fear and rage

Already they have begun to spin

to twist the story into its usual shape

formerly familiar, suddenly terrifying

because how many others have we

dismissed because this was the only

story told:  armed black man

shots were fired              handgun

recovered at the scene.

How many times did we not know

the details not reported by police accounts

routine traffic stop      child in the car

first aid not immediately rendered

complying with police request  for

license and registration when shot

by police for moving while carrying

a declared and legally permitted weapon?

This story doesn't make sense.  I don't

 want it to be true of this incident in a place

I know and have been let alone other places

I don't know for other people innocent

of any capital  crimes.

How many times have people

gotten away with murder hiding

behind this traditional narrative

we have accepted, all important

facts warped to fit its shape, slicing

off the overhanging edges of truth

with the  careless knife of power?

How terrifying this is, this proof

that even if you do everything right -

young, employed steadily, out with 

your family getting ready to celebrate

your birthday - if you are a black man, 

this is how that day in your life can end:  

you dead because someone 

felt threatened because you 

were doing what they 

told you to do, what you 

were supposed

to do, so what

are we supposed

to do now?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Subaru

Something I have loved this Christmas season: Cars, trucks, and vans sporting antlers on the front windows and a red nose on the grill/fender.  It makes me laugh every time.  :)

Something I have not loved this Christmas season: Vapid Christmas carol lyrics that are ridiculous and stupid.

My un-favorite at the moment is from "Here Comes Santa Claus."  It comes right after the part where it talks about how Santa doesn't care if we have broken our toys and how he loves us anyway.  "Santa knows that we're God's children," Mr. Sinatra sings, "that makes everything right."  It is probably not Mr. Sinatra's fault that these lyrics exist, but it is his fault for singing them. 

I would just like to ask Mr. Sinatra how a fair, just anthropomorphic personification who keeps a list of naughty and nice kids and gives lumps of coal to the naughty ones and presents to the nice can be the same one Mr. Sinatra is describing, a watered down being who forgives all and doesn't care how we treat each other. 

I know, I know.  The song is really just to reinforce the lie of Santa Claus when small children ask why Johnny-the-evil-bully-next-door gets a jillion presents every Christmas even though he tortures squirrels and the neighborhood children, but that's not a lie I ever believed or intend to reinforce.  Ba-humbug.

I guess some of my irritation is misdirected here from my frustration that even Christian parents lie to their kids about Santa and wonder why their kids are easily confused in their thinking about Jesus the same way (Jesus is love, so He doesn't really punish bad and reward good) (?!). 

As a tangent, kids tend to love those stories where good defeats/punishes evil; they recognize something inherently right and just about that dynamic.  Just saying.


Anyway, do you have any "favorite" vapid Christmas song lyrics (or whole songs) you'd like to share?

Yet another one sails away

Well, that tears it.  My new friend at work had enough and left.  What a huge, stupid waste.  She was worth at least two of my incompetent sales manager.  There is very little justice in a world where I'm stuck with the stupid sales manager and have to lose a great co-worker because our management is . . .  Yeah, you've heard it before.  Sorry.

But I can't resist this great example of my sales manager's greatness.  Because of this sudden situation, I was asked to come in and work on my day off, and, because I desperately need the hours/money, I came in early in the morning after a late night leading a small group for church.  Then, that morning, I picked up another sick co-worker's shift for that night, but I could only work from 6-10 (so I could get some rest before coming in early the next morning for my next shift).  As I was leaving at 10:15, my sales manager got extremely snippy with me for having to leave before 10:30 .  Yes, she got mad at me after I came in and saved her bacon twice in the same day on my day off outside of my regular availability.  She is a real winner.

I'm looking for a new hopefully less crappy retail job along with my regular job hunting. 

Morale is just so shot right now at our store, and sales, which were up, are dropping.  It's sad because it doesn't have to be and shouldn't be this way.  I wish there were something I could do to make it better, but I really have tried everything I can.

I was thinking about good companies and how they value their employees.  Maybe I'm still kind of an idealist, but I thought companies wanted to hire good employees and use their strengths as individuals and team members to help the company prosper.  My RetailEstablishment never read these books, I guess.  They would rather try to force everyone into the same (bent) mold and break them. 

We're all breaking. 

It's rough to watch.  I have so much to give, and they don't want it.  It's . . . frustrating not to be able to use any of your skills, talents, personality, etc. in a way that helps people.  It's worse when you can't just quit, when you're too damaged already to be sure you'll ever be able to find another job.  Being so invested in one place used to make me sort of stubbornly determined to do my best to help things change for the better, but when you have resistance and an endless landslide of dumb policies coming from your district manager to your store and thus know that the "open-door" policy is a quick way to get fired, it just grinds you down.

At least I'm proud I've hung on for over 6 years.  :)  Find your sunshine where you can, I guess.


Do you have any suggestions for retail jobs that would be good for a cripple?

Not to be a lawyer

There was a time in sixth grade when I thought I might want to be a lawyer.  It made sense at the time.  I liked to argue, and I liked to win (by having the best argument).  I also ran headlong into some injustice issues with my child-hating teacher and school princi"pal" who was apparently not my pal but my secret arch-nemesis, only I never knew. 

Anyway, I stopped considering law as a profession when I realized that sometimes you have to defend scumbags or people who are guilty but saying they're innocent, but you have to do it to the best of your abilities because it's your job.  No thanks.  Also, truth and justice don't always prevail.  If I couldn't clearly be on the side of truth and justice, I didn't want to play the game.

I don't really know what got me remembering that, but I think it had something to do with my lawyer for my OWCP case not emailing me back like he said he would.  He doesn't usually get back to me clearly and directly because he's a lawyer, and he knows the import of words as proof committed to paper.  He'd rather leave me hanging.  I can't really hold it against him.  We know my case has no chance, truth be d----d, so I guess I forgive him for giving up. 

Some games you can't win, no matter how well you play, so why play?   What a thoroughly reprehensible, practical, adult thing to say.  "Give me back my youth!"


So, do you remember a certain thing you wanted to be when you grew up and when you decided to cross it off the list and why?  (Sometimes it's really weird things that seem unrelated, but those make great stories.  :)