Saint Joe to Fresno

This was the closest I’d come.  Nearly there.  For the past two weeks someone was conducting a background check on me for a job where I had interviewed twice and had two tours of the workplace.  E-mails and phone calls had gone back and forth and I was waiting to see if I would return to the world of the employed. 

I’ve had interviews before.  I’ve “toured the facility,” met potential co-workers, taken tests to determine if I can do what I say I can do, and been questioned about everything from how a network switch might improve an aquarium patron’s experience to where do I see myself in five years.  Hate, hate, hate that question.  Now, for the past 14 days, someone was checking my work, education, and criminal history or lack there of.  Hadn’t gotten that far before.  I wasn't worried because there are no lies on my resume.

The job was to be with Disney, and no it didn’t involve walking around an amusement park with a dust pan and broom or putting on a giant cartoon head.  It was a networking job in Fresno but for Disney/ABC Television.  Good pay, benefits, perks (free admission to all parks for my family), and interesting work.  The man who just vacated the job is a friend of mine and not only recommended me on the way out, but admitted that I knew more about the systems there than he did.

Prayers were offered by those I know who feel that works, wishes were made, fingers were crossed, and hope was pulled out from under the couch cushions next to the remote, dusted off, and put in a prominent place over by the TV.

Today ironically, as I was leaving an interview in San Jose for another job, I got the call.  The recruiter at Disney, named Donald if you can believe that, said thanks but no thanks.  They “went with another candidate” but would keep my information on file in case any other opportunities came up.  I’m curious, in the history of well, history has anyone ever been hired because someone kept their information “on file” and just pulled it later when the mythical job popped up? I asked if it was my resume or the background check and he said neither, they just felt the other candidate was better qualified.  Good for him.  Andrea said, “I hope the guy they hired instead of you has really bad breath.”

So no dream job for me.  At least not yet.  Okay, that’s the way it goes right?

Wasn’t meant to be. 

These things happen for a reason. 

When a door closes a window opens.

Good times are just around the corner.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. 

Righty-tighty / lefty-loosy.

You can lead a horse to water but who gives a shit?  Okay, I changed that last one. 

Sure I mind not getting the job but what ate at me on the drive back from Saint Joe to Fresno is that fact that now it is reset time.  Again.  The odometer rolls back to zero.  The stopwatch is clered.  There is no tally of how many jobs I’ve applied for, other than my own, that pops up when some company gets an application from me.  No one cares how many interviews I’ve had.  It’s not like someone is going to say, “Oh, I see you’ve applied for 372 jobs in the past year.  I think it’s time you were given one.”  Every day is a reboot.  Every day I’m starting from scratch.  No one is counting.  As far as the employer world is concerned, I lost my job yesterday and they are the first place I’ve turned.

This is not a battle of attrition.  The castle wall is as unscathed as it was when I laid siege in July of last year, because every day it’s a new castle.  Tomorrow I’ll get up, get the boys ready for school, wave to one as he rides off on his bike and drive the other, then sit down and look for work.  Bring on the trebuchet. 

Locked in Irons

            Have you ever said something stupid?  Ever blurt out some opinion or discombobulated fact that’s been rattling around in your assemblage of knowledge and immediately realized you were about as wrongheaded as you could possibly be?  And have you further attempted to shore up your already completely collapsed position with more bold statements from that same flawed train of thought until you find yourself stuck on a rail of outrageous pronouncements and fuzzy logic, and you can’t get off?  Have you continued to chatter uncontrollably like a parrot on Red Bull until you finally realize all  you really want is a cracker and to have the hood put over your cage?  I know I have.

            A few days ago, wannabe Republican Senator Todd Akin from Missouri said that during a “legitimate rape” a woman’s body “has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  He was suggesting that during rape the biological process recognizes the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex and prevents pregnancy.  This statement from Akin, who is not a medical professional in even the most liberal definition of the term, has caused uproar, as it should, from all corners.  His grasp of science is disconcerting to say the least but it’s his opinion that there is a “legitimate” rape that begs the question, what exactly is illegitimate rape?  Some of the synonyms of legitimate are; normal, accepted, appropriate, correct, customary, and rightful.  Drop any of those words in front of rape, as Mr. Akin dropped legitimate and see how that looks.  Correct rape?  Accepted rape?  Do those sound right?

Mr. Akin’s idea that there are categories of rape is not new.  There are some that have suggested that non-consensual sex between a husband and wife is not rape, but that it’s the wife’s duty to engage in intercourse with her husband regardless of whether she wants to or not.   It’s not as a popular idea as it used to be, but it’s out there.  When asked what he meant by legitimate rape his answer was “forced rape.”  Again a question is begged; is there an acceptable rape as long as it's not forced?  Statutory rape is not "forced," does that make it acceptable?

