manticore.ca

Today two people passed away, two very different people and yet in their own ways they came to epitomize their generations.

I speak of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. The former a singer and the latter an actress. I was never old enough to really appreciate Mrs Fawcett, enough pictures of her have adorned the walls of many boys in the seventies and she and a handful of other ladies set the standards for beauty.

Michael Jackson on the other hand, I was very much of an age to appreciate his music and his effect on my generation. In all honesty I would have to say that as an artist, he was ever present, yet he was never a favourite.

What he was, was part of a musical mosaic that formed the sound track of my burgeoning teen life. Just recently I was reading the top 100 songs of the eighties, the song I was looking for was I have been to me, by Charlene, just because a lyric had gotten lose from the attic of my history and I had to track down the artist.

It dawned on me that when looking through all those tracks, a snippet of the music started playing in my mind, be it Africa by toto, Axel F, Our House, Dont you want me, human league, funky cold medina, an many more. It was a trip through space and time, and I was the cliched pimply guy that worked in McDonalds.

Just out of curiosity, I went through the same top 100′s of the nineties an the aughts, it was a downwards spiral, yes some of the songs I recognized by that little snippet, and others by just the name and no more. It was not my music.

People will write about MJ and their thoughts on his life, I can’t. The man simply ceased to exist as a factor in my life once I grew up to be a man, and he was relegated to VH1.

But like Freddie Mercury, give the man his due. He lead and others followed. As in life, shall be in death, he just went first.

Tux

Well I can honestly say I did not see that one coming. Yesterday the state officials punted Miss Prejeans fate up to Donald Trump, owner of the Miss America pageant and effectively Miss Prejeans boss.

In my opinion Donald Trump would have punted it to a focus group and come out with a result that would have pleased no one, and yet could be spun for the desired party or parties.

So what happened, he actually backed her to the hilt and approved of what she said, based on her feelings about the matter, now that may have sounded wishy washy and given a few more days to let the old dust settle, I may reappraise what my opinion is.

The twitter traffic is of course being prolific on the matter, yet a consensus has yet to be agreed upon, and the head witch hunter, one Perez Hilton fresh off providing more documentation on stunning American Women doing risqué photography shoots, has yet to weigh in on the Donalds decision.

Perhaps the focus on Miss Prejeans life can now be directed elseware, and let the woman get on with her life and career. In probability, this is most likely minute fourteen of Perez Hiltons fifteen minutes and if he wants to accend to the next level, the attacks on Miss Prejean have to come to an end, less he finds himself under seige for being a bitter loser, his own life can be just as effectively disected under the media glare, and being he was the first to throw stones to borrow a biblical saying, I doubt many people would show any kind of compassion.

For Donald Trump, you surprised me regarding your decision, good, I like those kind of surprises and I am sorry to have prejudged your response and an unintended slight on your character.

So for now the pageant officials have punted the future of Miss Prejean over to Donald Trump, who most likely has a team of PR people working on a solution for her disposition. I can’t imagine that Mr Trump will back her to the hilt, so it’s only a matter of coming up with a response that frankly will please no one.

While everyone really is going to focus on the soap opera aspects of the pageant, I thought I would step back and think about what ansewer I would have given, which in hindsight is a bit unfair, as Miss Prejean had this one come out of left field.

You can be sure that future pageant’s will have their stable of entrants ready and armed with a canned response thats been vetted by focus groups, to satisfy all concerned depending on the spin. In a way, Miss Prejean was probably the first and last contestant to actually say what her thoughts were on the matter.

So the question has been asked, all the lights and cameras are on me and ……….

I am not my grand parents generation or my parents generation, I did not grow up under the same conditions that they did or have to accept the same social or cultural mores that they accepted as every day knowledge or wisdom or belief.

I believe that everyone should be able to marry or live common law, with all the rights and respect given with the gender of their choice, that man and woman have enjoyed to date. Be this a civil ceremony or a faith based marriage in the denomination of the participants choice.

There now, you have my canned ansewer.

Just like I did not grow up in previous generations, so will I not grow up in future generations, all I can do is to raise children with the expectation that the last generation wall, will fall and they can marry whom ever they please and that right and wrong will be no longer be married to superstition and the shackles of the past.

For all that however, I am disapointed in the reaction to Miss Prejean’s comments. Freedom of speech has been mentioned, and since no government has thought to quell her comments, no first amendment violation has occured.

Yet, culturally we have quelled freedom of speech in a way that Orwell could not imagine. While Miss Prejean has stood by her comments, and has had the conviction of her beliefs not to change her stance or moderate her comments for spin purposes, we as a culture have sent a memo stating that these are “your” views, get with the program or watch the media shock and awe discecting your life in HD.

