One might say that this year we have an inordinately appropriate pair of largely ignored January holidays. Today is Martin Luther King day, and tomorrow Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th president. This morning PZ Myers posted excerpts from Kings Letters from a Birminagham Jail, plus links to…
I am a recruiter, or if you prefer, a headhunter. As I joke on my Linkedin profile, I don't get too wrapped up in titles. I find and deliver specific talent to companies. In essence, I sell people to other people to pay my mortgage. While I make an important distinction between finding people jobs and finding talent for companies (disclosure: the companies pay my fees), I think a recruiter's unique perspective can inform and assist folks looking for new opportunities. When people ask me what I do for work, I joke that I gamble for a living, but it is closer to the truth to say I constantly search for ways to maximize the odds of my own success, and so should every job seeker. Searches I take on are often contingency searches, which means I only get paid when I present the winning candidate and the company successfully hires them,so I am careful where I spend my time. This is one of the first things I want to share with folks looking for a job: The person you contact matters, the way you make contact matters, and your presentation matters. Lots of layoffs are taking place, and the first reaction is often panic, fear, and gloom. One might feel like wallpapering every available surface with a resume and cover letter, but honestly that isn't going to help.
The obsession the Right has had for lo these many years with people's sexuality has received a final "gift" from the Bush Administration. This is like grade school stuff. It's classic "If we don't tell them about it, they won't want it" thinking. Many on the Right feel everyone should have the freedom to own weapons. They think, implicitly, everyone is capable of proper usage of guns and that just because a certain number of individuals clearly intend to use them to the detriment of others, that that is no excuse to keep them out of the hands of everyone else. They are supportive of education in proper use of firearms. So why the different attitude toward sex? I expect this question never to be answered in such a way as to be persuasive to those who think sex is something that ought to be left in the gutter and in the closet, who think that teenagers ought not be told about it in the vain hope that they won't use it, but I am so utterly and profoundly tired of this infantile crap.
Do you think that you're getting a neutral perspective of the Israeli occupation of Gaza when you rely on the U.S. media? Think again. Ask yourself this simple question: Where can you get a carefully-documented viewpoint that you would have if you were a resident of Gaza? The Media Education…
I watched a good portion of Bush's last press conference and couldn't help thinking it was an audition for the part of a recovering junkie recently fallen off the wagon. It wasn't the words so much as the body language and facial expressions that held my attention. Surreal? Hasn't the…