Rape can be defined very easily.  Here we go; rape is when one party wants to have sex and the other doesn’t so the first party forces them to, either through violence or intimidation, or when a statute makes the sexual act illegal as in when at least one party is under-aged.

With both Democrats and Republicans criticizing Mr. Akin and with some Republicans calling for him to drop out the Senate race he is currently running, he is doing some back-peddling and offering apologies.  But unfortunately he is drawing his rhetoric from the same pool of ideas that got him where he is in the first place. His first apology wasn’t an apology; it was him saying he misspoke.  Apparently the wrong (ignorant and hurtful) words just popped into his mouth spontaneously.  Kind of like a woman’s body knowing she isn’t having consensual sex and shutting down the reproductive process I suppose.  Boy, pseudoscience is a bitch.  His second apology was pretty much a mirror of his first, but his third apology wasn’t an apology at all.  That third one was him fighting from the trench in which he’s put himself.  He said he “…misspoke one word in one sentence on one day…” and is vowing to continue his run for the Senate even though he has no support or money from his party.  But that trench is deep and he has a long and difficult climb out of it.

 There is a term that mariners use in very heavy seas.  It’s called Locked in Irons.  What it means is seas are so high that a ship gets caught in the trough formed by parallel waves and can’t climb out.  The most powerful ship’s cannot really climb uphill for too far.  We're talking really big waves.  These ships become slaves to current, wind, and waves, unable to steer in any direction other the ones that those forces take them.  You’ll probably never see a super tanker or aircraft carrier in this predicament but pretty much every other ship or boat can find themselves there if the weather is bad enough.  (In the book Halsey’s Typoon, it is described how nearly an entire WWII U.S. Navy fleet found themselves in this exact phenomenon.)

So Mr. Akin is locked in the irons of waves created by his blurted comments that likely represent his real feelings about rape, abortion, and where the decision making for women’s health should lie. Now Mike Huckabee, a fellow conservative Republican, and Chick-fil-A spokesman, has sailed his own ship right down there next to him with his recent comment about how some great people can be from raped mothers.  As if to say hey, rape ain’t so bad after all. These two can only look up at the crests of the waves and wait for the storm to end.  That's physics.  Real science is a bigger bitch.

Quote I couldn't fit in the blog:

     Comedian W. Kamau Bell said, "Chick-fil-A missed the perfect opportunity when they didn't simply change the name of their restaurant to Right-Wing."

Dodged a Bullet

            It was about three weeks ago a man shot several dozen and killed one dozen in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.  Yesterday a man dropped a handgun he had brought into a movie theater in Sparks, Nevada where it discharged, injuring him in the seat of his pants.  Between the shooting in Colorado and the accidental shooting in Sparks, I took my two sons to see the movie from the former shooting at the theater of the latter. 

            Soon after the Colorado shooting many gun/second amendment supporters suggested that if there had been armed civilians in the movie theater the night a mad man came in, the death toll would have been smaller, perhaps even restricted to the mad man himself.  Maybe that’s what the Sparks man was thinking when he walked into the theater with a handgun in his pocket.  I suppose the attraction to be a hero who stands up and guns down a possible murderer is pretty powerful.  Imagine the entire country finally seeing a killing was prevented by a man who legally owned and carried his weapon on the national news.

            Unfortunately what happened in Sparks was far more likely because statistically the chance of a gunman bent on murder entering the same theater as a legally armed civilian is very unlikely, but instead it’s statistically more likely an owner’s gun causing harm to himself and those around him.  This man is also very lucky that when his weapon fell out of his pocket the bullet didn’t hit another theater patron.

            Others will argue that more and more civilians should carry guns all the time, bringing the odds of the murderer and the hero being in the same place at the same time, allowing them to be Harry Callahan or Jack Reacher. But personally I don’t want to be in the theater/classroom/church when the gun battle starts, especially if the caliber of the “good guys” doing the shooting is represented by the gentleman who dropped his gun in Sparks yesterday.  (By the way, how likely is it that a dropped handgun discharges?  I’m just asking.)

For two years I wore a M1911 .45 pistol in a holster on my belt while I was a boarding officer in the Coast Guard.  I remember it was nicknamed simply the Forty-five.  (Pictured above)  I qualified on it every year, twice a year.  I also went to a three week law enforcement training in Modesto where we went to the range every day.  I was expected to be able to un-holster it, click off the safety, chamber a round, and hit my target if the situation required it.  During those qualifying days I had all the time I needed to hit a target 25 yards away.  I usually qualified on the lower end of the scale.  Meaning I wasn’t a particularly good shot.  I can’t imagine my aim would improve with someone shooting back at me or others.

What am I saying?  I think while a hero standing up and taking down a man intent on murder looks great in books and movies, in real life it’s far too risky that innocents would be injured or killed.  Let’s not add more guns to daily public life, let’s instead rest safe in the statistically unlikely chance that a gunman will try to kill us as we watch movies, or go to school or church.  At least for now.