Something New, Exciting but Scary

I turned in my two week notice at work a little while back, and this upcoming Tuesday, the 16th, will be my last day at my current employer. I will no longer be a mattress salesman. I will be a window slash vinyl siding slash patio room salesman for a national company.

This is a calculated risk I am taking -- nothing ventured, nothing gained -- and the commission scale I am jumping up to has the potential to double my income. Yet I am leaving the safety net of guaranteed income and a job I know I'm good at, and this is, to be honest, a bit scary.

I will not fall on my face, yet I cannot deny that that is within the realm of possibility. In other words, I will try my damndest to make sure I will not fall on my face, and I believe in my capabilities and work ethic enough to succeed. But the race is not always to the swiftest....

Why am I posting this? Well, it's my blog, a so-called web log, so yeah, I can navel gaze about my personal issues all I want.

But also, in this economy, (and man that phrase, in this economy, has turned almost cliche pretty quick, hasn't it?) I think the best thing to do is to try to go upstream. Against the crowd. I know people are hurting out there, and folks are getting laid off and cutting expenses to get by, but when a good number of folks seem to be hunkering down, turtling into their shells, I am going to take my shot. Roll the dice. Make my move, etc.

I may be an optimist bordering on stupid, but so be it. Allstate Insurance has a TV commercial noting they were founded during The Depression. There are many other companies still thriving today that were as well. I'm not starting a business, I'm merely reaching for a higher rung. That's the American way.

Right now there are guys in a garage or in a dilapidated retail office sitting on plastic milk crates who a generation from now will be national names, despite this being potentially the worst recession since FDR.

My switching employers is scary, but I ain't scared -- much.

I'm also excited, and dreaming of the new opportunities before me. If I go down, I'm going down swinging like a sonuvabitch. And really, this isn't exactly a Profile in Courage. I have options if this does turn out to be a mistake.

Again, the reason I think I'm posting this is because I notice a bit too much pessimism out there. A pessimism that I'm afraid is a bit self fulfilling. Not I.

My current employer has been nothing but good to me, but it's time to move on.

To quote that jam band from Vermont: "This has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way."

(And heck, if worse comes to worst, I can always teach.)

A Long Life Well Deserved

Happy 100th birthday, Sir Nicholas Winton.

Gay Marriage... Merely the MacGuffin

It was never really about gay marriage. It was just happened to be the MacGuffin. Carrie Prejean's recent slosh through the slime (released photos, medical records, called a bitch, the c-word, her parent's released divorce records, etc.) was over something much more basic, much more crude....

*****

I remember a little while back watching Craig Ferguson's late night show, and Ferguson didn't do his normal monologue. He stood before the cameras and said, No more. No more jokes about Brittney Spears.

She was shaving her head bald, going through a divorce, flashing her beaver exiting vehicles, and partying at a level that crossed from mere foolishness to dangerous self-destruction.

And it was supposedly hilarious. "That Brittney sure is dumb.... Sure is a slut.... Sure is a crazy bitch.... Sure is a has-been at 25."

Yuk yuk yuk. Hilarious stuff it all was. The pile on was severe, merciless, and in her face.

And in the midst of this, Ferguson essentially said, "Enough, this is not funny, I will no more be a part of this." (You can watch him here.) I happened to be fortunate enough to watch that original broadcast. I felt a tiny bit of shame because up to that point I had been passively cheering on all of the ugly spectacle.

*****

Man is a bullying creature. The better among us know we shouldn't, and while we have set up societal guards against it, occasionally we slip. We fall short of those standards we set for ourselves. It is our nature.

Of course, there are also those who embrace being a bully, and as always, going back to the schoolyard, they go after an easy target. And if possible, they work in packs.

In our media, there are elements that have become pretty adept at being facilitators to such bullying.

Brittney Spears became a target due to her odd fall from fame. Prejean's was an answer counter to the attitudes of a vocal number of our media elite. It cannot be emphasized enough that Prejean's off the cuff answer, in a silly environment like a beauty pageant, is the same of our current President. But Barack Obama is not an easy target. A 21-year old beauty queen is.

