The Managerial "Ham Sandwich"

I received this in response to a comment I posted on someone's Fbook page.

Mr. Konopak, I sincerely respect your formidable intellect. I always read your posts when I am on Facebook, and very often your comments. You, as well as a notable couple of your friends on this social media site, are, I think, (and your grossness aside,) the most brilliant people, especially in political matters, that one could possibly ever have the good fortune to know. But when you go out of your way to so rudely correct anyone who disagrees with you it seems like a kind of verbal bullying. And I disagree, but would do so in a civil manner. I simply think we can accomplish more, in an exchange of ideas that way. And for me, that is what FB is about. I think your relentless cynicism is again and again a defense of the current state and a the very reason things do not change. Cynicism, like anger, seems to me to be a form of cowardice. (As does attacking people online, as you can not face-to-face, which is why it is so prevalent,) And I have a right to my opinion, whether you like it or not. But no matter what you say to me, I will still post whatever I like, Bernie Sanders and others. (At least he is out there doing something, not just sitting at a computer, popping off a shot at every head that sticks up.) I have been threatened with beating, by someone who could easily find me and do so, on this site for my political views, and I am still here. So if you disagree with me, fine, but I hope you use your intellect, and not a viscous attempt at force. Lord knows, I am not in your league intellectually. Would that I were.

I replied:

^^^Whatever...I have never treated you disrespectfully, that I know of. if I have, or you have taken offense, I apologize. As to my cynicism, I am a 69-year-old veteran of BOTH the US military and the counter-culture. I have paid ALL my dues, and if by doing so I have lost most respect for "ordinary" people, it is both unfair and dishonest to label me a coward. I have faced the police, I have face the bared bayonets of the National Guard, I've been to war. When your CV contains those details, I shall acknowledge your right to describe me so disrespectfully.

As it was her page, I politely refrained from my normal profanity. The first message is, however, a textbook sample of the 'ham sandwich" approach to employee discipline. It's in the books; handbooks and shit.... It is. No, really, I've seen it... First you butter up the mark, flatter 'em. Then you drop the hammer. Then you end with a little more flattery and some self-disparagement: "that hurt me more than it did you." Was it good for you, too?

"Communications"and business majors write like that...

My Little Town: Still-life, circa 1970

Image courtesy of "Old Santa Fe"an, Tomas Mas...

My Home Town: Santa Fe, circa 1955.

The view is westward, down San Francisco Street. The story goes (not in this film) that the man who killed Trotsky, Ramon Mercader, prepared for the deed in a room he rented above the pharmacy, visible in the foreground.
http://www.ibtimes.com/forgotten-assassin-ramon-mercader-man-who-murdered-leon-trotsky-1091298

My Neck o'the Woods, circa 1940...

My Grand-parents' Santa Fe and environs...

M-M-My G-G-Generation

"We" as in the "Boomers?"  "We trampled...tanked and trashed," it all, you mean?

Woody sez: Fuck you!~

Boomers--born 1945-61--were the ones lucky enough to have been "born at the right time." And it's true: Nobody else--no other cohort in history--has had access to all the material advantages, opportunities, technological devices, scientific advances, economic developments, etc., in which we were whelped, weaned and grew to adulthood.

But it's not like "we" wasted "our" opportunities. And if we squandered resources, it was because, at least in part, because no one knew ANY BETTER...

It was sheer luck to have been born then. I claim no inherent value nor virtue from it. But neither to I accept "blame" for  my good fortune. I think I have contributed in proportion to my bounty.

The system into which we were born was there before us, and it will survive us, if possibly only for a handful of decades. Both "Second Nature" AND "First nature" were more fragile than they looked. But if yer lookin' to heap PERSONAL responsibility on me for the accident of my birth: BITE ME!

Re, Boomer's' contributions: Apart from the trans-generational struggle of the black community for civil rights, Boomers--the student/counter-culture movement of the 60s and 70s-- were the ONLY cohort in the last 70 years to mount a coherent, albeit somewhat disjointed, national, cultural movement FOR peace, justice, and equality.

So, yeah. BITE ME!

Talez from the Santa Zone

The last year Yer Ol' Perfeser did the "Santa" gig--two? three years ago?--it was at one of those ticket-fired 'fun&food' joints, like an in-door midway with "games of skill" (now electronified) without the carneys but with card-board pizza. (Those goddam machines just suck the fucking money outta people's pockets.)
 Lots of loud noise and flashing lights. Like a casino, without the booze. But it paid $100 for a three-hour shift, three days a week for a couple of weeks, which is serious weed money.
So I was (natural-beard) Santa, the most demanded kind.
That last year, some obnoxious kid crawled up on my lap and said he wanted a gun to kill his little brother. I told him Santa thought he was a psycho, and I sent his parents a note about it... That was the end of my interest in that avatar. I sold my red suit, to my brother, and kept the beard.

A Local Icon and Landmark for Centuries.

Image by Michael Wagner.
Subject: Camel Rock
Location: Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico
Date: Nov. 30, 2014

Yeah, we really DO have skies like that. Not EVERY night, but regularly. One never tires of it.