Becoming Desperately Creative

I have re-framed my job hunt as not just looking for a job per se, but looking to create income for myself, of which a job is simply one method. This way I can think outside the box and find a new key to my success. Sadly, my new philosophy is yielding nada and as I observe the world, public notoriety seems like the way to go. I am thinking of thrusting my husband out there doing one of his crazy moves or coming up with something equally egregious to rustle up some petty fame. Then, we can capitalize on that and write a book.

It doesn't take much to manufacture fame these days. Basically, the more outrageous, the greater the opportunity to monetize that five minutes of fame. The commoditization of fame continues and it is down to about five minutes, from the high of 15. Why? Because the 24 hour news cycle is voracious; subjects are devoured and spit out in between commercial breaks. A story has to be good if it is to be repeated all day. If the story does not warrant enough outrage then it is dropped. Conversely, if the story is too outrageous it is also summarily dismissed. Whatever the fine line of fame, any worthwhile proceeds must be swiftly acted upon.

Perhaps all of these factors are what is driving HarperCollins to move up publication of Sarah Palin's book from next Spring to this November; rolling out 1,500,000 copies. As sure as Tom DeLay is shaking his fanny on Dancing with the Stars, this book will sell out its first print. This is the type of base entertainment that appeals to the masses (though they might not actually read it). And, the publisher cannot take the chance that those same masses will lose the fame trail by next spring. After all, she is losing news.

Were I to deliberately write something inflammatory, enough to go viral, I might have a shot at some income. For if I don't find a job to create some income, I may truly have to become desperately creative.

Thank You Mr. Safire

Four evenings a week I assume my pose. I set up in the den, with my husband's laptop, I pick one of my crime dramas on Tivo, my husband calls them my d & d (death and dismemberment) shows, I throw some clothes in the washer as the laundry room is conveniently located right off the den and I sit down to write my post. But, before I write a single word, I do my research, scanning dozens of news sites and the like for inspiration. For me, a post is not a knock off but a writing exercise. It has always been about practice. I am hoping that through sheer diligence I can become a better writer. To that end, I frequently hit the books; dictionary, thesaurus and sometimes grammar. We simply do not learn enough grammar. Nevertheless, it was nice to know that the quest for words and meaning was well worth the effort.

William Safire reminded us of that every week in his column On Language, in the New York Times Magazine. As our foremost language dilettante and champion of the English language, he made the language more accessible. Many people may not know who he was and his death yesterday may not raise many eyebrows, but, for us who have an interest in words, his enjoyment of the language, his diligent research into the origin and structure of modern English terms and the ease in which he was able to convey this knowledge will be missed. In these days of email, texting, twittering, and instant messaging, it is easy to forget how to write properly. Thankfully, we had Mr. Safire to inspire us to construct a better sentence and/or concoct a better phrase and for this, we are truly grateful. Thank you Mr. Safire.

Too Much Information?

I have written nothing, absolutely nothing today. There are so many issues in the world I cannot even begin to write. Maybe I should take some time off and ponder it all. Is there anyone who can really follow all of the news? Should we even bother to continue?

My husband told me recently that he attended a business meeting where one of the participants recounted that he did not follow the news; it was all doom and gloom and nothing good came out of tuning into it these days. His business was doing fine and that was really all that was important. We were shocked that someone would be so willing to bury his head in the sand especially a businessman on Long Island. Why would someone be so willing to let themselves be ignorant of the current data with respect to understanding the current business climate and planning for the future? We wondered how long he could successfully continue to live in a vacuum.

My husband and I are consumers of news, we do our research because we believe that the more we know, the better the decisions we will make. Judging by the results, this is debatable. Nevertheless, as the stream of negative news continues, it does make you wonder whether sand-guy has a point. Still, I would rather know too much than too little, even if knowing too much sometimes makes me wish I knew very little.

