Stupid Human Tricks (Updated)

John McCain is announcing on Letterman tonight that he's running for President.

I don't pretend to know a lot about politics, American or otherwise, but I know what I'd do if I was in his position. I'd run now and do my damnedest to look like a decent honest guy. McCain is, after all, the Republican Who Doesn't Believe In Torture. A few years in a tiger cage will give a guy silly Liberal notions about the Geneva Conventions...

And I'd lose, but I'd try to lose with dignity, like Bob Dole. Bob Dole's a cranky old coot, but people love him anyway. Then I'd sit back and maybe write a book and do a lecture tour and wait for either the Angry Mob With Torches to descend on President H. Clinton (as you just KNOW they will)... or wait for the Obama-Bomb to go off (you just KNOW it will). Then I'd run.

And I'd win too. America has the stomach for two terms with either a woman or a black guy as President... but The Machines Which Really Run Things won't allow it. You know I'm right.

Then I'd win. Yeah, baby. Then I'd be a legalizin' machine... all kinds of crazy shit. That'd be sweet.

***

Update, August 27/07: Six months later, McCain is still the only anti-torture Republican candidate, but as time goes on he looks less and less likely to get the nomination. And I still suspect that the above-unnamed Powers That Be are still going to pull a Florida with the 2008 elections.

Also the same since February: my penchant for crazy shit. Oh yeah.

For Jennifer

What we call "love" wears many masks and travels under many names. Maybe there are as many forms of it as there are humans -- and maybe each human has (potentially) a different kind of love for every human that they feel love for. The one common factor each type of love has is that it places the object of love ahead of oneself. And I think we -- the world -- need much more of that. We can worry about what to call it later on.

Though I saw it all around
Never thought I could be affected
Thought that we'd be the last to go
It is so strange the way things turn

Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground

Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up
We dont need much of anything
Dont give up
cause somewhere theres a place
Where we belong

Rest your head
You worry too much
Its going to be alright
When times get rough
You can fall back on us
Dont give up
Please dont give up

-Peter Gabriel, Don't Give Up

See the light, enter the light, become the light... and shine, Jen. And you will cast no shadows.

The Day I Quit Telus

Everyone in their right mind with a decent soul has to hate large corporations... especially large corporations who lie about outsourcing. This is my resignation letter from one such Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy:


December 8, 2006

Dear Bryan:


This is to inform you that my last day as a TELUS employee will be December 22, 2006.

I am no longer able to work here as it is causing me to suffer from a condition known in psychiatric circles as "cognitive dissonance"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

This stems directly from the TELUS Statement Of Corporate Values:

We embrace change and initiate opportunity

Ignoring for a moment the question of whether a corporation can have "values" any more than it can have "kidneys" or "a fondness for jazz music," let's look at how I am supposed to apply these at my job.

I'm trying really hard to embrace some of the changes that have happened here over the last year or so, but I have to admit I'm still baffled. It seems that with the number of orders I have to correct every day and the number of customers I speak to who say they're calling AGAIN because they "couldn't understand the last agent they spoke to" that I cost the company about half what a person in Manila costs to do the same job. Again, this may be a failing on my part, but I just can't see how that helps anyone. All of this has left me sad and withdrawn, and generally unable to perform my job as I'd like.

Besides, wireless is the future. Is that good news?

http://www.cancer-health.org/

Personally, I suspect that in the long run wireless is as likely to replace land line as television was to replace movies or movies were to replace theatre or theatre was to replace reading. It seems that The Powers That Be are determined to let the land line network -- built over a century with billions of tax dollars -- die of slow neglect. I'm not sure how else to explain all the Mobility ads I see on TV, as opposed to all the ads for land line service I DON'T see.

In conclusion, let me leave you with these words, which were spray-painted in gigantic letters on the TELUS tower in a dream I had a few days ago:

MENE MENE TECKEL UPHARSIN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_writing_on_the_wall

I am not an expert in dream interpretation, but I suspect this was a warning about the experience we leave our customers with each and every time they struggle with IVR only to get someone they don't understand who works in the wrong department.


Thank you for the experience,

Matthew Currie

Also, this is where I put my photo: