Not Knowing Exactly What to Say

Posted on June 10, 2020June 10, 2020 by ilookmarvlus

What do you say when?

Let me state this. I believe that there are evil persons in our police force, military, society and government. People who serve for a purpose that is not altruistic.

Over the decades these persons have learned, adapted and manipulated systems that have permitted them to inflict their evil on others.

I am appalled by callous and public murder of George Floyd. He was murdered no less than if he was lynched in the dead of night. I am also certain he is not an exception, but the most recent example of systemic racism that exists in many of our public, civil and private institutions.

I don’t believe George Floyd grew up to be a good man, nor do I believe certain others like Michael Brown was a good man. But the manner of their deaths is not justifiable. They were delivered by comparably evil men in blue uniforms.

Face facts. Not all people of color are evil and not all men in blue are pure.

The only distasteful issue associated with this most recent death aren’t the protests; it’s the fact that “murder while blue” wasn’t resolved when innocents, like Breona and Jordan were killed.

Breonna Taylor

March 13, 2020

Jordan Edwards

April 29, 2017

Repair the Second Amendment (and use the NRA to do so!)

Posted on January 17, 2013June 10, 2020 by ilookmarvlus

I learned today that the NRA has a letter writing campaign and tool that everyone can use to write their representatives regarding the proposed new regulations for gun ownership.

I was amused to find that their very easy and convenient tool can be used to write and submit your own specific viewpoint, and in the process send it back to those addle brained neo-nihilists at the same time. Talk about your social media tools!

Anyway here’s a little look at the confirmation email I received from the NRA that they forwarded to my representatives this just this morning…

Tom Woodward

Date: Thursday, January 17, 2013 7:23 AM

From: “National Rifle Association”

To: “National Rifle Association”

Subject: Regarding the ownership of firearms.

Thank you for using National Rifle Association Mail System.

Message sent to the following recipients:

Senator Scheffel
Representative Murray Message text follows:

January 17, 2013

I am a veteran of the US Navy and the US Army and a resident of Colorado. I own a pistol and originally joined the NRA as a young man way back in 1964. I have not been a member of that organization for many decades.

It is my firm conviction that the recommendations made by our national executives are reasonable and should be supported by my elected representatives.

Notwithstanding the fact that I have a child in a local elementary school and I’ve had been threatened with a semi-automatic firearm for no reason other than the self-indulgent joy it gave my unknown assailant, I am amazed that we’ve not only allowed extremist special interests to castrate many of the laws, regulations and organizations that were enacted to manage weapons, but also our public representatives.

I assure you that if you “toe their line” and do not enact reasonable, rational and more restrictive ownership requirements it will be my great pleasure to contribute my time, treasure and will to see that more appropriate representation is secured as soon as possible.

The second amendment is a flawed and derivative right. It is no more appropriate today then the rights recognized in 1791 that restricted voting and permitted the ownership of slaves. This is not a GOD given right. It may have had political and philosophical merit 220 years ago, but it needs to be addressed to reflect modern needs, concerns and risks.

I am sick of the political rhetoric, the circuitous and specious logic that is emblematic of many of your peers and special interest. You must support a national standard of registration, more stringent ownership requirements and more appropriate and effective oversight of sales.

Sincerely,

Thomas Woodward

What I really wanted to say to the NRA was a short Latin phrase…

Pedicabo ego te!

The Need to be Indispensable and Irreplaceable.

Posted on February 21, 2012 by ilookmarvlus

I was fortunate to have some hard-working role models in my early life.

Most notably my step-father. He was an enlisted man in the Air Force, a Staff Sargent or E5 whose earnings peaked in 1965 at $244.80 a month pay and a family allowance of $105.00 for my Mother, two brothers and sister. So Woody, that’s what my brother Walter and I called our step-father, took as many as outside jobs as he could find; cleaning bowling alleys and doing the window dressing at the local Sears at night. Picking up what ever odd job he could.

It was the financial pressures that finally forced him to leave the Air Force, with I think about 16 years service. Now as a civilian life was a bit better; but we never had a new car, we never had our own house, the most upscale store was Sears, and the best vacation was when Uncle Bill Meyer lent us his cabin on the beach in Clinton.

He was my primary role model; as I result by age 10 I was taking farm work picking peas and mowing lawns outside Greenleaf, Idaho. By the way I went to a two room schoolhouse and the lawn I mowed was my closet neighbor’s 1 acre lawn for $3 a pop. Did I mention he didn’t have a mower and his house was a 1.4 mile away? Thank God the out house didn’t stink.