I am not gay, but as a smoker I do have experience with being on the wrong side of a political line, when some politician at the stroke of a pen makes me culturally unclean and subject to the fines and penalties therein.

Normally I would not compare the two situations, one is a choice and the other is the way you are, and yet both situations are comparable when you view it in a legal context.

The present holds that only a man and a woman can be married, with the culture of the future being groomed to expect that this will be changed or modified to allow gay marriage. The problem lies with expecting people to live with a simple majority, that the folks currently opposed to gay marriage will simply go , oh it’s the law now, i’l just go quietly into the night and not bother anyone any more.

As a smoker, all I can say is that the current smoking legislation is becoming more and more draconian and in more places because the anti-smoking movement is dieing out or being elected out.

A fair number of us are fully expecting, not hoping or wishing, but expecting. That the future holds bars and restaurants with smoking sections again, and those annoying people with the fake coughs will be relegated to the warrens and under the rocks they used to enhabit.

On a scale of one to ten, smoking does not even rate on the same radar that same sex marriage does, in terms of importance to peoples lives. However, just what exactly do you think is going to happen, should same sex marriage laws pass by just a simple majority ?

I would hope that the reader is not naive enough to believe that opponents will simply disapear into the night. This will cause a political shift in earth quake terms, those not opposed to same sex marriage and their intentions to strike down such legislation will be deposed and newer voices that will strike down such laws will be elected.

As the anti-smoking groups are finding out, politicians are not your friends. With the most liberal state in the union, California rejecting proposition 8, and San Fransisco not even returning a decent vote despite being the gay Capital of the union, the votes are not on your side in a political fight and won’t be for some time to come.

And that is the tradgedy with the reaction to Miss Prejeans comments, you won’t truly know who is on your side, for fear of being publically castigated.

I think because of a ramp up of the new chevy camaro, some folks got the call back to go into work, suffice it to say i am heavily curious as to where the clock numbers stopped at.

Since a buddy of mine posted his recall on facebook, his clock number is in the lower 200′s if i remember right, that ups the optimism for my recall sometime later this month, or early june. At the moment its still 50/50 if i get permanently laid off, chrysler still has to work out details of the chapter eleven, and even if and when it does, the start up is never full throttle. Combine that with the GM idle, plus its deadline approaching, things could get dicey.

However the news has been encouraging, the judge overseeing the bk has allowed the sale of chrysler assets to be sold, effectively to itself. The hedge fund holdouts have had had half of their number defect and its hopefully only a matter of time before the remainder take a cold look at the future and seek the best possible terms.

Money was also authorized for suppliers, which may explain the partial recall, hopefully the company knows something regarding the situation.

As for me, my next step is to file a claim on saturday, which will start the employment insurance full time, possibly look for a part time job next week that is disposable, in anticipation of the recall.

Till next update

So today ended a five year mission, to buy a car and bet that in 60 months i would still have a job and the car would not repo’d. Well at one thirty this afternoon, i walked into wells fargo and plunked down my atm card and a few seconds later it was done.

I bought the car several months into starting a new job in 04 and due to a rainbow credit rating was only able to purchase a used 02 pontiac sunfire. The odometer read 25 thousand kilometers or 12 thousand miles depending on what system your on. Practically brand new. Since then me and the sunfire have been anywhere i can think of and the car is starting to show its age. Due to the detiorating economy, i decided that i would only be able to pay off the note and ignore most of the pressing maitenance requirements. Now as the old saying goes, the car has been ridden hard and put away wet and only time will tell for the first break down.

I had thoughts of buying a new car, or at least another newer used vehicle, but that will have to wait until the job situation has been somewhat more clarified, till then, the sunfire will have to soldier on a few more weeks, till she is able to go into drydock for her make over.

Thanks pontiac, you also build reliable

Looks like the boys and girls in purple are standing up a cyber command. Just like space command this is likely to bring in officers,enlisted personel and civillian contractors from all services and put them under a common umbrella command.

While its been reported that the US military and strategic industries have venerabilities that can be exploited, the truth is that cyber command only goes part way. Its an important step to be sure, but until they get green lighted to go offensive, at best they are going to be hobbled playing defense

As well, no mention yet of a comprehensive plan to bring in either civillian or non uniformed agencies like the CIA, NSA or law enforcement agencies like Treasury and the FBI.

A successful shield will force adversaries to use more traditional means of espionage, not something that the military has been charged with dealing with.

Critical facilities must be indexed and hardened, rules must be imposed from above to ensure that foreign nationals operate under a more draconian regime, so as to stop the economic hemorage of data.

