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An Interesting side of Mark Twain: 1601

1601_v2_1210The full title of this work is, 1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors.  It is written by Mark Twain. I stumbled upon it a little accidentally.  Well, that is almost true, librivox.org has a genre entitled Erotica.  Considering that all their books are in public domain I wondered what was in there.  I found this little gem.

We all know that Samuel Clemens had a colorful and varied life.  Occasionally he has been criticized for his language.  A recent brouhaha about the use of the N* word comes to mind.  However, there is not a book of Mark Twain’s that is commonly read that I would have an  issue with any of my children reading when they were of tender age.  This little volume I would have had them wait a few years.

As I understand it, he wrote this work between The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Without giving too much away, I have a picture of Samuel Clemens sitting in his octagon writing studio and passing the mother of all flatulence. To me it is utterly delightful to think of this American legend writing something like this.

The actual oeuvre is very short, and circulated as a pamphlet for many years.  If you download the Librivox version it runs 17 minutes or so, but the whole download is about about Continue reading “An Interesting side of Mark Twain: 1601”

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100 Best Companies to Work For List

I’m not going to mention the company, but I worked two IT contracts at a corporation that is consistently very close to the top the 100 Best Companies to Work For list.

Admittedly, as a contractor I was treated differently than employees.  This is not always the case, but it was at this company. Admittedly, I am not your typical corporate type.  I have always felt like a square peg in a round hole at these types of companies.  Yet I have worked for several Fortune 500 companies over the years.

I was amazed all 3 years I worked at this company that they excelled on this listing.  I knew almost no one who seemed genuinely happy with their job.   There were a few folks around who were “somebody” or thought they were going to be “somebody”.  These folks at least had a sense of purpose.  What I observed was a management style of that seemed to me to be intimidation. Maybe it was my Southern sensibilities,  but I did not find it a friendly place.  The alternately left me for long periods with nothing to do, or with rush projects that were due yesterday.   To me it was crazy making.  My range of duties was so narrow that it did not give much job satisfaction.  From what I observed this was not uncommon.

At one point they made me an offer to come on full time.  It was surprising in its low remuneration.   I later learned that it was pretty much in line with what the employees were making.  Contracting seemed like a much better deal.

I read today a piece on Alternet.org , How Screwing Your Workers Gets You Rated as Top 100 Places to Work. The article is about Darden Restaurants, but it shed much light on how these companies get on this list. Basically, it is very similar to getting yourself on a Who Is Who List.  You pay for the privilege.   The ranking is not actually by Fortune magazine, but has been outsourced to GPWI.

“There were 11,327 U.S. firms with 1,000 or more employees in 2008, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. In 2012, only 280 of these companies paid GPWI to participate in its best workplace contest”

Suddenly, it all makes sense to me.

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A Good Time at Uncle Mike’s House

Robin and I have a very fond memory of a night and a morning that we spent at Joe Mike’s House.  It was after Sue had passed away and he was staying in the house while her kids figured out what to do with it.  Robin and had taken our first extended trip together.  We had been down to Mississippi and across to Florida during the week of 4th of July.  As they say, we had and were having an excellent time.

We wanted to stop and visit in Owensboro.  We arrived there late, never thinking about it being hard to find a motel room.  What we did not know was that the large hotel on the river had closed down, and all the other baseball_bat_kid_by_sir_smoke_alotmotels were full.

We decided to venture over to Uncle Mike’s even though it was close to one in the morning. Before I went and knocked on the door I got a bottle of rum out of trunk (remember we were on vacation) as a peace offering.  I knocked on the door several times, each time progressively louder.  I could not rouse anyone in the house.  Remembering that the bedroom was at the side of the house I went to   that window.  I called Mike’s name a few times and finally heard a commotion in the bedroom.  I went back onto the porch expecting a friendly greeting by my Uncle.  Instead there was a wild man at the door with a baseball bat.

