The life and times of an uncertain blogger

In the continuing saga that is now my work life, the proofreader has returned my work to me with some changes.

Some of those changes were good, and I readily made those changes, but most asked me to change text that was grammatically correct into text that would be grammatically incorrect. I have chosen not to make those changes.

We’ll see what happens as a result.

Those of you who know me, know what a perfectionist I am, particularly when it comes to grammar. I simply refuse to put my name on something that I consider substandard. So, if one of the requirements of this job is that I must make correct grammar incorrect in order to justify some uneducated proofreader’s job, I won’t do it.

I made copies of the proofreader’s comments and added my own, citing sections of the AP styleguide that proved I was correct and sent it back to the proofreader. It should be interesting to see what kind of pushback I get on this. Obviously, at this point, I don’t care, but I won’t compromise my work just because someone with questionable creditials says I should.

Stay tuned for more on the continuing saga of Maggy’s Continuing Adventure or How to Piss off a Writer in One Easy Step.

Stumble It!

One of the most disconcerting things about American society today is a lack of accountability among our populace.  Nobody wants to take personal responsibility for anything, and our work ethic seems to have degraded to “I’ll just do the minimum I can do to get by without getting fired.”

What happened to pride in a job well done?

No matter what segment of the working population you look at, you will be faced with lacluster performance and an “I-don’t-give-a-damn” attitude.  It permiates just about everything in the service industry — from people who serve you at restaurants to the guy who does your lawn.

Why did this happen?

I believe it’s directly related to the Me Generation that grew up in the 60s. (That’s my generation, by the way.)  Prior to that time, those who had come before had lived through the depression, and WWI and WWII.  Those people knew what it meant to work hard, to save, and to work with a purpose.  The flower children, though, were all about freedom — freedom to do what you wanted, smoke or take what you wanted, eat what you wanted and have sex with whoever or whatever you wanted.

And it’s those people who’ve raised the young people working in the service industries today.  These kids were raised by parents who excused bad behavior, didn’t require chores in exchange for allowance and who allowed their children to speak their minds openly — even in defiance of authority.  As a result, many of the children (now adults) believe that everything is owed to them, whether they’ve earned it or not.  They have no respect for authority, no respect for those they serve and, ultimately, no respect for themselves.

The good news is that this kind of pendulum swing from responsible to irresponsible and back has been going on forever.  Plato and Socrates both bemoaned the plight of the world when left to the hands of the young, and they both lived thousands of years ago.  If things go true to form, the next generation of young people will be so disgusted with the previous generation’s behavior that they’ll be ultra responsible and accountable.

We can only hope.

In the meantime, those of you who still believe in a job well done, strap yourselves in and start doing things for yourself. Otherwise, you’ll be faced with a life of frustration at the hands of the Me Children.

And now, I am officially old…I’ve just dissed the generation that came after mine, thus becoming crochety.

Someone find my heart pills and my reading glasses.  It’s all downhill from here.

Stumble It!

Time has really gotten away from me lately.  No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to keep up with all my obligations.

It’s pretty maddening, really. I’m the kind of person who prides herself on keeping up with everything, and with my current plate, there’s just no way.

Deadlines are a writer’s lifeblood.  We live by them and we die by them. Meet them, and you’re a star. Miss them, and your name is dirt. The problem is, in many cases, that the deadline is being set by someone who has no idea how long it takes to write a quality piece of work.

Case in point:  Last week, I was told I had to completely update two 300 page manuals and the help documentation for a software release. That’s all well and good, but the deadline was one week.

Yep, you read that right; ONE week.

I had to laugh at the ludicrousness of that request, and my laughter was met with blank stares.  “What?  You can’t do that?  You’ll just have to work overtime.”  Again, I laughed.  “You don’t get it,” I said, “You were oooing and ahhhing over the fact that I wrote the 11 page release notes in a day and a half, because it was so fast. Take 900 (the number of pages you want me to write and/or update) and divide it by 11 (the number of pages I wrote) and then multiply that answer by 1.5 (the number of days it took me to write the 11 pages). That’s how long it would take me to complete the task.”

For those of you who don’t have a calculator, the answer is 122.7 days or 24 1/2 work weeks, which is approximately 5 1/2 months or so. Gotta love that!

