Angry Letters from Paradise

I gotta ask, because, no one, in the history of Attorney General-dom has ever been either so evil and/or so incredibly stupid. I watched him try to turn a Right, into a question mark. He clearly doesn't understand what the Constitution is, or how laws are written.

Hey, Alberto, let me make it really fucking simple for you: The Constitution is a contract between those who are accepting a form of government, and those who are performing in the governmental roles. Allow me to remind you of the Declaration that led to the the current Constitution,
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

You see, you Neocon guys and all this repressive shit that you're creating...you can be fired. You don't get to decide our Rights, We do. Go ahead, keep pushing, try to incarcerate a few more US citizens without recognising their Right to Habeas Corpus. If there's any Justice left in the world, you'll be charged with Treason, denied Habeas Corpus as a terrorist, and disappeared for the rest of your unnatural life. If Americans still have half a testicle among the 300 million of them, they'll rise up in the streets, and drag you dirty bastards out of the White House, and toss you all into the Potomac.

When a law is written PROHIBITING GOVERNMENT from suspending a Right, people who have an IQ over 90, usually understand that to mean that the Right exists (it's self-evident). So that bit about "Freedom of the Press shall not be abridged..." That means that Government is PROHIBITED from reducing in scope the Freedom of the Press" Freedom is Freedom and it can't be limited by government, got it?

So, once again for the impaired Mr. Gonzales, GOVERNMENT IS PROHIBITED FROM ANY ATTEMPTS TO LIMIT THE RIGHT OF HABEAS CORPUS, PERIOD. Now, tell us...who did you have to suck off to get
1) your B.A?
2) into law school
3) through each class
4) into any job which required an understanding of the law
5) your current position (if other than Karl Rove)

High School kids know the Constitution better than the Attorney General.

Labels: Civil Rights, Habeus Corpus, Stupidity

I was reading the news yesterday and today, wondering if in years to come, people will stop naming their baby boys, "George" just like they stopped naming them Adolf since the 40's. That aside, I was concerned about how the quest for power and a single political unity is not limited to nations who don't speak English as their national language, if you catch my drift. I hate the idea of a single world polity/culture. It would be like eating an iceberg lettuce "salad."

There's an art to a good salad, and when it works, man there's nothing better! Every good salad has a base, preferably with a bit of variety. I'll use the salad I made for dinner tonight as my example. The base was a big handful of mesclun salad which included a bit of iceberg some chicory, arugula, bibb etc. Next I added shaved carrots. I like to shave the carrot partially because I like the way the dressing clings to it and really spreads it around when I toss the mixture at the end. I work off the "a little bit of dressing and a whole lot of tossing" method. It takes a bit of attention and work to make sure that everyone gets their share of the goodies.

After that, I needed a bit of zip, so I added rings of baby red and yellow capsicum. They were sweet with just the barest edge of warmth. Next I added some chopped spring onion, a bit of arrogance, but not an overwhelming amount. Just enough, say, to assert itself without being aggressive. Call it a "British" portion. And what would a salad be without juicy red bits? I added a few plump, vine-ripened, baby tomatoes cut into quarters. The last flourish was a soupcon of chopped celery ('cause a little goes a long way), followed by cucumber quarters. A bit of shaved Kapiti parmesano, and some Baltic, er... balsamic vinaigrette, and I was ready for the protein. In this case, it was about two ounces of sundried tomato and garlic tuna.

Now you have to make salad in a bowl that looks way too big. That's because you have to have room to toss things around without losing any of the mixture. You must toss the ingredients. Stirring damages the delicate vegetables. They have to be gently lifted and mixed, so that that end result is; that every mouthful contains a variety of textures and a blend of flavours which wouldn't be nearly as good all by themselves.

I'll leave my Fruit Salad posting for another day.

I'm not bored at work anymore. I'm not even slightly unhappy with my job. How about that? How many people get to write those words and mean it? This is my one lifelong bonus, that I never have to stay bored in a job for long. Someone always figures out that I should be doing better things with my time and their money. When I was hiring people, I was the kind of person that made my day. The one that we'd call "a live one." Being a live one means that you never have to worry about being employed, and never have to be bored to death for more than six months in any job. It also means that sometimes, you get promoted into a job where you have to not only hit the ground running, but keep running and running and running. This is one of those jobs.

I was never a Contracts Manager before this, but it suits me. I started college as a pre-law major before shifting to something different at my father's suggestion. Back then, I wanted to be a criminal defence attorney. This, is nice. No one's life hangs in the balance, but millions of dollars do. So, there's enough pressure to keep me on my toes, but not enough to make me break out in psoriasis from scalp to ankles.

