I thank you for reading and most especially for commenting. It motivates me to keep on writing/posting.
Do you have an office cubicle job? I do. I work for a government agency. Been 11 years now! Well, 9 really if you count all the time I've taken off! LOLOL! I tells ya what: when I first started there it was really great. Maybe I was in the honeymoon phase? The place was managed pretty effectively and the employees really seemed to do their best and get the job done. But something has happened here. Forget my mood or work ethic going down. The hard economic times has been a boom for our office--swamped with plenty of work but everyone is losing it and really trying to do the best they can under the increasing stressful circumstances. I get that there are decent workers in there fighting the good fight. But they keep hiring more people and we're running out of space! And not all the new hires are competent or efficient ! And some of the old employees are still there just taking up space because they have seniority! GOOD LORD MAN! Just because someone shows up every day to work and on time does not make them a stellar employee. I mean, you actually have to work and produce right?! But I often see people sitting at their desks doing absolutely nothing but surfing the web, or reading books, or just plain gossiping the whole day away! 
Mexican author Carlos Fuentes is dead. He was one of the world's great writers and intellectuals. He was 83 years old and succumbed to a sudden stomach hemorrhage. There are tons and tons of articles on his passing Tuesday afternoon. I can't even begin to link them all here, but his death has deeply saddened me and many all over the world. I watched this 5-part series years ago on PBS called The Buried Mirror which Carlos hosted, and he was marvelous. It is based on a book/essay he wrote originally in Spanish (El espejo enterrado) where he discusses Spain and the conquest of Latin America. Very very interesting and enlightening stuff. If you can read the book or watch the series, I urge you to! It's a great historical account/perspective on why the region is the way it is now. Carlos was a well-traveled man and was the son of Mexican diplomats. He grew up and lived everywhere and his English was impeccable! A true renaissance figure with fascinating insights on his beloved Mexico; his last years alive were spent discussing his fear and concern for the increasing drug violence there. Carlos was married twice and had a daughter with his first wife who survives him. He suffered personal tragedy losing his two children from his second wife. His son died of leukemia and his daughter of a drug overdose I believe--both before the age of 30. Nevertheless, he kept on writing and traveling, always enriching his mind and us with his fabulous lectures and writings. His most famous novels are Aura, The Death of Artemio Cruz, and Old Gringo which was made into an American film starring Jane Fonda and Gregory Peck He never won the Nobel Prize which he so richly deserved, but Hitchcock never got an Oscar either--the world is a dumber place now that he's gone, but better for having given us this incredible man and his immortal words in print. RIP sir.
¡ VIVA CARLOS ! WATCH THIS:
2 comments:
this is what happens when protected classes have no fear of losing their jobs. my non-union, private-sector ass could be fired tomorrow, with no pension--and sayonara, healthcare. such a condition of employment tends to motivate and focus humans in a most effective way (not to mention encourage saving for the future), and should be universal throughout the working world.
and it's not capitalism you're seeing go bye-bye, wat--we haven't had true capitalism in this country for nearly 100 years. it's oligarchic fascism that's doing us in, and "capitalism" is being blamed.
carlos fuentes is one of those guys i've always meant to read, but have never gotten around to. thanks for the links.
what ever happened to ron livingston?
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