At that point, the blank stares changed to popping eyes. (It was actually pretty funny.) The even funnier thing was, though, that they still expect me to do it.

Ridiculous.

So, I’m having a little trouble keeping up with my obligations. Hopefully, I can give them something that will at least look decent and have the correct information, but this isn’t how I work. I produce quality at a fast pace, not quantity that’s crap.

So, stay tuned, boys and girls. I’ve got my feelers out again to see if I can find something more suitable for my work ethic.

God help the poor person who takes over when I’m gone, because one thing is sure - some things never change. And here, it looks like nothing does.

See you soon!

Stumble It!

Gotta love this.

If you read my blog entry on 9/26/07 you saw that I was very disturbed and frustrated with Rush Limbaugh and his inability to argue any issue without constant ad hominem attacks on people who don’t agree with him. In particular, a soldier called in who had served in Iraq and who also believes we should no longer be there. Instead of listening to the man’s comments and responding with a cogent argument for his own case, Rush said, “Yeah, and I was one of the astronauts that went to the moon,” and followed up with a diatribe claiming that anyone who was a “real soldier” wouldn’t feel that way. The caller, by the way, never got to say another word. Just as he does with almost all callers who disagree with him, Limbaugh cut the call off and ranted without giving his opponent any opportunity to rebut.

Now, Fox News.com reports that Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid has announced that Democratic leaders in the senate have drafted a letter to Mark Mays, president of Clear Channel Communications (the parent network of Limbaugh’s broadcast), asking that the network “publicly repudiate these comments that call into question (antiwar soldiers’) service and sacrifice” and asking that Limbaugh himself apologize.

Good luck with that.*

Clear Channel may back-pedal a little on behalf of Rush, but Limbaugh himself will never apologize. He’s not capable of doing that. The man didn’t even apologize to his listening audience for his drug use while on the air. Instead, he reached a plea deal that led to his record being expunged of prescription shopping for Oxycontin. So much for taking personal responsibility.

As someone who considers herself middle-of-the-road politically, I don’t like to align myself with either party, but I have to say hooray to the Demos for this. Limbaugh is out of control, and it shows on his program. Someone has got to do something about his rampant illogic and slippery slope argumentation. Free speech is one thing, but just as you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, you also can’t insight the public with false and defamatory statements, simply because you have an opinion and a microphone.

Now, Limbaugh claims that the Senators are purposely misrepresenting his comments in order to discredit him. (And, instead of proving his point through logical argumentation, Rush again distorted reality by attacking his opponent personally, referring to the Senate Majority Leader as “Dingy Harry.” Nice. The guy who touts always respecting the office can’t follow his own advice.) He and everyone who heard him make the original statement know he’s lying, but he’ll claim he was misunderstood forever.

Of course, those with lolling tongues who believe every word that comes out of his mouth simply because he says it forcefully and they happen to agree with his politics will vehemently nod their heads at every word Limbaugh is saying. As a person who often agrees with him politically but is always disappointed by his inability to form a valid argument, I’m left hoping against hope that someone will see the light and get the man off the airwaves. There are too many good orators who are able to discuss the facts logically and effectively to be able to justify keeping such a poor one on the air.

As a media company, doesn’t Clear Channel realize that they are contributing to the very downfall of our nation? People like Rush Limbaugh don’t contribute positively in any way. Instead, they chip away at our political foundation by spoon-feeding lies and propaganda to people too weak to know the difference. Then those people vote based on the crap Limbaugh feeds them.

He’s not even helping his Republican/Conservative cause – he’s hurting it. He’s not hurting his Democratic/Liberal opponents; he’s helping them. With that in mind, what use is he? Again, the facts point to Clear Channel’s desire to line their pocketbooks to the detriment of their audience.

Last Tuesday, a veterans group opposed to the Iraq war will launch a TV ad campaign lambasting Rush. The ad will feature a Purple Heart recipient who was injured while serving in Iraq. I wonder how Rush will attempt to denigrate him. Will he accuse these veterans of being bad Americans? Probably. The bottom line is, though, that he won’t be able to call them “phony soldiers,” this time.

And, that, my fellow Americans, makes me smile.