It suits my personality as well. For the most part, I get to be nice and cooperative and helpful. I consider my clients to be the programme managers who ask me what our contractual obligations are, and who rely on me to smooth the path for distribution of our product around the world. That's 85% of the work, really, just making sure all the "i's" are dotted and "t's" crossed, so that nothing is slowed down. The other 15% suits me as well. That's when I get to be a bitch, and no one would even consider putting me down for it. When I am advocating a position for the company, I am absolutely cold hearted. It's the letter of the contract, not the spirit. If I think that we're right, I will never give up. If I think that the other party is trying to screw us, I will become a junkyard dog. I love the taste of blood first thing in the morning!

What's been fun for me, is to see just the slightest change in attitude around the place. Instead of feeling like we're battling to stay even, I see a sense that we as a group, might be feeling like we're kicking ass. The other day, one of the programme managers came to my desk to have me check something and when I was done, he declared that he wasn't going to back down when it came to protesting some invoices that he doesn't think we should have to pay. I swear six weeks ago, he never would have done this. I said, "The taste of blood is a little addictive, ain't it, Bubba?" He just grinned at me. Who'd have ever thought that a middle-aged woman would be empowering managerial males?

Just before he left the company, one of the beanies that I really liked said, "Don't let them get you down...don't lose your smile." I said, "That'll never happen, Dude. I don't stop smiling, others start. I drive the bus, and everyone else gets on board."

Pretty soon I expect to have them all dancing in the fire, along with me.

Dear D,
You never realise (even after reading Lederer and Burdick) just how ugly Americans can be until you leave America for a few years. A few months won't do it. You actually have to bond with the new place, see it through local eyes before the scales fall from your eyes.

I work for a medium sized company in NZ. We were so good at beating out our American competition in our field that they bought us. Don't blame us, blame the shortsighted Kiwi bloke who sold out for big $$. That being the situtation, means that now, our head office is thousands of miles away. Now, in America, if you're in say, California, and the head office is in Phoenix, that's no big deal. Everyone treats each other like collegues and even though there may be some bitching in the branches about high-handedness, it's nothing like what happens when a US company buys a company in another country.

Honest to Dobbs, I think these guys back in the States have a mental picture of us running around barefooted in grass skirts and coconut bras...or maybe they think all of us have moku and a human flesh sandwich in our lunchbag. Whatever it is, it pisses me off. Stop with the condescention mutherfuckers, it's not pretty. I've spent the last week to and fro-ing with one of the most arrogant assholes I've had to deal with in a long time. He's about to get his comeuppance again.

The first time was earlier in the week when he wrote me another nasty e-mail demanding something that he claimed to have ordered from us, but which I know wasn't. See...I'm in charge of that area as well as the sending out of quotations, and the signing and control of all our contracts. So, when this guy starts bitching to me about a quote being too high, and demanding parts as of yesterday. I grabbed him by the short hairs and shook. He pulled that antique crapola about "What is the price in US dollars, we don't pay in NZ dollars..." I said, "Per the directive of ________(CEO) you DO pay in NZ dollars." What I should have added was, "Don't they give you idiots calculators so that you can figure out an exchange rate? Hell, we do it all the time here, with about ten different rates." The thing is, he wasn't being stupid, he was being ethnocentric...he never even thought of figuring out the exchange rate on his own, because in his mind, any currency aside from US currency is not really money. That's where the ugly lies.

Now, I'm about to get ugly. This guy is supposed to be a "senior technical purchaser" but didn't even realise that he'd confused three different parts. He's probably never even seen the product that they are a part of . Unfortunately for him, he thought he wanted a part that was going to cost US$7. ea., but now that we know what he really wants, he's going to discover, that what he really needs is going to cost him around US$84. ea. I can almost feel his pain from here...but not quite.

So, here I sit, a savage native, typing away at 100 wpm between drags on my fine Cuban cigar (totally legal here) in my architecturally designed home, meters away from the South Pacific Ocean that surrounds my wee island. I'm so angry that I may be forced to visit the local village, and have one of our native beverages; cappucino, or maybe I'll just fire up the smoke signal device on my cellphone and have them delivered.

Dear R,

It's amazing how much less you're willing to settle for when you're a grandparent, in terms of sheer entertainment value. Or perhaps I should say, that one's threshold of entertainment increases with age until grandchildren are born, and then it almost immediately returns to the original level once again.

For example: Crystal Mountain. It's a little mineral museum with a huge gift shop, a cafe, and about ten acres of pastureland that's been turned into a petting zoo/ train ride. When I was five, it would have been wonderful. I would have been happy feeding and petting the animals, riding the train, and eating in a cafe. The gift shop would have overwhelmed me, and bungy trampoline was a far distant invention that I probably would have adored, just as my grandson did.

When I was 25, I would have passed it on the road and said, "hmmm, bet they have a good selection of polished rocks in there..." It would have never even attracted me, much less held my attention. Today, however, with Joshua in tow, it captivated me for a good three hours. I spent a lot of money there. I ended up buying Joshie a leopardine dalmation about 4" long and 3" high. I got his mother a pair of lapis lazuli earings, and I got myself a couple of new eggs for my collection. One is soapstone and the other is some pretty purple stone that I didn't pay attention to the name of, but it's not amethyst. I also got a bag of sand for Joshie to pan in their little mining area. He diligently shook his strainer in the water and found 7 pretty polished stones in his bag of sand. As is his nature, he generously gave me one.

