jeniwren@compuserve.com
Paula, Paula, Paula. What are you thinking? Worried that that book deal won't work out quite as sweetly with the current ending as it stands? Let's please torture America longer with your whines of "He felt me up and now I have a boring job." I, for one, would like to still be hearing all about how Clinton, that scoundrel, mistreated you well into my doddering years. (Given how much ire this whole thing arises in me, it could be sooner than later.)
Dear reader, if you haven't heard, Paula Jones, the self-proclaimed woman's suffering advocate has appealed the ruling of mean ole nasty JudgeWright. Evidently she's looking for a judge that will roll over and, cowed by her fleet of externally funded attorneys, hand the case over to a jury that can be led sheep-like to a ruling that better suits book sales.
Lemme clue you in, Paula. We're tired of you and your case. Really. I'm not the type to lie to you about such a thing. I doubt you could build a jury that would think you have a case. I may even lead a crusade to boycott your book whenever it comes out. If it comes out. I did that with the Star Trek movies and see what happened? They aren't making them anymore (the old series, I mean…Patrick Stewart is too cute to boycott).
Don't you think that 3 years is an awfully long time to be hanging on to an experience that happens to most attractive women in the work place? Especially when the incident occurred seven years ago. It took you four years to figure out that you were upset? I think not.
Let's be real here. The person you're taking to court is the President of the United States. Leader of the free world. You are a nobody with a big nose. With a hankering for world wide attention. (I've always wanted to use the word 'hankering' in a sentence. Wee Haw!) Normally, I would say you succeeded big time in grabbing the brass ring this time, but you made a lil mistake. You didn't pick a fiery or convincing enough sob story. Next time, maybe you could add how little green aliens and mad cows were involved too. That might be too much to believe, but it's certainly more interesting.
Is it just me, or do there seem to be more diseases lately? I don't want to be a doomsayer by any means, but it just seems like you can't turn around but for the discovery of a new acronymed disease or condition. As an example, I can no longer be grouchy without wondering if I'm suffering from PMS. Before PMS, women were 'delicate'. I think I like being delicate, personally. Can we vote on this, please?
Somehow, giving a series of symptoms a name gives it legitimacy. Men used to say that women were wusses for cramps and general irritability during 'that time of the month'. Now they just have to suck it up and go, it's okay, she has PMS. Giving it a name makes it more real than before, when it was just series of days on the calendar when all the menfolk around knew it was best to be out sheering sheep or something.
Of course, if you have wild mood swings all the time, you no longer have PMS, you must have something else. The list is, of course, endless. Not all of them get mysterious acronyms, but that's okay because they get nifty names, like bi-polarity. Doesn't it sound like you should be wearing a parka? Then there is the ever intriguing multiple personality syndrome. That is long enough to deserve being an acronym, but it just sounds so interesting that people like to say the whole thing. I have a hard enough time maintaining one personality. Having more than one must be exhausting.
I wonder if we'll someday discover that all these diseases are actually one disease with multiple personality syndrome. Can you imagine the acronym that one disease would get? It staggers the mind.
We're learning so much about how the mind works and there is so much more yet to be learned. I wonder if we'll ever get to the point (as is illustrated in the movie GATTACA) of discovering (or is that, believing?) that all behaviors are biologically driven. As we discover better ways to chemically counteract biologically induced anti-social or negative behaviors (such as those with ADD), will we find that you can just take one pill and it'll make you normal no matter what your condition? What about those of us who want to stay weird?
It's all too much for me. One side of me is grateful that the people who used to be just out and out weird actually have diseases that can be treated. The other side is wondering when I'll find out what makes ME a bit strange. Is there a cool sounding acronym for incessant chatting yet? Call me when you hear. In the meantime, YES, I'm female. Do NOT MORF me again!
Our government has done a lovely job of choosing what is important for our precious progeny to be taught through the public school system. (That is mild sarcasm, by the way, in case you didn't recognize it.) I agree: Reading, writing, math, history, humanities, sciences should be required at certain levels. In that respect, they are right on. But! There are some things that are missing that are absolutely crucial to their development as future citizens capable of voting. If I were Queen of the country, here are the things I would require immediately in the school system:
Most students…oh man, scratch that…most Americans, do not perform any sort of community service that isn't self serving in some way. If you do, you're wonderful and I wish you could be cloned. (That's another rant…someday.) I think it should be part of the required curriculum that students perform community service. I would start them right on their own campus. One hour every week, each and every student would work somewhere on campus making their school a better, cleaner place. I can't imagine why this would possibly be bad for anyone except the janitor.
