Six Blade Knife / Two Edge Sword

"Took a stone from my soul when I was lame."

Dire Straits, Six Blade Knife

Back in the very early eighties I had a cassette of Dire Straits 1978 debut album; Dire Straits. It’s the one with Sultans of Swing on it. I played that cassette in my Walkman until it wore out, then I bought another and sent it, via that same Walkman plus a cassette player in my truck, to the same fate. When I moved to a place where I had a turn table, I bought the LP. These days, when I clean the kitchen or fold laundry and I need to create a playlist on Spotify or build a station on Slacker or Pandora I often start with the song Six Blade Knife from that album to set the tone.

I was the only one of my circle of friends back then who listened to them, and I felt very protective of “my band.” But when their album Brothers in Arms came out in 1985, and with it the astronomically popular single Money for Nothing, it seemed everyone bought that album, cassette, or newfangled compact disc. In fact, Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums recorded digitally when most other bands were still recording in analog. Suddenly everyone was a Dire Straits fan. I tried to explain how I’d been listening to them for years and how these newcomers hadn’t “earned” the right to enjoy what a guitarist friend of mine once described as the, “blues guitar on ludes” craftsmanship of lead guitarist Mark Knopfler.

I have since abandoned my crusade to enlighten others as to my superior appreciation of the band. Because of the popularity of Brothers in Arms, Mr. Knopfler and the rest of Dire Straits have amassed enough wealth to free themselves up to produce whatever kind of music they want, without the worry of whether it is “marketable” or not, which should be the way all artists create, but more often than not, it is not. Other people’s appreciation, celebration, or elucidation of the band doesn’t change my enjoyment of them one whit, and with that freedom afforded to those musicians comes superior music/art. It’s win, win.

This time of year certain TV pundits or even politicians are ranting about what they describe as the War on Christmas. They are upset about retailers using phrases like Happy Holidays in their commercials, banners, flyers, and other marketing material instead of Merry Christmas. They are offended when governors from the other end of the political spectrum speak of “tree-lighting” ceremonies without the word Christmas preceding it. They suggest that there is a conspiracy to rid the holiday season of all Christian tradition and references, and to eventually turn the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years, and our fair nation into a secular paradise.

Businesses use Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas to maximize the reach of their advertising dollar. Tree-lighting ceremonies are worded in that manner as a way of inclusion; of inviting all members of the community to participate. There are people who would love to see this country as completely secular, but they are not the people who make the decisions about TV commercials for an oak furniture store’s “Holiday Sales” or who write copy for tree-lighting ceremonies at state capitols.

No one is preventing those who see the birth of Jesus as the “reason for the season” from celebrating in that exact fashion. But are those folks trying to prevent those who don’t subscribe to the celebration of a saviors birth during December but instead just give presents, hold dinner parties, and put up lights from celebrating in that manner? Is that a two-edged sword?

There is also the idea that some people who attend church, service, or mass every Sunday complain about the people called CEOs (Christmas and Easter Only) showing up and crowding their parking lots and pews a couple of times a year. Perhaps they don’t feel these CEOs have “earned” the right to the choice seats at what they see as the most important services of the year, just like I didn’t think newcomers to Dire Straits earned the right to be a fan back in ’85.

I can’t see the harm in allowing some people to only attend church twice a year. For those two days are not the collection plates fuller, is not the message reaching more ears? Can that be anything but a good thing in the steady church-goer’s eyes?

My Precious

About a week and a half ago, someone paid 2.16 million dollars for a comic book. It wasn’t as if this comic book was gold plated, held the cure for baldness, and rested on a bed of Kardashians; instead it was a simple, newspaper quality, first issue of Action Comics from 1938, originally selling for a dime. It boasted within, the first appearance of Superman. If you want to, you can read it here. For free.

The buyer has chosen to remain anonymous, but I don’t care to know the identity of the buyer anyway; I would just like to know where he lives.