Univercities and other educational facilities must be audited to assess their venerabilities with regards to penetration, as long held by tradition of peer review and transmission and desemination of information, they can be a gaping wound, exploitable by adversaries bent on plotting asymetric warfare or putting servicemen and women at risk with technology parity.

Make no mistake, the threat to North America is real. Within several decades enough infrastructure will be automated enough to present a clear and present danger for digital systemic shock and paralysis, in combination with a military ops plan.

The TSA , being airport security, has shown a blueprint of how not to implement security upgrades. National defense must have the support of industry, acedemia, and the civillian populace if it is to do its job effectively. That may place strains on all concerned initially.

We would prefer thank you very much, not to have an event along the lines of a digital pearl harbor, before agreeing that something must be done. An event of that scale would by nature eclipse any digital security regime that could be put in place by commitee with oversight and input by all stake holders and perhaps force a greater response by the military.

Are you ready to gamble the lives of your children and grand children in the future, concider the results of decisions that were made in 1919 and contemplate what we could be looking at, should a vigorus military response be required, when a cyber smack on the wrist could have sufficed years previous.

So here i sit trying to achieve some sort of a zen mental state regarding the layoff. The sunday before possibly moving on to a new job and a new life.

I do have some concrete actions that have to be done, my financial institution has to be informed so i can invoke the layoff insurance that is packaged with the loan and check out some temp agencies for walking around money.

But thats tommorow or the next day, right now i have to finish working on an overhead garage door opener to start with. Damm things are more complicated than they need to be, i think the sticking point is the wiring that leads to the electric eyes and the inside opener.

But really this is distracting me from what i need to do. There is a time for busy work to keep you occupied and then there is time for strategic contemplation. I have lost count of how many jobs i have had and now i face the reality that i may have to add another entry into the resume, heck its getting to the point where i am going to have to revamp it.

But the question remains, what do i want to do. If the lottery and independent wealth remains elusive, then another job is a must. I am getting up in age, that sooner or later i am going to be forced into a knowledge based career, as strength and vitality are sure to fade.

One thing thats becoming more prevalent in my thoughts is to pick up another domain name, something that would be for career oriented small business purposes. With the manticore domain already up and running, rehosting the second one would take all of a couple of seconds on the control panel and two days for the new site to propogate through the web.

For now some food is required and then on to finishing up some tasks.

Well the company dropped the bomb today, up to sixty people got laid off in all departments.

With chrysler going into chapter eleven, they are idling almost all north american plants and could be down for up to two months.

We knew it was coming, as 85 percent of our lines are chrysler, and with GM going to idle at their plants in roughly a month, severely agravates things even further.

In ontario according to our labor laws, in a twenty week period, being laid off for thirteen weeks means a permanent layoff, and there lies the dilemma.

Worst case for chrysler is 8 weeks, add in GM’s shutdown and i could concievably be out of a job. If it was not for the money, i would not give a shit. However with everyone else getting laid off, the remaing job market is depressed and jobs are far and few between.

Even plan B, which was to move to Alberta is not so hot right now with their economy going into the tank. Some positive news though, this is the last month on my car loan, i have to go see the folks at wells fargo on monday to invoke layoff insurance for my other loan.

EI is already in place and will kick in as soon as next thursday when my last full check is deposited. Finally the job market might be depressed, but its not all doom, going through the job bank yielded a job that pays roughly the same, skills directly transferable, and is strictly a weld cell, no line work.

Beyond that, i intend on concentrating on jobs that have reduced hours, rather than expecting wage parity for 40 hours. What i am looking at in my area is subpar wages for 40 hours which is not cost effective.

Two or three part time hours type jobs would allow me flexibilty as well as collect wages on par with my current job.

Damm if the thought of takingnan extended job on pogies dime does not look all that bad.

Wish me luck folks

So another layoff, bout twenty people all told between afternoon and dayshift. While I was enjoying a nice Friday off, my landlords got a call from the company saying that I was back on dayshift, starting at seven in the morning.

Yet was I to find out that the above twenty people had been given their notice, effective imediate. Some them had been hired months or in some cases a year or more after I had been hired back in 2004, but the rest were in the same room as I had been, and I can still vividly remember that orientation session. I assume that they had been told they were being laid off for 13 weeks, but in reality, with GM idling their plants over summer and I expect chrysler will do the same, they may as well have been told that it’s permanent. There is a reasonable chance that some will be recalled in the next few weeks, not great but reasonable. The car companies don’t care how many people it takes to get their product out, and we may have cut too many.

That said, I expect that I will recieve my notice some time in the next few weeks, perhaps as early as friday and as late as the end of June. Realistically, I am guessing end of may, by that time we should know what has become of chrysler and what their plans for the shutdown are.

I guess at this moment there is nothing really more to say