We eventually moved to denser population centers. Wall, South Dakota for example, where I got better jobs. I clean windshields, pumped gas and checked your oil at the local Sinclair station for awhile until I got the position of town paper boy. The only one; seven days a week; sun, rain or snow. I visited more houses than the post office.

By the time I turned 16 farm work, but not paper routes, were set aside. By the time I entered the Navy in 1972 I had worked at McDonald’s, my morning motor paper route was 200 houses, cleaned a bowling alley with the old man and delivered auto parts; all at the same time. Ok so I exaggerate a bit, I did give up the bowling alley and only delivered auto parts on school vacations and eventually the wear and tear on my pink 1960 Dodge Pheonix caused me to give up the paper route. However, until I graduated from College at the ripe young age of 33 in 1986 I never had less than 2 jobs.

A college degree changed everything; not only did I make more Ca Ching! but I only had to work one job!

But that’s the crux of my current dilemma, the monkey on my now curving back. I only work one job, and while the work isn’t physical labor, I don’t work any less or fewer hours, in fact I work more. See I am free to work any time, all the time, even in my sleep. I dream work. I’ve recently realised I rarely dream about my darling 5 year old daughter, my wife, my car, my dream friends. No, I dream of solutions that will allow me to use eForms in new creative ways, how to resolve business problems with creative implementations of business process management and how to use analytics to create out-of-the box solutions. I am driven to make the work of others, more productive, more easy, more, more, more, more….

Whenever someone else stumbles I try to be there to catch them, even if that means working any time of the day or night. Mentor someone in India at 11PM I’m there, talk to a project team across three continents at 5 AM I’ll be there. Why not, I’m dreaming about work anyway right?

Why? I mean why do I do this, why?

For one thing, I have developed a neurosis. I heard on the TV recently that a new neurosis has been submitted for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I think it was called “nocellphoneanosis” or something like that found in younger members of our society. Some of these people live in constant fear that their smart phones are going to be lost or stop working and they no longer have the ability to interact except via SMS, Twitter and the occasional obligatory call to Mom.

I now believe that shortly after Y2K. when suddenly all those thousands of off-shore technology workers and “consulting” firms suddenly had to, and I might add very successfully, change into real consulting and staffing firmsl there has been constant competitive pressure on my job, not from the bottom up, but from the top down and either side.

Second, certain former manager’s have found this to be a marvelous motivational tool. Yes, I one time had a manager say to me, in public, “I don’t like you and if I could I would get rid of you“, it became an innate neurotic need to ensure my talents were indispensable and irreplaceable. Now in his defense I do have to add I am not the most loveable person who ever walked God’s Green Earth, I accept that and I work very hard at being personally acceptable; I’ve resigned myself to possessing a limited LQ or Loveabilty Quotient.

I want to interject a little thank you to my wife who has an LQ of “adorable” , so when we got married my LQ increased from “cretin” to “average guy“.

So I’ve been much more fortunate than many of my peers, lost over the intervening years to the great off shore body snatch. First of all I didn’t get married and start a family until I was 53 freeing me to work 26×8 (consultants do double book,) and I fell into a niche with lots of demand, where I seemed to posses a modicrum of talent. With very little competition and comparatively good opportunities for self-study and work I’ve continued to do well. I have been able to leverage my work ethic, these opportunities and my skills to be that critical need person.

I was doubly fortunate to secure my current position. I’ve likened it to the Elephant’s Graveyard for the IT professional. Here to my chagrin most of my peers had anywhere from 15 to 35 years employment in many respects I was mid career not end career. OH JOY OH JOY!

But the one thing I don’t know about the Elephant’s Graveyard is this, once and awhile an elephant is cut from the herd and is forced out to die a cold and lonely death. If the King of the Elephant’s decides Dumbo’s peaked and he’s hogging the hay, well say la vie Dumbo. It doesn’t happen often and there are earmarks when it will, but it’s happened here and it will happen again. I am determined to be Jumbo not Dumbo.

So even though I really haven’t cut back on my work, my laborious dreams, I’ve been happy these last 18 months. But after some of the herd disappeared I sense the neurosis returning, becoming more impatient, more infected with my own personal neurosis: “ICANDOIT“!

I have to confess I am scared, scared how this neurosis will affect my LQ and even a realization and expectation of what happens if I don’t disappear from the herd too soon, I can deal with that I still have mad skills. But what if I make it to retirement. How the hell can I turn this thing off and how much worse can it get?