Rush Limbaugh, if you read this, grow a pair and argue the points. Stop taking cheap shots and puffing out your chest and say something worth hearing. Maybe if you’ll stop looking in the mirror long enough to think of something besides yourself, you can do it.

*(Narcissists don’t apologize. They find it psychologically impossible to accept responsibility for any misdeed.  Not that I’m labeling Rush is a narcissist, mind you.  I’m just saying – as I did in my other blog entry about him – that, in my opinion, he displays the symptoms of suffering from that particular mental illness.)

Stumble It!

The bruhaha over OSU coach Mike Gundy’s rant against Daily Oklahoman sports columnist, Jenni Carlson has finally begun to wind down, and I have to say that the entire media circus that ensued after Mike’s initial tyrade proved to be very interesting indeed.

For those of you living in another country or those who avoid the news altogether and don’t know the story, OSU has had a horrible season this year. They have lost every game except for their latest game, where they enjoyed an amazing win against one of the most talented teams in the country, Texas Tech.  From what I can gather (Sorry, I’m an OU gal, and I don’t know the details that led up to this, so I can only paint with a broad brush.), at some point before or during the Texas Tech game, Coach Gundy chose to replace his quarterback with another man, hoping to improve their results. (It obviously worked, by the way. OSU won 49-45 after an amazing comeback in the second half.) 

Also, at some point prior to the Texas Tech game, the 21 year old quarterback who was eventually replaced was visibly upset after a particularly bad loss, and at some point, maybe his mother fed him chicken. Jenni Carlson then put in her Saturday column that he had been replaced because he had no grit, and she sited the chicken feeding and the crying. The ex quarterback’s mother then took the article to Coach Gundy who became enraged. Soon after, during his weekly press conference, rather than talking about the amazing win over Texas Tech, Gundy went on a tyrade against the article, the author and the media in general. Since then, the radio and television media has gone nuts for the story. And, now, the mother is suing Ms. Carlson and the Oklahoman, saying she did not feed her son chicken (as ludicrous as that sounds). Now, you’re almost caught up.

Here’s Coach Gundy’s lecture to finish the story:

First, let me say that I respect Gundy for what he said and for the way he said it. The media edited what he said to show him in the worst light possible, but if you watch it in its entirety, as I have it here, you’ll see that he was calm during most of his talk. (If you want to see how badly it was edited, check out the YouTube video from Good Morning America.) True, there were times when he raised his voice, but that’s just coach speak.  He’s a passionate man, Stoops is a passionate man, Switzer is a passionate man — any good coach is. That’s how they rally teams and win games.  He also can’t be faulted for having his player’s back. It makes me respect him even more to know that he would get that upset about a personal attack on a player by the media.

The interesting thing about this entire episode, though, is the blatant polarization among the coaches, the media and the fans. Never have I seen an issue galvanize the media against someone the way this one has.  The talk radio pundits have vilified Gundy, resorting to ad hominem attacks against him. The television sports news has played the edited version of the press conference over and over, all the while making subtle digs at Gundy. Even more interestingly, only Good Morning America’s Diane Sawyer saw through all the hype to see the serious question, “What does this say about amateur athletics and the media?” 

The answer is that the media is made up of hungry, man-eating sharks who will do anything for a story. Thanks to the popularity of tabloid television, they have become so zealous in the past 20 years that yellow journalism is no longer saved for the tabloids alone but instead permiates the “serious news.” Because of that, their coverage of amateur athletics has become more rabid than ever before.

I knew this already, but the thing that really surprised me was how viscious the opinion pundits were about the whole deal. I haven’t heard a single one of them say a nice thing about Gundy, and all of them defend Carlson. All of them. What are the odds?

As for the fans and other coaches, I haven’t heard one of them say that they weren’t on Gundy’s side in this matter.  I have heard a few say they thought Gundy was right but went too far, but all of these people had only seen the news stations’ edited version, and after seeing the entire unedited press conference, changed their minds. Even Coach Stoops, in his weekly press conference, refered to Ms. Carlson as “the drive-by media,” which puts her with the dregs of journalism.

