can shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire. It does not say you can knowingly make false negative statements about someone else (see “defamation“) or make false claims about a product or service, or lie under oath. It also does not guarantee freedom from repercussions or criticism based on your speech. It doesn’t apply to non-government entities. This is where most of the confusion seems to come in.

If Bob goes on TV and says “I think widgets are terrible and should not be used for anything!” and then widget lovers criticize Bob, the widget haters may decry that Bob’s free speech is somehow being threatened by the widget lovers. But it’s not. In fact, both sides are exercising free speech, and the system is working as intended. Suppose that Bob works for ACME Widgets, Inc., a company that manufactures widgets (duh) who finds out about Bob’s statement. Bob’s boss pulls him aside and says “Hey, Bob, we can’t have a representative of ACME saying things like that. If you do that again, we’re going to have to let you go.” Now are his free speech rights being violated? Nope. ACME is a company, not the government. Without taking possible employment laws into account (that’s another whole can of worms), ACME could let him go on the spot. From a First Amendment standpoint, they’d be free and clear. If Bob owned…oh, let’s say a restaurant (Bob’s Burgers), and widget lovers called for a boycott of Bob’s, they would also not be violating Bob’s First Amendment rights. I’ll say it again: freedom of speech does not mean freedom from repercussions. Such regulation would be ridiculous, not to mention impossible to enforce. What if the mayor of Bob’s town (or the governor of his state) was pro-widget and tried to get Bob’s Burgers shut down because of his statements? Now we have a First Amendment issue! Not until the government gets involved does it become a threat to free speech.

And that’s what happened, in a limited but real way, with Chick-fil-A. Those mayors would have been free to express their own opinions, that Cathy was wrong and marriage equality is important. But to try to impose legal restrictions against the chain is going too far. Note that the thousands of private citizens criticizing Mr. Cathy and Chick-fil-A are not in any way violating anyone’s free speech rights; they are in fact, merely exercising their own.

Now the people who “flocked” (in the words of the New York Post) on their so-called “Appreciation Day” are being called “free speech supporters” by the Post and the HBIC (Head Bigot In Charge) of the movement, Mike Huckabee. And I’d love to believe that’s what they are. I’d love to believe those people are just–like me–pissed at the Mayors Three who overstepped their bounds. But come on, I’m not an idiot. Even if we assume most of those people don’t really understand free speech (and I’m pretty sure Huckabee at least does, he’s actually a pretty smart guy) I just know that many of them went because they heard “Gays shouldn’t be getting married!” and thought “AMEN!” And that makes me sad. But as Jon Stewart said, we’re going to win in the end. It’s inevitable that we will eventually get gay marriage, and they will “get Type II diabetes”.

I have more to say on this topic, but I’ll save it for another post another day in the near future. In the meantime, happy Friday and enjoy your weekend.

Dateline: Chicago

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So here I am, back in Chicago for the first time in 6 weeks. It feels like I’ve been gone longer. But time moves more slowly when you don’t have a job or friends or any real demands on your it. Or a DVR. Good gods, do I miss my DVR! But I digress. This was the longest I’ve been away from Chicago since my second year living here in 1990-something. It’s strange! But landing at Midway felt like coming home. It’s going to take a long time for that feeling to go away, if it ever does.

I have felt like it was time to move on for here for a few years now. But that doesn’t mean I won’t always love Chicago, faults and all, or miss it. While I do miss the city itself (it has a certain charm that I didn’t notice until I left and came back) I miss my friends much more. It’s much easier to adapt to a new environment than it is to meet new people. I’ve never been that good at making friends; I’m shy around new people and I’m not all that good at small talk. But I will do my best.

In a few days I’ll be back out east again, trying to win friends and influence people (to hire me). But while I’m here I’ll see whom I can and take in the sights and sounds I used to take for granted.
Cheers, Chicago!

Moved I

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So it finally happened! The move, that is. We arrived early yesterday evening in our new home. Well, our temporary new home, anyway. We’re scheduled to be here until mid July, at which point we move from corporate housing into our real apartment.