This is by NO means an encouragement for them to go out and immediately practice what they've learned in class. (That's what sex education is for….btw, has it EVER occurred to anyone that if they are going to require sex education they should require parenting classes too? Maybe I was the only one who thought of this.) However, at no point in a pregnancy is either father or mother required to learn something about being a parent. There are definite skills involved, from the practical (sure you can change a tire, Bruno, but can you change a diaper?) to the more philosophical (to spank or not to spank, that is the question). They may never use what they learn in this class, but it's a skill that won't do them any harm and will greatly benefit their children if they decide to become parents someday. This should be a required course that must be repeated until passed.
You probably thought this was required already, didn't you? Personal finance is. Home economics isn't. Learning to cook, clean and generally keep a house in a suitable living condition should be a duhhhh sort of topic for any developing human. This course should be required, but it should be possible to test out of it if the student's parents actually did a good job and taught them these things like they're supposed to.
Mostly, I don't think kids should have much of a say in how their lives are run. That's why we grew up: so we could boss around our kids. However, I've seen an alarming trend both personally and as covered in the media in the denegration of our teacher's skills to teach. My own personal experiences ranged from having to take the same math course twice because they didn't have enough books when I was ready to go on to the next level to having a biology teacher who graded papers based on the student's looks (no, I'm not kidding). There are some wonderful teachers out there and they should be rewarded for their skills. There are some terrible teachers out there and they should get OUT of the teaching business. Let them be administrators, or hall monitors or something if they must. Further, I think the students, with the assistance of their parents, should be the ones to review them. Consistently negative reviews should result in termination. Period. No union bullsh*t. Consistently good reviews should result in bonuses and other perks.
I'm a parent of a child not yet in school, so I can spout off opinions about the school system from the nice cozy comfort of my chair, having had no real practical experience in dealing with it directly. I have heard with a great deal of consistency that parental involvement in the education process is … well… it's pathetic, people. If I were running things, parents would be required to commit an hour a week to the school. If they have more than one child, they would still only be required to put in one hour total. God alone knows what we would do with them, but it seems that the school system is always hurting for resources and this would be an abundance of resource all in one swell foop. Parents who didn't show for their required time would be penalized a fine that would be multiplied by the number of children registered to the school system. (I would also offer some sort of incentive to businesses to allow parents in their employ to take their hour without penalization - not unlike jury duty.)
That's all. I think that's a start. I don't like the idea that we need these things in the schools today, but until more parents get a clue, these topics need addressing.
By now, we all know this to the point of nausea: Paula Jones Doesn't Suck. Thank god for judges who don't think that this is worthy of court time. Like everyone else in America, I've been watching this fiasco with only one eye, mainly because I didn't really care about it. I only vaguely cared whether or not Clinton lied about it. He's out of office in less than two years and he can't run again. Whether or not he's a womanizing son of a bitch or just mildly indiscrete or even (hey, it's possible!) totally innocent it has little or no bearing on whether or not he does a decent job as President. As for his possible creativity with the truth, one thing my ex-husband used to tell me was that if I was ever arrested: DENY EVERYTHING. His best friend was a cop and that was his best advice in dealing with the law. Never ever admit you did anything. I have to think that President Clinton has probably heard that advice a time or two.
All that aside, I have one thing to say about Paula Jones: Gimme a break. I've been sexually harassed in the workplace and it didn't kill me. I've been patted on the butt by my boss and persistently asked to pose nude by a corporate VP. My life went on and I wasn't permanently damaged by it. Get over it. There are MANY other ways to deal with sexual harassment before it gets to be a court issue. At least SOME of those avenues should be explored before seeking out a lawyer. Generally, the best way to get it to stop is to threaten to expose the harasser for what he/she is - a pervert with no sense of discretion. The typical office harasser doesn't want to be embarrassed in front of his/her peers.