After our initial shocks, we greeted.  We then sat on that sweet porch drinking rum and cokes until 2 or 3 in the morning.  I am not sure what we talked about, probably our travels.

What makes this story special for us, besides the good time on the porch is what happened the next morning.  Not having any other bed, Robin and I slept on a twin bed in the back bedroom.  Even though we had been dating a few months I had never told her that I loved her.  In telling someone that, it is a huge commitment and carries with it a tremendous responsibility.  At least it should.  I hugged her that next morning and said, “I’ve loved you for a while now, but I was afraid of the responsibility of that.”  Or something to that effect.

I’ve been loving her quite a while now.

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I have an idea, you have an idea…now we have two ideas

George Bernard Shaw once said, “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea as well, and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

I actually heard this term used a few days ago on a radio show.  Two authors were debating.  One accused the other of an ad hominem argument.  Later in the debate the meaning became clearer.  I’m not sure why, but something made me think of it today.

Definition of AD HOMINEM Continue reading “I have an idea, you have an idea…now we have two ideas”

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US Constitution – Links to document and audio book – Less than one hour of your time

ConstitutionThere a couple foundational documents that many Americans cite as absolute truisms.  One is the Bible, Old and New Testament.  The other is the Constitution of the United States.  Yet when you get to quizzing folks, the actual count of who has read either one of these documents in totality is not staggeringly impressive.

According to one survey, Americans Love the Bible but Don’t Read It Much , showed only 20 percent read the Bible regularly.

“Results of a nationwide survey released Thursday by the Center for the Constitution at James Madison’s Montpelier show 86 percent of respondents recognize the importance of the document, the 223-year-old framework for American government. Thirty-one percent say they think they understand the Constitution “a lot” and 48 percent say they understand “some” of it. But only 28 percent say they’ve read all of the document, and 14 percent say they’ve read most of it, according to a report by Sean O’Brien, executive director at the Orange, Va., center.”

I can understand the Bible to some extent.  It is long, dense and arcane.  I once had very “religious” person tell me that he did not need to read the Bible.  If there was something in there he needed to know his preacher would tell him. Okay.

The United States Constitution is not long, dense or arcane.  It is not any more  a perfect document than is the Bible.  If nothing else counting people of color as three fifths of a person for the purpose of congressional representation would toss the Constitution from that category. Continue reading “US Constitution – Links to document and audio book – Less than one hour of your time”

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A Southern, Jewish Tradition

My Yankee wife has cooked me another traditional Southern meal to bring in the New Year.  We had black-eye peas, turnip greens, rice and corn bread.  It took a while to get her to cook cornbread the “right” way.  First time she served me cornbread I thought it was cake. Now she makes it in a cast iron skillet with yellow cornmeal, and it is not sugary sweet.blackeyed_peas

Traditionally, black-eye peas are for good luck and greens are to bring wealth.  There are more than a few theories about why this combination.  The one I like best is “Eat poor on New Year’s, and eat fat the rest of the year.”

One I  did not know about is the tradition of black-eye peas dates back 500 years to the Talmud:

“According to a portion of the Talmud written around 500 A.D., it was Jewish custom at the time to eat black-eyed peas in celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It’s possible that the tradition arrived in America with Sephardic Jews, who first arrived in Georgia in the 1730s.”

And as Tevye would say, “Tradition.”  Southern, Jewish or otherwise, tradition makes the world go round and helps to keep us grounded.

New Year’s Day Tradition – Black-Eyed Peas and Greens

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So It Goes

kurt_vonnegutRobin sings in the choir at The Center for Spiritual Living here in St. Louis. They tend to end meditative/pray moments with the saying, “And so it is.” This sounded familiar to me and then I realized it is very, very close to Kurt Vonnegut’s famous saying, “So it goes.”

“Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five isn’t notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There’s a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: “Shit happens, and it’s awful, but it’s also okay. We deal with it because we have to.”

~~ from an article by By Tasha Robinson, Kyle Ryan, Josh Modell, Noel Murray & Scott Gordon 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will