The Hilarities of the Job Hunt

As I may have mentioned recently, I am in the middle of a half-hearted job hunt. Well, quarter-hearted.

At any rate, many of the job postings are quite hilarious.

One job wants a specialist in literature of "the Restaration period." Um, you mean the RestOration? Now, I am no great speller, but I think that the chair of an ENGLISH department might be able to get all the words in a job posting right.

There's a job in the Upper East Side that pays $38,000 a year. Which, I don't exaggerate, will not cover rent in the smallest, crappiest studio apartment on the Upper East Side.

Some of the job posting are just funny because one can't imagine who could possible fill them: "We are looking for someone who can teach the theory of drama from Aristotle to Ibsen; who can contribute to our departmental conversation on post-colonialism, queer theory, and the genalogies of modernity; subspecialty in either medievalism or 18th century trans-atlanticism preferable."

But the one that I found most striking said, in the place that most postings affirm that they are equal opportunity employers (or sometimes that they aren't: that they give priority to Catholics or whatever), this one said that they hire based on the principle of "impartial love."

Impartial love? Isn't that what singles bars are for?

No, wait. That's impersonal love.

It turns out that this institution was one of the first co-educated colleges in the country and was the first integrated college in the South. Which makes it harder to laugh at what seems like a very strange commitment to "impersonal love."

Harder, but not impossible.

Better Wake Up and Smell the Real Flavor, 'Cause the Congressional Hearing's a Fake Lifesaver

Can you believe it?? Congress is holding hearing on hip-hop lyrics. Again. Did I wake up in 1986?

I have a little message for the putatively Democratic congress who was given the majority in the off-term elections because Americans were sick of the situation in Iraq. Here's my message:

There's a Goddamned War Going On!!!!!


Seriously, this is just nuts. I know that I've blogged about this before, but honest to Pete, I just can't get over the stupidity of EVERYONE involved in this nonsense. The conservatives are acting like fear-mongering demagogues. Liberals are refusing to have a backbone. And Master P? Dude, don't apologize.

Just walk away. That's the only appropriate response to these hearings. Get up and walk the fuck away. It isn't Congress' job to police lyrics (and we'll just leave aside for the moment the fact that heavy metal has just as many sexist, racist, and homophobic lyrics as rap, but the old white dudes in Congress don't feel as threatened by Axl Rose as they do by Easy E. Or, you know, someone who isn't dead).

"Bitch." "Ho." Yeah, I don't like those words. They are not nice. They are damaging, they really are. But you know what?

There's a Goddamned War Going On!!!!!!

Does calling women bitches promote violence toward women? Maybe. Does war promote violence toward, you know, EVERYONE? It sure does.

And you want to protect women? Maybe you should get cracking on that health care thing. Or include domestic violence in your "protection of the unborn" legislation. The leading cause of death for pregnant women? Is murder.

Murder, not rap lyrics.

Ok, I promise to stop ranting now.

Why I'm Mad at the Southern Poverty Law Center, or How I Became Slacktivist of the Year

No, it's not because I hate poor Southern lawyers.

It's their targeted fundraising. They seem to have targeted me as a douchebag.

Every six months or so I get a letter from SPLC saying something like this (and I am not exaggerating):

Dear Mr. Feemus,
We are erecting a Wall of Heroes in Birmingham, Alabama and would like to honor you there for your ongoing bravery and commitment to protecting civil rights. We have a stone tile with your name on it; for an additional donation of $35 we will proudly place your name next to other heroes of the war for Social Justice.

Sincerely,
Rosa Parks

Honestly--they get people like Rosa Parks (or at least her rubber signature stamp) to tell a bunch of checkbook liberals that they are "heroes." This letter makes it sounds as though the recipient chained himself to the prison doors to prevent Yusef Salaam and Antron McCray from being falsely imprisoned.

I'm hoping that Gabriel Byrne will play me in the movie.

Seriously--I find this icky. It has actually made me quit giving money to them, hoping that I will get fewer of these embarrassing letters. And I never gave that much to begin with.

But it makes me wonder what kind of an asshole gets this letter and thinks, "Yeah, I AM a hero. I bet that fifty bucks I gave totally solved all the problems in this country. That took some real courage on my part."

Hell, Wall of Heroes--where's my freakin' Nobel????

It's quite savvy in its own squicky way, playing on middle-class guilt or white guilt or whatever other kind of guilt will let people be misled into this kind of astonishing self-aggrandizement.

And it is astonishing how quickly white guilt can seamlessly translate into white self-congratulation.

But the effects of this strategy are more than just off-putting, they are actually deleterious. We don't need monuments, we need work.

They should send letters saying:

Dear Mr. Feemus,
I bet you feel pretty good about that miserable little check you sent last year that scarcely covered the administrative costs of cashing it. I bet you think you're pretty darned swell. Well, why don't you get off your self-satisfied ass an DO something. For a change.

Sincerely,
Rosa Parks

p.s. And clean out the garage while you're at it, you lazybones.

So, I was looking for the actual letter so that I could quote it's outrageousness to you all, but I couldn't find it. BUT just as I was about ready to post this, I got an email from the Human Rights Campaign (another organization, which focuses on gay rights, to which I occasionally give a few bucks) and they wrote to tell me that the Matthew Shepherd Act passed. The email said: "Your commitment was inspiring."

I guess I'll have to cross the HRC off the donation list. I can't stomach it.

It's really just revolting.

You Want Me to Buy What?

If you're like me, you get a little creeped out by the notion of targeted advertising.

If you have Gmail, you know just what I mean. Gmai scans one's mail for keywords and then puts up ad banners that relate (in however strange a way) to these words. For instance, if I get an email that contains the phrase "Yankees suck," it will be attended by, say, ads for Louisville Sluggers and Hoovers. It's unsettling.

Then there's the guy who's designing billboards that will change their message depending on what station a car has its radio tuned to. That's just nuts.

We're not just plugged in. They're plugged into us.

Advertising has developed smart bombs, need-seeking missiles designed to activate our own private commodity fetishism.

It makes me wonder, all those emails I get about Megadik and off-brand Viagra: Do they know something I don't? Have there been complaints??? LADIES?

We're surveilled, we're hacked-into. The Ministry of Propaganda for the corporate fascists is no longer just constructing reality, it's constructing tailor-made realities, reflecting and recreating individualized inadequacies that can never be remedied but may be temporarily slaked by purchase after purchase after purchase after....

Christ, Feemus--you're getting kinda paranoid.

Well, I do sometimes get a little on edge about these things. Which is why there was something reassuring this week about getting TWO phone calls from someone trying to sell me a new windshield and a letter in the mail trying to get me to switch my auto insurance.

I haven't owned a car since 2002. It's rather comforting to know that I still have a few secrets.

I think this post started off as a rant against some letter I got from the Southern Poverty Law Fund. I don't know where I went off topic.