Another way to get away from sexual harassment is to find another job. If it bugs you that much and you've repeatedly requested a cease and desist, then for heaven's sake, take your talents elsewhere. This, of course, assumes that you have talents that make you a valuable person to employ. The job market in America right now is so good that in a number of industries the employers are desperate to find ANYONE who has skills to fit the job. One bank in Seattle is having such difficulty that they have opened free computer training to pretty much anyone in the hopes that they will find talent among the masses. This is an employee's market right now and good people are generally treated very well.
I think everyone should have a comfortable 75-degree Fahrenheit ergonomically perfect non-sexually-racially-religiously threatening workplace. I think that everyone should be promoted on their good merits and that financial gains are suitably distributed to those who made the good things happen. To expect and demand these things in a court of law, however, is plain out childish. Life never was fair. Move on, live positively and don't make a huge fuss over the small stuff.
Paula, good luck finding another job. Paula's new employer: I hope you're prepared to give her everything she wants because more than likely, if you don't, she'll see you in court.
As you might have gathered from my previous Rants, despite the fact that I'm not a proponent of more government, I do think that there are a few laws that we as a society would benefit from having. I'm going to show now that there is at least one law that I think should be repealed.
You've probably heard of the Brady Bill. You might have heard of Kelsey's Law or Amanda's Law. All of these are proposed legislation named after victims of crimes that the laws they propose are intended to help prevent. With this in mind, I suggest that Murphy must have been a victim of such extreme good fortune that he couldn't cope with it anymore and became world-famously grouchy. How he got this law passed is beyond me. He must have connections with the NRA's lobbyist group.
I suggest a petition to have this law removed. The cost to businesses must run in the trillions as Murphy's Law continues to be in effect. Interestingly enough, as I was researching to write this Rant, I couldn't find any financial statistics reporting the estimated costs incurred as a direct result of this Law, so I had to guesstimate. However, if anyone asks, just tell them I got the figure from an unnamed source. That's what real reporters do.
Of course, like all things, even Murphy's Law has its benefits. OMNI magazine solicited ideas for inventions a couple of years ago, one of the submissions for which caught my eye as a fantastic idea. It utilizes Murphy's Law for power generation, though as yet, I've not heard of any prototypes being developed. It's the Buttered Toast/Cat Turbine. The idea is that you strap some buttered toast to the back of a cat and then drop the cat. Murphy's Law will force the buttered toast to fall face down, while the natural law of cat's agility will force the cat to land feet first, producing a phenomenon well worth watching (especially if you don't like cats).
Still, I doubt that the revenues generated from harnessing this use would offset the costs incurred daily by businesses all over the country. In fact, you'll have to excuse me…one of the printers in the Data Center just jammed and the network just went down.
See you later! Don't forget to sign the petition before you leave.
I don't know about you, but I have to watch every penny that goes through my bank account. I don't have a lot of excess each month, so I try to make the most of what I have. That's why it irked the heck out of me when I heard this story from a co-worker.
It seems that she was paying her bills the other night and was looking through her phone bill, since it was much higher than it usually is. The few long distance calls were in line with what they should be, as were her usual monthly local charges. Then she noted a ten dollar charge from a company called ITT for a 'set up' fee. She didn't know what she would have had set up from them, so she called the 800 number that was noted. It was busy. For an hour, she continued to try to get through to them. Failing that, she called USWest, our local carrier. She had them note on her account that she was short paying the bill, pending investigation to this company, ITT. After another half hour of busy signals, she finally got through.
It's a very bad sign when the automated call router recording starts with "If you're waiting for a credit, it will take 30 to 45 days." Undaunted, she continued to wait to speak to a human, and when she did, she asked what the charge was for. Apparently, it was for some sort of calling card. When asked who authorized this, the young man with ITT replied that he didn't know and that it was entirely possible that no one had. WHAT?? Someone can add charges to my regular phone bill without my authorization?? She was furious. She asked for the credit and then asked for credit against the time that she'd had to spend getting the whole mess fixed. He said, "That won't happen, ma'am. We'll credit your phone bill, but that's all. Company policy."
Alright…I want to know whose brilliant scam this was. I call it a scam, because that's what it is. Billing for services that have not been rendered and were not requested is a scam. I don't know how US West sets up their billing, or if they are aware that they are being used like this. My phone bills regularly top the $100 mark, so I don't know that I would notice an extra $10 and it seems to me that this ITT group is probably making a lot of money without having to work very hard for it. Such things should be illegal, if they aren't already.
Do yourself a favor. Watch your bills very closely. I know I will.