That answer was the MacGuffin, what allowed the process to begin, and any defenses of the treatment she received afterwards are merely rationalizations. Had Prejean managed to avoid that gay marriage question, many of the same folks taking aim at her now would instead be laughing at Lindsey Lohan for dyking it up, or the Octo-mom's severe mental issues, or whatever.

It ain't about politics. It ain't about gay marriage. Just an excuse, a rationalization, to get off berating somebody else to make you feel good about yourself.

That's what bullies do.

Sunday Mornings This Past Autumn, and Some Old Campaign Politics

This past fall, I began to attend church again in a more regular fashion. The spiritual muscle needs flexing, yet I had let it get a bit flabby. It is a Lutheran Church I attend, straddling the border between the Highlands and downtown, and inside I was able to sing those old German hymns, and listen to the Pastor preach on Christ, the Prophets, redemption, hope, sin, salvation, and grace among other common themes.

I am not the world's greatest Christian, but I am working on it. (Then again, if you ever do meet someone claiming to be a great Christian, keep a hand on your wallet.)

This is a post that has been brewing for a while, but due to my lack of enthusiasm for blogging in general, and a genuine concern of descending into hackery on this subject in particular, I have held off. But I believe ideas are now sorted properly, and passions cooled a bit, so that I can go there with honesty and respect, and not point scoring or partisanship.

My church is directly across the street from a party headquarters of the local Democratic Party. This being the election season, they of course had a fairly large poster on their fence for Barack Obama. This poster didn't say "Obama for President" or "Obama/Biden" however; it simply said "Hope," with the now familiar circular Obama logo in the O, sans the art deco portrait of our current President.

And this was odd, coming out of the dimly lit church -- after hearing of Christ on the cross, and delving into those recurrent themes of grace, salvation, forgiveness, etc., to step outside into the sunny but brisk October day to see the word "hope" associated with... a politician.

*****

I write this now because Aunt B repeats a complaint I've heard among some Obama supporters, that conservatives mock their support of Obama as Messianic or worshipful in quality. She thinks he is, in her own words, "not that bad."

I take her word at it, and acknowledge that many of Obama's supporters are similar in attitude. They voted for the guy because of basic agreements on the issues. Yet it cannot be denied that when one thinks of how Obama campaigned, two general themes come to mind: that he was the man of Change, and that he was the man of Hope.

Hope was everywhere. Ubiquitous. When you thought hope, you thought Barack Obama. You couldn't escape it.

But let me quote Psalm 118 (vs. 8-9):

It is better to have faith in the Lord than to put one's hope in man.
It is better to have faith in the Lord than to put one's hope in rulers.

(An aside: this is the same Psalm of that famous passage, This is the day which the Lord has made; we will be full of joy and delight in it.)

Such skepticisms and admonishments to place your hope and trust in God rather than in some ruler -- some man -- is a fairly strong current running throughout the Bible. That Obama campaigned in direct contradiction to this sensibility, and that many bought into it, is jarring. It does lead to questioning whether those without religion in their lives -- and liberals are more likely to be secular than conservatives -- found something to fill that void, for at least one campaign season.

This phenomenon was one that neither the campaign nor the candidate, himself a professed Christian, did anything to discourage. Though the craziness of the campaign season has now tempered, some of that residue understandably still lingers. Thus the "Barack Obama, Hallowed be Thy Name" jokes.

PS: And don't forget that creepy Yes We Can video.

A Quick Comment on Washington's Prescription

It seems to me that right now Washington is doing to the economy basically what doctors did to, well, Washington.

Our economy is ill, George Washington was ill.

Washington's doctors treated his ailments with mercury and bleeding, making his situation much worse, and quite possibly killing him by accident.

And today, in the city named after him, our leaders have examined our economy, and prescribed the same damn thing.

Dear Britain, Drop Dead

This comes from the British Sunday Telegraph, describing why the first meeting between the new US President and the UK Prime Minister was so odd.

"The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

Uh....

I guess intentionally insulting and denigrating our strongest ally is part of that 'smart diplomacy' I keep hearing about from the Obama folks and their supporters.

HT: Ace

True MVPs

I personally find Rick Reilly often obnoxious. Here, however, he connects with the sweet spot of the bat. His current column names who really should have won some baseball MVP awards if we take away the ill-gotten trophies from those who later admitted to being on steroids.

Hint: Albert Pujols comes out pretty well.