Such polarization makes one wonder why. Why was this incedent such a big deal that it made national news? Here’s a hint: Gundy was attacking a member of the media, and the fourth estate didn’t like it and attempted to slam him down. Luckily for Gundy, those of us who aren’t members of the media have his back.

As for Carlson, maybe it’s time for her to start giving her opinions on high school sports. Then she can scar players during their formative years and kill two birds with one stone. Sounds like a career right down her alley.

Disclaimer: As an OU alumnus, Maggy is a fan of OSU whenever they aren’t playing OU. She also beleives that both Cale and Mike Gundy are fine gentlemen, terrific football players and just all around great guys.

Stumble It!

There.  I said it.

I can’t stand Rush Limbaugh.

The funny thing is that I didn’t realize how long I’ve felt that way about him until recently when I was remembering my first computer nastalgically. (It was one of those “When I was a kid, we had computers that didn’t even have hard drives!” conversations with someone younger than me; okay?)

Anyway…while telling my story, I remembered the first time I hosed a computer.  It was a Mac Performa — the nifty high tech version of the Mac that came out a few years after the all-in-one Mac Classic.  The Performa had a separate monitor that was 15 inches and a 2600 baud modem.  I thought it was smokin’.  Within a few days, I was on AOL, which only had 50,000 members at the time. 

I immediately began looking for ways to modify my computer in cool ways on AOL’s technical forums. One of the first things I found that I wanted was a file that would change my regedit file so that my trash can would look like Rush Limbaugh.  Unfortunately for me, I edited the wrong file and hosed the entire system.  The next time I tried to reboot, I got that little sad face floppy disc that said, “You’re screwed.” Luckily, back then, computers and AOL were such that you could just insert the AOL disk in your floppy drive and boot up from it.  I went into AOL’s technical help chat room, and the guide there walked me through fixing my system. (She and I became great friends; but that’s a story for another day.)

That was 1991 or so. That’s how long I’ve loathed Rush Limbaugh. Sixteen years.

Fast forward to 2007, and I’m a fan of talk radio.  I listen to FM 1000 every day, which means that Rush is on my radio during my lunch hour.  Yes, I could change it to another station, but listening to Rush is like watching a train wreck. I can’t take my ears off of him.

In doing so, I’m constantly amazed at the ridiculous comments he makes.  Frankly, I don’t know why he’s become so successful unless it’s because half the audience is made up of idiots who believe what he says simply because he says it in a confident and forceful way while the other half is made up of intelligent people waiting to see what inane comment he’ll make next. The truth is, Rush Limbaugh does not know how to make a cogent argument. Instead, he makes illogical connections and uses ad hominem attacks. There’s nothing else in his arsenal. The cubbard is bare.

Case in point, a man called into his show today who said he was a republican who was also an ex G.I.  The caller believed we should get out of Iraq and was attempting to talk to Rush about it. Because the man disagreed with Rush’s viewpoints, instead of answering his questions, Rush began talking over him, yelling that he couldn’t possibly be a republican and then implying that he was lying about having been in the military.  He couldn’t discuss the man’s points, because he couldn’t think fast enough or he’s not smart enough — I don’t know which — so he resorted to attacking him personally. And that, in a nutshell, is the way he handles all discussions.

Add to that, his narcissistic behavior, and you’ve got a recipe for bad commentary.  If the persona he has on the radio is the real him, I believe the man needs psychological help. He makes comments like, “This is just more proof that, when I have spoken on a subject, there is nothing left to say.”  And folks, he believes it.  He believes that the world revolves around him, that he is the be all and end all of human civilization, and for that reason, I believe he’s a dangerous man.

If you have the opportunity sometime, just listen to a couple of his shows.  I guarantee you’ll feel like you’re in the presence of a sociopath.  Frankly, I don’t know why I listen to him; I feel I need a shower afterward. He makes me ill.

I hope that one of these days, he’ll decide he’s had enough pontificating and puffing out his chest and get off the airwaves. Until then, his circus show will stay on the air. The stations that run him are enjoying the money they make while we laugh at him.

I think I’ll sign off now and look for a way to turn my trash can into Rush’s head again. I have 16 years of technical know-how under my belt now, and I think I can do it easily. It’ll feel so good emptying out his bloated head at the end of every day.

Stumble It!