The News That Surrounds Me

With all of the news that surrounds most of us, it is easy to understand why Americans are 6 in 10 against the bailout of the auto companies. It is hard to emphasize with the UAW when the realities of your own situation pale in comparison to their privileged world:

There are rumors that my husband's company is ready to do a significant layoff next week. It is a large company but it has significant debt that creates an almost permanent negative impact on the books; there are always quarterly losses prompting quarterly layoffs over the last few years. The rumors are usually true since the layoffs have become more regular now, the corporate culture is one of uncertainty, about people holding onto their jobs for a paycheck until they are the next to go; no one expects a week without upheaval. There is no union preventing people from being laid-off at-will or exacting the promise of a paycheck even if the work dries up. Most employees now work at their own risk, the propects of a similar job for similar pay are slim since the industry has been suffering a downturn since 2001 from which it has never really recovered.

The other major aspect is that management has changed little, with the layoffs coming bottom up, not top down. Unfortunately, this scenario gets compounded by the fact that management usually has the most management experience even if they have done a terrible job. If you listen to the logic of most companies, they have to preserve bonuses and other perks to keep their managers from absconding; how can they run without experienced managers? Unfortunately, many of these managers may be the very same people who ran the company into the ground in the first place. It is clear that my husband's company has been badly run for some time but those people are not getting rid of themselves anytime soon.

My husband is grateful that he has a job and receiving a decent paycheck for his hard work and so am I. Hopefully he will survive the next round but we still could tighten our belts even further and save even more money just in case. I double-checked with my benefits representative that if he loses his job and we lose our health benefits that I qualify to sign us all up for the health benefit at my job; I am currently waiving mine since both of our plans cost about the same and there is no reason to upset the cart, for now.

Since I have only been at my job for 3 months, I simply have no comfort zone at all. I don't think I will ever settle in since the job trimmings continue despite the assurance after the layoffs last month that we were the crew going forward, in fact the executive who told us that is no longer with the company having been terminated last week.

September 11

September 11 needs no distraction from me. I watched MSNBC this morning as it ran its newsreel of the event synced in real time. A friend of mine said “isn’t it a little macabre for them to be doing that?” and I said, “don’t you remember? 9-11-2001 never forget?” I think it was entirely appropriate to relive 9-11 because it helped us keep the promise; my husband and I ruminated on how that fateful morning unfolded for us 7 years ago. He was fortunate to work from home today relieving him of his usual 4 hr commute into Manhattan, a commute that he had made that day 7 years ago that turned into a 12 hr journey home. Today’s broadcast brought back the emotion of every minute.

For us, the most deeply rooted sentiment was that this day was business as usual, people going to work like we did everyday, ordinary people who work in office buildings, checking their email and reviewing their tasks for the day, abiding by the strict work ethic...that could have been us. At the time we both worked for a company that had clients in the building, on any given day he could have been there, but that day the only people who survived were the people who didn’t get to work on time, just that one day.

Brain Drain

Long Island is suffering from a brain drain, and I'm not talking about the thousands of young people 24-39 who are forced to leave each year because of the high cost of living here or that employers are concerned about the future of the Long Island economy without this vital pool of talent. I am talking about my brain when I read the news.

Maybe it is just me but I can't seem to get enough information in any one Long Island publication to satisfy my brain. Yes there is island-wide coverage provided by Newsday and News 12 but their news gathering is dominated by shallow sensationalist stories that do not adequately feed an inquiring mind. Maybe, I am asking too much. Maybe Long Islanders do not really require much depth in their news coverage and I am just barking up the wrong tree.

Maybe it is just a case of Long Island being so localized, so carved up into so many pieces; villages, towns, school districts, taxing districts and special districts that it is impossible to do a broad coverage of news. Don't get me wrong, each of these tiny pieces has its own local publications. Today I read the Long Island Business News, The Long Island Press, the Long Island Advance, The Smithtown News, The Long-Islander, The East Hampton Star and a host of other little dailies looking for information. Because of the sheer volume of teeny tiny weeklies, I have to limit myself to Suffolk county publications because I reside here. For those of us in Suffolk, Nassau county is a whole other planet. Enough said.