We rode the little train around the ten acre paddock at a walking pace. We petted bunnies in the bunny barn, and fed the pig, the goats and the donkey some alfalfa mixed with sunflower seeds. I scratched the pig's back and he waggled his piggy tail in pleasure, so I slapped him on the bacon a couple of times like a dog, and he was just as happy as...well, a pig in shit, frankly. We had lunch in the cafe...actually the boys had lunch and I had a piece of chocolate cake and a coffee. We watched Josh bounce on the bungy tramp. It's kinda like a big Jolly Jumper. It only took him a couple of minutes to get the hang of it, and then he bounced to exhaustion.

But the fun was not quite over. This weekend is Pacifica; a celebration of all things Islander. Western Springs Park is completely taken over by various Island groups and sorted into little villages. You can wander from Tokaroa to Samoa to Tahiti in just a few minutes. Each area has homemade local food, crafts, and other items for sale. I was trying to be good after having breakfast out and then cake for lunch so I resisted the stalls of Fijian barbeque, and pudding and coconut milk in the shell, and watermelon, and Samoan chowmein, and pork buns, and fresh donuts and so on. It was torture. When we left at just about 4:15, I was wearing my Tahitian orchid headdress, and some Samoan beads. We ran into an old workmate, Bjorn on the way out and he told me I looked like a Pacific Queen. He's going to heaven for that.

There were a few Island goddessess in the huge crowds, and a number of aging Queens/Divas who are more impressive as they age than when they were silly young girls. But, sadly, far and away, most of the girls and women were packed into their clothes, and the clothing sizes were not small to medium. Lest you think that the men were any different, please do not. Between the coconut milk, the donuts and the chowmein, that place was multiple heart attacks looking for enough space to fall down in.

My headdress is currently sitting in some water in the kitchen sink and my beads are hanging in my bedroom. My feet are sore, my grandson is over-tired, but thankfully back home to throw the tantrums rather than here. I'm going to eat something light, watch a bit of brainless television and sleep the sleep of the righteous, for I have done well by my grandchild today, and I have walked off any chocolate cake that ever lived. It's time for a cuppa.

Love,
Tarla

Dear J,

I was coming home from work yesterday and honestly, it's a wonder that I didn't have three accidents and/or kill someone. Kiwis are the nicest people you'd ever want to meet until they get behind the wheel of a car. Then they become arrogant assholes of the first order. Honestly, they seem to believe that they are the only real car on the road and that everyone else is just a spectral vision that they can pass through.

I don't necessarily mind being cut off by another driver, if they pick up some speed. But when you change lanes in front of me, leaving no stopping space for me, and therefore forcing me to slow down and increase the distance between us, you're an asshole. If you're going to cut me off, at least speed the hell up! Here's the thing, no one signals. I almost want to hand out awards to the few golden souls who actually know what that little handle on the steering column is for. I feel like a schmuck driving by the rules, being courteous to other drivers. They never seem to do the same for me when I need to be someplace in a hurry.

And last but certainly not least, bus drivers; unbelieveably rude! They above all believe that they own the road and that other drivers have to stop and wait for them when they want to pull back out into traffic. They don't even bother to check. They do signal, I'll give them that, but for them, the signal is not an indicator so much as it is a warning. God help you if you're half way past the bus when the driver wants to pull out! Nine times out of ten, they'll just start pulling into the lane whether you're there or not, edging you towards the centre as you pass. Then, when they stop for drop off and pick up, in order to sort of save their places in traffic, they'll angle the bus with the ass-end in the lane so that no one can pass if there's any traffic going in the opposite direction. I hate Auckland bus drivers.

Yesterday, I was plagued with being cut-off by an idiot who slowed down to 70kph on the bridge and then never sped up again, and being stuck behind a bus angled into the lane so that no one could pass his ass, and being cut-off again by another bus, and then, just when I thought I was safe, I started to turn onto my own street from the roundabout at the top of the hill and this kid, about ten years old, is riding his bike and honestly turned it right in front of me. Fortunately, I was only going about 20 kph because of the roundabout, but I yelled , "Very Dangerous!" at him as he pulled past my bumper. He scared the living shit out of me. I hope I did the same to him.

So, as much as I love New Zealand, it's a challenge driving here. It's always like a live-action driving test: are you alert enough and quick enough to deal with just about every driving irritation that can be thrown at you? How fast are your reaction times? Can you deal with people treating lines in the road as "suggestions" rather than rules? If you answered "No" to any of the questions, then don't drive here. Get a taxi, have a friend drive you, but save your heart and head and leave the driving to those who are nimble, yet frustrated, assertive yet courteous, and above all, not packing heat.