I’d like to know where he lives because there must be no homeless in his town making him obviously unaware that homeless people exist and that ignorance has freed him up to spend millions on something that can’t feed him, house him, or warm him at night. His village must also have no food banks or full food banks, all the children in his cozy hamlet have got to all have warm coats and sturdy shoes, every library is certainly stocked to the ceiling with books, and music and art programs must be bulging with funds at every school. The local university is surely turning away offers of scholarships in this man’s burg, and women’s shelters, mental health institutions, and playgrounds are all modern, clean, and empty. Unemployment in this Bedford Falls of the 21^st Century must be at absolute zero because this man chose to “invest” his many millions in a risky venture that if it profits at all, it will only profit him.

What a wonderful municipality this must be. Why, everything must be so perfect there to allow such Caligula-esque spending, it’s as if Superman was real and he has come down from Heaven and made the world right. Please, please, please tell me not who he is, but where he is. It’s certainly not Los Angeles or San Francisco because I’ve been to both and neither meet the criteria of the previous paragraph, it can’t be New York or Chicago, and Atlanta (traffic) and New Orleans (hurricane devastation) are obviously out. Could it be San Antonio, Texas? I hear that river walk is pretty nice. What about Utopia, Texas, it has the right name? Maybe it’s Louisville, CO; voted 2011’s Most Livable City. Perhaps it’s right in my neck of the country like Tulare, Visalia, or Bakersfield.

I have to know where a man can feel good at spending what amounts to a good yearly salary of 50 families for…well for nothing really.

What's the Catch

Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

-Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Here’s a new one for you. We all know that employers, in their job postings, will put qualifications like specific experience, specific education, sometimes “experience in lieu of education,” and catch phrases like, “team player, go-getter,” and “motivated individual.” Now the newest must-have qualification showing up on job postings is, “currently employed.” Companies, fearing that a worker’s skills will deteriorate while off the job, only want people who are working to apply for the jobs they post. With the unemployment rate in California at 11.7 percent as of October, that means that these employers are discriminating against over 2 million people. The 2011 job hunting Catch-22; if you want a job you have to have a job.

And what does that say about the applicants? That while employed, they are browsing Monster.com for another job? What’s to stop them from doing the same thing after they get hired by Mr. Must-Be-Working-To-Work-Here? And at the next place, and the next place, and so on?

In New Jersey it is illegal to post a job ad that requires applicants be currently employed. There are movements in other states to make it illegal there too. In California, Assemblyman Michael Allen, a Democrat from Santa Rosa is so upset he is going to introduce legislation that parrots the New Jersey law; but not until January when the legislature comes back from Christmas break. (Meanwhile, the Christmas break of the unemployed will be considerably longer.)

Until then, people who are unemployed cannot apply for some jobs, but if they are employed then they can apply for those jobs, but they wouldn’t need to apply for jobs because they have jobs, but since they have jobs they can apply for those jobs. Can you hear Yossarian whistling?

I suppose Mr. Allen is sincere in his attempt to protect the unemployed job seeker, but as far as I’m concerned, he needn’t bother. If it becomes against the law to “post” the requirement that an applicant be employed, the employers will just leave that out of their postings. Then behind the closed doors of their HR departments, they would still be free to make their hiring decisions in any manner that they fancy. Not working, not considered. Is that different than round-filing a person’s application because of race, sex, age, or religious belief?

I haven’t configured a router, switch, or server in five months but if you sit me down in front of one today I’d still be able to do it. In a year? Probably. In five years? Who knows? Who knows how to know? Is there some kind of algorithm out there that you can plug in the months out of work and get a chart that tracks the degradation of skills? Probably. Is it accurate? It doesn’t have to be. HR managers just have to believe it is. Maybe I should write a program that does that. If I put some bright colors in the graphs, most managers and vice presidents I've met would just about pee their pants to look at them.

I’d laugh but people might think I was as crazy as a B-25 pilot who wants to continue to fly missions.