Maybe I am just complaining because of the sheer amount of publications I have to troll through just to get all the news and information that I crave. I wish there was an easier way.

Are We Really “A Nation of Whiners?”

In an interview with the Washington Times, Phil Gramm, a former Texas senator who is now vice chairman of the giant Swiss Bank, UBS and John McCain’s top economic advisor, made the following comments:

"Misery sells newspapers," Mr. Gramm said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices...we may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline…despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.”

Let me try to understand these comments. Phil Gramm after all, has a Ph.D in Economics and was a professor of economics for 12 years so he is an expert. As you know, I keep asking if things are really as bad as they seem since I can’t get a good read on the economic and financial reports that are regularly published by the government and the think tanks. I can’t get a good read from the stock market because it is making such huge swings these days I have whiplash. I can’t get a good read because I can’t find enough published dialogue among the middle class on Long Island that gives me a good measure of how people are managing financially. I can’t get a good read since I really do not know that many people and have no relatives here so I don’t have enough first-hand knowledge besides the few grumblings here and there.

It is true the numbers don’t point exactly to recession but we do not know the integrity of those numbers though they do indicate that the economy is scraping bottom. It is also true that recessions cannot be defined until the economy is already in one. It is also true that foreign exports have been our saving grace though no one states overtly that the declining dollar makes American goods a bargain overseas. it is also true that my town is now behind on completing its final tax rolls ordinarily due July 1^st and that they are “nowhere near done” per a representative from the Assessors office because so many residents have petitioned to reduce their property taxes, myself included as you know.

Perhaps Dr. Gramm having been a Senator for 17 years and serving on the Senate Banking Committee and having left office in 2002 and now vice chairman of a Swiss Bank may not realize that he makes a ton of money not working for an American company. That money and his connections make it difficult for him to feel any financial pain in this economy. After all, there is another truth the numbers show, the rich got richer, the middle class got squeezed and the poor got poorer.

Rumor on the street has it that taxpayers may have to come to the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the quasi-government mortgage finance companies, because their billions in losses may affect their ability to continue to purchase mortgages in the secondary market (from commercial lenders). Together they finance trillions in domestic mortgages by selling mortgage-backed bonds to investors, mostly foreign institutions and governments. Since the American government and the taxpayers are already trillions in debt, the money to bail out Freddie and Fannie will have to come from the sale of even more treasury bonds also sold to investors, mostly foreign institutions and governments. I suppose we should ask Dr. Gramm, the economics professor, what he thinks about that.

Suffering Life: Suffolk Life Newspapers Closing After 46 Years

I have not been out on Long Island long enough to experience the heyday of Suffolk Life. But, I have been here long enough to appreciate the wealth of information that I gained from reading it, every single issue since I moved here.

I always read the "letters to the editor" to gauge community reaction to news and events unique to Suffolk County. And I definitely read Wilmotts and Why Nots to see what “Mr. David” had to say. I didn’t always agree but I admired his spunk. He reminded me a little of a Lou Dobbs type figure, a fist-thumping champion of his cause. It was pretty clear that he held the well-being of Suffolk County near and dear.

I realize now that I took for granted its arrival every Wednesday without fail, never absent, never late. I know there are other local papers out there but they are town or village specific. No other paper, not even Newsday covered the scope of Suffolk County to the extent of Suffolk Life. It will be sorely missed.

The Day Journalism lost an Original: Tim Russert dead at 58

Today I have very little to say because I am stunned by the sudden death of Tim Russert. Tim Russert is one of my favorite journalists; intelligent, unbiased, unrelenting but fair. My husband and I grew up with Ted Koppel, Peter Jennings, and Bill Moyers to name a few. We like our journalism the old fashioned way; doing your own homework, asking the tough questions and never taking sides. It is hard to see that these days. My Sundays with Meet the Press will never be the same and I absolutely cannot imagine the presidential election season without him.

Farewell Tim. We will miss you!