________________________________________

By the way if this story bores you, look up the history of elephant’s like Hanno, Pope Leo the X’s pet white elephant and Muderous Mary. I would rather be Dumbo!

Ok so here’s a RANT about a Memorial Company….

Posted on October 29, 2010June 10, 2020 by ilookmarvlus

If you’re not aware, I lost my Mom this past January. My Brother Bill, friends Pat, and Ginette and all our wive’s friends were a great help; especially hosting us and helping us grieve.

But the logistics of it all was my obligation. The service was grand and Father Ray held a beautiful Mass, but the cherry on top is really marking my Mom’s resting site with something appropriate, meaningful, but oh ever so short.

Trying to solve that issue from 1300 miles away was not easy and of course I rely on the internet to locate, select and acquire many things. First you find the monument companies, I started in Eastern CT; you call them up, you ask questions and try to learn, make an informed decision. You kiw I couldn’t believe some of the pitches and utter BS I heard. When I mentioned to one company I found them over the internet the guy went off on me about “Grout Granite” and “Memorial Granite” etc. etc. I thought I was visiting a used car lot, the BS was that bad. Of course I could honor my Mother with a plain piece of his “Memorial Granite” for $2,000 plus installatiion. Common, 2K for a 12″x24″x4″ piece of rock ?

So back to the web; lo and behold there are web based monument companies. After review of services, trying to check with things like the BBB I selected, drumroll please,

Burleson Monument Design & Mfg., Inc. of 216 East Ellison St. Burleson, Texas 76028

They had the appropriate designs, specified Grade A Granite and they described a very well run process; art generation, approval, cemetery approval, delivery, and would arrange the installation. I was to be engaged of every step. Everything a dutiful son 1300 miles from home needed and for much less than Mr Memorial Granite too!

So I paid, this was last May, the entire process was to be completed no later than August at the very latest.

So starting in the late summer, when there was no stone or no word, I started to call; first weekly, but nothing happened but empty promises. Only when I finally started making daily calls and intimated that I was preparing to take action to recover the payment did I even get the artwork for approval and an assurance of delivery by “early” September.

In the mean time I take a new job and move to Denver, where I am immediatley swept up in my new work, finding a house, etc. etc. when I get word from my Brother on Oct 23rd that there’s still no stone.

So I call the installers, out of Bloomfield, CT it’s late there and leave a message, but Burleson is still open. Burleson swears they delivered it and they’ll get right back to me with the details, tomorrow morning.

The next day the installed calls me back and informs me that they have had the stone; for three days. They feel bad about the delays and they promise to have it installed by Friday. Yesterday, Thursday I get a picture of the stone installed.

Thank you Daley Connerton Memorials of Bloomfield, CT for your courtesy, and service. If I had known of you and how you work I would have done everything through you. If you find yourself needing their services in Connecticut I would heartily recommend you.

To anyone considering Burleson Monuments, I urge you to think twice, three time before siging a contract. While the material and workmanship is great, but the service is horrible , the emotional cost is just too damn high and their vaunted “garuantee” is nothing but empty words.

I am still waiting for them to call me back.

…and there’s no you.

Posted on July 31, 2010 by ilookmarvlus

Everyone has heard the cliché “There’s no ‘i’ in team…” although sometime later Michael Jordan pointed out “…there is an ‘i’ in WIN.” Earlier this year I was struck by similar truism, “There’s no U in teamwork.”

Feel free to use it…

The Quest for Mediocracy; An Easy 12 Step Recovery Program

Posted on July 24, 2010June 10, 2020 by ilookmarvlus

I’ve been grappling with the idea that all my ‘conservative’ friends believe me to be a “raging liberal” and thereby patently, clinically and categorically insane; while my significantly fewer-in-number ‘liberal’ friends, consider me to somewhat backward, parsimonious and genetically deficient. Fruitlessly, I’ve proclaimed myself to be a moderate, perhaps a progressive moderate. Regardless, if I didn’t agree with some popularized Gorish or Limbaughian commentary, I was outed.

This confuses me greatly. Needing some perspective, I recalled a time in my youth at High School. Nixon was running for his second term as President and 18 year olds had been given our franchise to vote. I registered as a Democrat for three key reasons; a fondness for JFK, a fear of Nixon, and I assumed my Mother would ground me for treason if I went GOP. However, there was only one active political group welcoming to us young Baby Boomers, the Young Republicans. Amazingly they allowed me to I join, a professed bona fide Democrat and the permitted me to plan and participate in their Get Out the Vote program. It was an ideologically agnostic, altruistic and magnanimous experience.

