Friday Five, Status

[elfs]

At the moment, what is your favorite...

...song?

It's either Yoko Kanno's Inner Universe or Her Space Holiday's The Young Machines

...food?

Grapefruit and Bagels!

...tv show?

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto

...scent?

Freshly laundered sheets.

...quote?

"If you're so smart, why aren't you naked?"

---

Well, today has been productive. In work barely two hours already and several major bugs have died ignominious deaths under my capable hands. That whole bit recently about how sleep is a necessity for creativity and problem solving is completely true; I put in 11 hours at the office yesterday and I could not for the life of me figure out why a list of files kept growing, repeating, every time a command was passed through the control module. I woke up this morning with the answer fresh in my head: I was forgetting to clear the filename accumulator. Set, did I feel dumb.

And I would like to thank ambar and lucky_otter for pointing me at David Allen's website and corresponding book, Getting Things Done. I was impressed with two things. First, he dismisses the Covey method: "Focusing on values and roles will only add to the complexity of your task. They are important, but not for the everyday business of getting things done."

The second is that he was brutally honest and forthright: "Every week, I have 60 projects and 70 maybe-projects in my to do list." I've never seen that kind of confession before; most of the "productivity gurus" try to keep "life's bullet points" down to something that can fit on a powerpoint slide; Allen admits up front that reality doesn't work like that. I'm looking forward to the rest of his technique. I've been sputtering along with the Franklin/Covey method for years and never felt that it was quite working. Now I think I know why.

---

Oh great. Just freakin' great. Theodore Darymple is moving to France. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it. If you know who Theodore Darymple is, then you know it's serious. Theo has been commenting about the dissolution of British culture for several years now; apparently, he's had enough.

And this'll make you squirm harder: The President's Council on Bioethics has released its report, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, which among other things advises us that we'll live fuller, happier lives knowing that ultimately we all suffer and die. Hmm.. is that a syllogism-- the more we suffer and fear death, the fuller and happier our lives will be? Enjoy your fate, suffering brings you dignity. Here, read some Tolstoy. You'll be depressed afterwards, but you'll be a better human being for it.

At least, that's Leon Kass's assessment. Horrible life and safety must be held at bay by every means necessary.

One of the charter groups for the president's "Alliance for Marriage" is now being investigated for relations with terrorists. Birds of a feather...

And a Belgian cardinal has stated "democracy" is "a laugh." "The right to vote, what is that all about? I find it strange that a snot-nosed 18-year-old has the same vote as a father of seven. One has no responsibilities whatsoever, the other provides tomorrow's citizens." He has also stated that only 10% of gay people are "really homosexual and dealing with a terrible affliction," the rest are just perverts getting their jollies. But brothels are okay: "If a man thinks he needs sex or is going to explode, it is better to find a prostitute than seduce or rape a girl. At least there are no innocent victims involved."

Comments

Re: .......

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

You are certainly free to disagree, dominic. However, the numbers are against you here: There are more cashiers who are female, but male cashiers get paid more than the women do, on average. There are more female nurses than male nurses, but on average, the males get paid more. We are talking about the number of dollars earned by gender, not by number of workers by gender. As for demand, it may very well be that women counselors and therapists may be more sought out, but they are still paid less than the males in their professions. Has it occured to you that women counselors may be in higher demand than men because they charge less than men do?

A. Wench

Re: .......

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

hey hey hey no need to get hostile here.and i was ONLY talking about the counseler positions.not cashier and the like.(might wanna re-read the end of my last post).not tryin to be rude.sorry truly if i am.just trying to make my point.i stated that i MAY be wrong also.like earlier stated neither of us have the facts right now just our differing opinions.and i did factor in the fact that women counselers "may" be cheaper and therefore more desireable in that way.but thats just a possibility.no need to be mean.just simple differing opinions.and you wanna know why modeling and stripping or whatever pay so muc...SO MANY MEN! we cant help there is so damn many of us.ok.Nor can we help that alot of us tend to be perverts(not in the good way stated above ::wink wink:: ) and like to demoralize women in these ways.but here is another sad story.when a woman goes terribly broke and has no other choices there is disgusting choice of selling your body for cash,on the other hand men have no choice,im not sying that we should by any means(yecky) but a man has only the option of getting a real job or starve.also till we get some kind of government sanctioned population control then we will continue to have annoying shit like this.there is no other way around it. finally to settle....until we have facts on this lets just "agree to disagree". I aidly agree with you on everything else but in this case i "may" just "may" be correct.(therefore its not in my nature to drop it until im proven horribly wrong which may or may not happen.)till next time....got to go to work.

Re: .......

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Dominic,

I am not feeling hostile--please don't make assumptions about my feelings.

Your point seems to be that counselors who are women get paid more than male counselors, is this true?

The reason I brought up cashiers and nurses is to show that your reasoning is incorrect. You said that it's reasonable to assume that because there are more female counselors they are automatically getting paid more. That simply isn't so. Cashiers, nurses, teachers, all have a high ratio of women to men, and still the men get paid more.

I am not being mean. I am not being hostile. I am stating facts.

I'll be happy to research statistics regarding pay inequity by gender if you are willing to find out the average pay of counselors by genders.

As for reasons for prostitution, there are many. Not all of them involve women being broke. It's a highpaying job with some prestige if one is a high paid call girl as opposed to a streetwalker. Also remember that pimps are the ones who set the prices, and they are usually male.

Modeling is pretty obvious--again, women are valued for their looks, and that industry is incredibly demanding.

Frankly, considering what sort of conditions prostitutes and models have to put up with, I'd say they are "real jobs".

Have a good day at work, dominic.

A. Wench.

Re: .......

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

you couldent have left it at that.i attempted to close this "debate" on a friendly and calm tone. now its not so "calm". im not angry just frustrated.whatever.im dropping this because its becoming extremly passive-agressive and just frustrating the hell outta me.i got better things to argue about than the inequitys of underpaid female professions.i shared my views and sympathies and theorys why this is so.and even a far fetched idea on how to solve it.and the reason I shot down your mentioning of cashiers/nurses and the like is because the whole "female counselor" is a customer preffered thing.not in which with nurses/cashiers.i cant say i give a flyin fiddley what gender my cashier or nurse is. like i said earlier the reeason i "suspect" female counselors are paid more than their male counterparts are because the general public prefers them in general.i even accepted your thoughts on the fact that female councelors may be more "preffered" is because they are cheaper and thus paid less.whatever. thats all i have to say for now.sorry im ranting and the like.i apoligize because what most of this writing is passive agressive itself.but its what i wrote on the spur of the moment.(you can tell by the consistant misspells on most of my postings).ok seriously im not angry in any way any more.just needed to vent.bad day....take care now.excuse my pretty unprovoked meaness.but try and take some of my point to heart....at least give it a second thought.

Re: .......

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

ok probably shouldent have posted that.....now i look like an ass.maybe i was.hell i was,no maybe involved. my apologise everyone who has been reading my mindless dribble about this.i am frustrated much to quickly for my own good.my apologys all.its been a hard day and i got an unwelcome road trip tomorrow for two days.just in a bad mood guys n gals.hope yall dont hate me cause o' my constantly testy atitude.i definatly should start editing my posts before i actually "post" them......