Promises

Promises.

via M. Simon's Power and Control.

AWNAA

Mea Culpa

The following article appeared originally in The Onion, June 24, 1998 | Issue 33•24.

I received it without attribution in a many-times forwarded email and committed the error of posting it here without checking on its history. I apologize to The Onion for inadvertently ripping off their rich satire. To any of you to whom it may have resonated as reality, I commiserate. "I feel your pain.*"

linearthinker, January 12, 2010

*William Jefferson Clinton (See, nik? I've learned my lesson well.)

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WASHINGTON , DC - Congress is considering sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.


"Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said California Senator Barbara Boxer. "We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing."



California Senator Barbara Boxer
[Photo via Gerard Vanderleun's American Digest]


In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of Persons of Inability.


Private-sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement "warehouse" stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has a great record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%).


Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million "middle man" positions will be created, with important- sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.


Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given, to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle-management positions,and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.


Finally, the AWNA Act contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Non-abled. For example, it bans discriminatory interview questions such as "Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?"


"As a Non-abled person, I can't be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them," said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, due to her lack of any discernible job skills. "This new law should really help people like me."


With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.


Said President Obama: "As the President With No Abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as members of the government to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation."


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Art imitates life...

Flight Patterns

Flight Patterns


By JONATHAN ROSEN
European starlings have a way of appearing in unexpected places — the United States, for example, where they are not native but owe their origin to a brief reference in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part 1.” In 1890, a drug manufacturer who wanted every bird found in Shakespeare to live in America released 60 starlings in Central Park. After spending a few years nesting modestly under the eaves of the American Museum of Natural History, they went from a poetic fancy to a menacing majority; there are now upward of 200 million birds across North America, where they thrive at the expense of other cavity nesters like bluebirds and woodpeckers, eat an abundance of grain — as well as harmful insects — and occasionally bring down airplanes.





In Europe, where the birds are native — Mozart had a pet starling that could sing a few bars of his piano concerto in G major — they still have the power to turn heads. Each fall and winter, vast flocks gather in Rome. They spend the day foraging in the surrounding countryside but return each evening to roost. (Rachel Carson, author of “Silent Spring,” called the birds reverse commuters.) They put on breathtaking aerial displays above the city, banking in nervous unison, responding like a school of fish to each tremor inside the group.

The birds are beloved by tourists and reviled by locals — understandably, since the droppings cover cars and streets, causing accidents and general disgust. A flock of starlings is euphoniously called a “murmuration,” but there is nothing poetic about their appetites. Their ability to focus both eyes on a single object — binocular vision — allows them to peck up stationary seeds as well as insects on the move. In the countryside outside Rome, they feast on olives. Like us, the birds are enormously adaptable but what we admire in ourselves we often abhor in our neighbors.

...

http://www.richardbarnes.net/murmurtext.html





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When I was fifteen I was hospitalized for quite a while, first in isolation while they figured out what was wrong, and then in a private recovery room. The days were tolerable, but the evenings depressing. Each sunset an enormous flock of starlings darkened the sky.

Dusk near the winter solstice is the most depressing of times for me.


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The diagnosis was viral encephalitis.

I had a nightmare while in the hospital. I dreamed I had 6 webbed toes on each foot.

I also fell in love with my nurse, something I've never disclosed before.