This experience set my expectations and provided direction 30 years later as the elected Chairman of Coventry Connecticut’s Zoning Board of Appeals, a board of seven; four Democrats and three Republicans. It was perhaps the most rewarding political experience of my life. We worked together famously, without rancour or derisive behaviour and we performed extremely well; we were all so blissfully innocent and preternaturally wise.

My first bitter taste came in the last year of my second term, when asked privately by the then Town Council Chair. Her desire was to see if I could somehow ensure that a certain someone with a pending appeal was granted their exception. She said feared the motivations of the Republicans and since it appeared that I had “good control” of the board she was certain I could see it through. She was not terribly thrilled when I informed her that;

I didn’t control the board we all made an effort to work together.
The Republican members were as good and decent as the Democratic members.
My advice, make sure they satisfied the legal requirements, if they did so they would prevail.

Predictably, the petitioners presented no evidence or justifications and consequently the were unanimously denied their request. Subsequently, the Town’s Democratic Party apparatchiks found me wanting and I was asked not to run for a third term.

That was nearly 10 years ago.

I came believe that all parties are at their core inherently corrupt, corrupted or corruptible. The corruption is driving further and deeper changes in the political landscape. Politicians today are ever so much more divisive, so binary, so monochromatic that we’re no longer permitted to adopt a centrist identity. The resulting rancour and polarization is terribly damaging and affecting our society and our country and even our basic relationships with one another.

Our past President put it best during his farewell address, that is President George Washington in 1796.

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

Old George wasn’t just the tallest rich-guy sporting Rock Maple Dentures, he was damn smart.

I believe that one possible solution is to give the “Silent Majority” a political identity. To that end, I propose an organization of ‘affiliated centrists’, the politically laid back people who want balanced benefits, common sense morality and their just desserts. Who prefer reasonable discussion over fevered rhetoric, humor over anger, serenity to angst. That organization is the Mediocratic Party, a party of moderation, where under-achievement is acceptable so long as your intentions are good, where we believe in opportunity to fail, where blind obedience to the left or right is doomed to fail. A party truly for the concerned independent.

There will be no party conventions, no dues, no platforms, no PACs, no dark money funds. We will only wag our favorite flying digits at those shameful ne’er do wells and extremists that cause us to consume Tums and Prilosec.

Now since it appears that both the Democratic and Republican parties contain constituent extremists, I allow that we should as well. Amongst the unaffiliated Mediocratic the following wings have been identified;

those totally “unconcerned” with societal matters; unless it affects the cost of beer or cigarettes or demands bikers to wear a motorcycle helmet,
and those who are wish to demonstrate their independence through lack of committal or feigned indifference.

Now if you’re been independent of the parties care to join in, simply follow the following steps. Or just a few. Or do nothing. All I ask is that when asked “What are your political beliefs?” simply adopt a blissful gaze and say, “Moderation, moderation in all things, including moderation…”

For repentant Democrats, Republicans, Tea or Coffee partiers, Libertarians and extremists, please follow the entire 12 step recovery program.

Step 1. I admit that the typical registered Democrat or Republican is really powerless and thereby unable determine their own destiny.
Step 2. I believe that there is a Mediocre Power capable of restoring us to sanity.
Step 3. I’ve decided to trust our care to leaders who are neither charismatic or bombastic; blissfully so-so but really mean well.
Step 4. I’ve taken a moral inventory of our county and it scares me.
Step 5. I’ve admitted to posting on Facebook memes, humorous anecdotes and one liners to mask my true feeling or unfriending or blocking some of my more extremist acquaintances.
Step 6. I am ready for God to remove all signs of extremism.
Step 7. I humbly ask that you not burden me with your shortcomings, or at least keep them to yourself.
Step 8. I have a list and I’m checking it twice.
Step 9. I believe apologising is for Democrats, proselytizing is for Republicans.
Step 10. What you don’t know, hasn’t hurt you, just saying.
Step 11. I gave this a little thought.
Step 12. I’ve got a headache, we might just be better off as practicing alcoholics.

To those few of you who have managed to process all of this and are ready to not commit, I grant you manumission. You are now free to emancipate the country.

and they’re OFF!

Posted on June 13, 2010 by ilookmarvlus

South Carolina, a state I consider as somewhat serene, cultured and quiet, where people play golf in pastel polo shirts and white-linen chinos, eat crab pots, and enjoy a refreshing toddy on the porch, was one of the more interesting topics this week.