It was an interesting experience getting out here. Originally the packers and craters were going to come Tuesday and they were going to move everything out Wednesday, after which we’d start driving east. Well it turns out they decided to pack and move in the same day. I was amazed what just two guys were able to accomplish! We ended up keeping the two cats in the mostly empty apartment Tuesday night and staying in a hotel in Chicago ourselves. Wednesday we had a lot of errands to take care of before we hit the road, and we seemed to encounter one delay after the next. We finally got on the road around 4:00pm, and hit a bit of traffic getting out of Chicago. The rest of the drive went pretty well, and we stopped in Cuyahoga Falls (near Akron), Ohio for the night. By the way, driving through northern Indiana and Ohio is SUPER boring.

The next morning we got a slightly later start than intended, since I botched setting the alarm, but it worked out Ok. After breakfast and gassing up, we were off by around 11am. We had a bit more driving in Ohio then entered the vast expanse of Pennsylvania. Let me tell you, PA is way more scenic than the territory we covered in the previous day’s drive. Lots of hills, verdant forests, rivers and bridges. We eventually got to NJ and hit a bit of traffic at the end of the drive, which was the worst part of the trip (other than perhaps a ton of work zones). But in the end we made it early Thursday evening.

So I mentioned the two cats… Well driving with two cats is not as super fun as you might think. The vet recommended against sedating them, but said we could try something called Rescue Remedy. So we dosed them for the first time Tuesday before the movers arrived. It seemed to help them relax and they didn’t squawk too much about being locked in their crates for a couple hours. We gave them more Wednesday before setting out, but with the previously-mentioned delays it was awhile before we actually set out. They were quiet most of the way, but the older one started meowing constantly and the other got a bit feisty in the last hour and a half. On Thursday we dosed them shortly before setting out, but I think the older cat must have built up a tolerance. She meowed nearly constantly for the first three hours (of a roughly 8 hour drive)! I was starting to consider jumping out of the moving car. She eventually fell asleep, but had a couple more outbursts. The younger one barely made a peep and slept most of the way, which is good because he’s much louder.

Would I do this again? Well let’s say I’d strongly consider any and all altenatives!

More Moving

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Moving boxesIt’s been quite some time since I posted my initial announcement about moving, so it’s probably time for an update.

The move is still happening. In fact, it’s already started. I moved out of my place at the end of April, and now live with the bf in his apartment, which is currently way too full of stuff. The real move is scheduled for May 30-31. We’re planning to drive, with the two little bundles of joy (the cats) and should arrive hopefully June 1. Exciting, eh?

I have only a few days left of work. This will be my first time being unemployed since I started college. It’s more than a little scary! I have done a little work on looking for jobs, but not a lot and I’ve had no success so far. I’m concentrating on networking, since I think that will be more likely to get me a job than just sending in my resume to jobs I find online. In my previous attempts at job hunting, I found that you almost never hear anything from that approach, which is very frustrating. I know that the people doing hiring don’t really have this kind of time, but wouldn’t it be great if you got feedback on why they weren’t interested in you? “You don’t have enough experience.” — “We’re looking for someone who has done XYZ.” — “Your resume is a hot mess and we think you have the writing skills of a turnip.” Good to know!

I’ll be sad to leave Chicago. I wasn’t born here but I’m close to having lived half my life here, and it will always have a special place in my heart. Of course, there’s a very good chance we’ll be back here in 2-3 years, but that’s not guaranteed. Who knows what the future holds. Of course, more than the city itself, I’m going to miss the people. Not all of the people, just the ones I like. My dear friends! I’ve met so many great people here!

Where are we going to live? Well… that’s not been decided yet but (=sigh=) it’s looking like it’s going to be in New… Jersey. It’s a bummer not to be living in NYC itself, but it’s just soooo expensive. We decided that–at least to start–we’d be better off with a place with a decent amount of space to ease the transition to this whole living-together-thing. And we simply can’t afford a place with that kind of space in the parts of NYC we’d want to live in. But I am sure I’ll get a job making big bucks any day now, so then we’ll see. (Heh, a boy can dream, can’t he?)

This is definitely a new chapter in my life. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I know nothing will ever be the same again. Wish me luck!