First, my pal Dan retold a story about a discussion on a Tour of Charleston he and his wife took in a few years ago. The guide was relating how a person had to be able to trace their local ancestry back at least 5 generations to be considered a “South Carolinian”. When asked what you would be considered if you say could only trace your South Carolinian roots back to say 4 generations, the guide replied…”Why you would be “OFF!”,a was anyone who didn’t meet the accepted criteria; anyone OFF wouldn’t be taken seriously and when described, native South Carolinians would describe them as, “well you know, he’s just OFF!”

Then came the news results and stories regarding the State’s Democratic Primary and the winning candidate, one Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed and frankly, rather bizarre individual. Alvin won the primary over a much more mature well-considered and some say well-known judge and former state legislator, Vic Rawl.

The losing candidate had campaigned vigorously according to all accounts and while his campaign funds only amassed a bit over 55 of incumbent conservative Senator DeMint’s 3.5 million dollar campaign budget, he was expected to win at least the Democratic nomination.

Alvin Greene won without campaigning, speaking, without staff, without a web site. In fact he only checks his email once a week or so at the library and doesn’t own a cell phone.

He was also been arrested this past November and felony charges are pending for ” showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student, then talking about going to her room at a university dorm.”

This whole store thing is simply mind numbing, stultifying, and bizarre! So, given the nature of this campaign, I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting Mr. Greene’s acceptance speech, in a manner that native South Carolinians should appreciate.

“First off, to the Democratic Party of South Carolina, I ‘m not gonna back off just cause you got that far off look. Ok, maybe I bit more off then I can chew with that sweet young thing and we got off on the wrong foot, but once she see’s I’m a bonafide US Senator she might not tell me to eff off.

It’s not like I won Scot Free or got off on Vic’s loss. So just ease-off and take a load off while I sit on the porch just a chip off the old block, where I might even nod off. And maybe I’ll just take tomorrow off, I got no boss to tell me off, and won’t be no skin off your back if I tell you off the cuff just where to get off.

So I’m not calling this off, and you can call the dogs off. Don’t try to the bite my head off, there’s no need to fly off the handle. You’re getting off easy, maybe just off lightly South Carolina, you can;t just write me off!

It could be worse, you could be Louisiana.”

The lastest new is that Mr. Greene has been certified by the Great OFF State of South Carolina as the OFFicial democratic candidate for the US Senate. You guys scare the pants off of me!

Much Love,

Tom

Is it all about survival…

Posted on June 9, 2010 by ilookmarvlus

No matter where I turn it seems we’ve all become, perhaps out of necessity, survivalists; not survivors, but survivalists. The American Heritage dictionary defines a survivalist as:

One who has personal or group survival as a primary goal in the face of difficulty, opposition, and especially the threat of natural catastrophe, nuclear war, or societal collapse.

It seems to be fundamentally different situation from that of a survivor; which according to the same source is someone who perseveres. See a survivor’s done it, finished it, defeated it. A survivalist on the other hand is on the perseverance treadmill, ever vigilant, constantly dealing with threats real and imagined. The modern survivalist is inundated; terrorism, BP’s Oil Debacle, the Taliban, the Great Recession, healthcare, identity theft, social oppression and the cheerleaders of doom and gloom, (not me see Glen Beck.) Have we evolved from the gun toting, forest deweling, toilet paper hoarding Survivalists and Militias so prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, or have we all become more common survivalists, yet more accepted and casually attired?

Consider again the Tea Party; give Billy and Betty Jo Stump a Smart Phone, a mantra and change the camo into chinos; age them 11 years, add a Sarah Palin badge and viola, instant Tea Party activist!

Lately I’ve been focussed on a new kind of employment the “survival job“. While I’m far from a coal miner, no need to shake coal dust from my hair, have a Canary at work, or worry about black lung, I am not what I set out to be. Neither are many of my friends and acquaintances. Sometimes, when discouragement sets in, I’ve had to resort to an aphoristic behavior: I read the Desiderata. It helps me to realize that it’s yet better here in the US then it is in most of the world. Why else is our primary immigration issue one of influx and not outflow, it’s becuase we have something of value and we don’t want to lose it!

So maybe as whacky and capricious as those Tea Partiests seem to me perhaps they’re doing some good. I may just be tired, grumpy and fearful, but I hope to survive being a survivalist, I certainly pray I will.

Much Love!

Tom

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