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shadowkatMassage went beautifully. (In case you missed it - I went for a shiatsu massage today to work out the pain in my hip and back.) It went so well, that I scheduled another in two weeks. It's too expensive to do it every week. But I need to do a few more - to work out the tension in these muscels.
The therapist asked me if I'd had any stressful events in my life recently. Yes, I said, a lot of employment upheaval. Which anyone who has been reading my lj since 2003 most likely knows about. In the past three years, I've had four different jobs in four different industries, the only thing they all had in common was the title: Contract Administrator. Two of them lay-offs, one a temporary assignment that I wisely left. Outside of that, na da. Prior to that? 23 months without any job. Prior to that two years of serial bullying from an insane passive-aggressive, misogynistic, borderline sociopath, alcholic who'd fallen off the wagon and decided to take out all his suppressed rage on me. I've no idea why. I think in retrospect I probably said or did something that pissed him off. Did not help, that one of my closest friends at the time decided to support him in his efforts (he was her boss too) in order to protect her own job. She's still there and doing quite well, apparently. Yes, we've stayed friends, even though I know she'd stab her own mother in the back if it meant getting a promotion. As long as we never work together again, and I only see her intermittently, it will be fine and dandy. So, I guess it makes sense that I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to the workplace. As long as I'm wickedly busy - life is good. The moment things start to slow down and I start to get bored enough to want to surf the net - I begin to panic, because that's what happened in all the other gigs.
Anywho... for now, all is well with my job. Not talking about it too much because afraid to jinx it like I did with all the other ones. Gun-shy, you know.
Regarding the election? The year is reminding me more and more of 1968. Spoke with my Dad on the phone tonight - who told me that he had a speaker at his world affairs club recently, this guy was apparently a former member of the UN or something like that. At any rate, the speaker parrelled all the events of 1968 with 2008. In 1968 - General Westmoreland came forward and told the assembly that there was a light at the end of the tunnel in VietNam and it looked like they were going to win, this was about three months before the TeT Defensive (sp?), or that huge bloody massacre that killed thousands of soliders. Same thing is happening now. Also in 1968 - the Democratic National Convention was violatile, they didn't have a clear candidate from the primaries and had to bring out the superdelegates. My father was a precint captain for Eugene McCarthy who was running against Humphrey (Lyndon Johnson's VP) and George McGovern (who my father says was a lot like John Edwards in his campaign strategy and political views). McCarthy brought Bobby Kennedy into the works, but Kennedy got shot shortly after Martin Luthor King or shortly before.
My parents were living in Chicago at the time, in the epi-center of the riots. Over the phone my father told me about a riot that he witnessed in Chicago - it involved three groups of people - protestors, Mayor Daly's cops, and a group of movie goers exiting a nearby theater. He told me that I could read about the riot in a book he wrote and gave me some time ago - Beach Walk - which he self-published on 1stBooks.com. Here's the passage that my father wrote - it's told in third person and from the point of view of a fictional character in the book:
He was three blocks north of the Conrad Hilton Hotel when he heard the massive screams accompanied by the sound of feet pounding the pavement like a dull pulsating drum roll. He watched in horror as the police with nightsticks filed out of the buses and in rows of two, three and four charged straight into the crowd. The confused and mixed mass of protestors surged northward toward Charlie and collided with a part of the crowd that had just left the State Street Theater. The dull rapping of the nightsticks on human heads, the screaming of the innocent moviegoers and the raucous cursing of the police all merged in Charlie's consciousness. He had never seen street violence. Police gone beserk terrified him. He yelled, 'This is America.' at the top of his lungs.
A new wave of the blue-helmeted mob carried riot guns, gas masks and nightsticks. Some carried shotguns. They systematically clubbed their way through the crowd and continued to batter the young people after they had fallen. Many wouldn't stop clubbing until the young person got up and ran. Those arrested were those caught in the tangle of police and protesters. Most were escaping, but with bloody heads or tear gas filled lungs.
According to my Dad, they were heavily involved at the time. They were also involved in the prior elections, although not as closely. Mom gave me the history lesson - stating in the one before 1968 - it was Lyndon Johnson vs. Barry Goldwater - people voted Johnson, because they feared Goldwater would keep them in the war at the time, Johnson they thought was less likely to. Later in 1972, it was George McGovern against Nixon, and we all know what happened there. Watergate. Dad told me that McCarthy brought in Bobby Kennedy after MCarthy drove out Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 election, then Bobby got killed and McCarthy got defeated by Humphrey who had more delegates. Bobby was a lot like Obama - he had that same level of charisma, people reacted to Bobby the same way people react to Obama online and often said the Kennedy cult or the cult of Kennedy. There were folks who hated Bobby because they found him smarmy. My father relates a story about going to a woman's house while campaigning for McCarthy and almost having the door slamned in his face because she thought he was campaigning for Kennedy. Martin Luthor King had similar problems - which is why both men got killed. They were almost too charismatic. I see some of the same reactions on my flist - people have written negative posts about Obama that you could literally substitute King or Kennedy's names in and they'd still ring true - in a really creepy way. King got into all sorts of trouble for his interactions with Malcolm X - who was the Louis Farrakan and Jeremiah Wright of his generation. Same deal with Clinton - I could substitute Lyndon Johnson's name in some of those posts and it would be like reading a history book.
Other frightening parrelles to 1968 that you may not be aware of - according to my father, the economy had dipped dramatically, we were on the verge of a major recession, which in fact became a horrid inflation under Nixon, Ford and Carter. Carter got blamed for it. But it really was in the works in 1968. The war had nearly bankrupt the US. The World was highly critical of the Vietnam War - a War that the French had ironically warned the US, much like they did this one, not to get involved in. And, the country was having peace riots all over the place.
It was in short a volatile year, not unlike this one. With protests. Economic fears. And an government that a lot of people wanted to see kicked out.
What makes 2008 interesting is that instead of McGovern, Nixon and Humphries - we have a female Lyndon Johnson, a Barry Goldwater, and a black Robert Kennedy. If it weren't for Obama, we'd have John Edwards as the stand in for George McGovern or at the very least John Kerry (actually Kerry's record and campaign strategies are much closer). McGovern in 1972-73 ran an anti-war crusade against Nixon that many people think is similar to Obama, except both Clinton and Obama are running it against McCain, who is acting more like Goldwater and Theodore Roosevelt than Nixon. Shame, of the three, I think I may prefer Nixon - who began diplomatic talks with China, got us out of Nam, and started the EPA. Granted he was a crook, but so were Regan, Bush, and Bush, Jr. Nixon was just the only one who got caught. Or have you forgotten Iran Contra? And let's not forget Bush's lie about the Weapons of Mass Destruction again - ironically in Iraq? Hmmm, since Carter's Iran Hostage Crisis and least we forget, President Jimmy Carter's response to the Soviet Union over Afghanistan - which was later resolved by Charlie Wilson during Ronald Reagan's presidency which in turn opened the doors to the Taliban and Al-Quedia - our recent history has basically been all about skirmishes with Iran and Iraq. Looking back on the whole deal, the Soviet Union doesn't seem all that bad in retrospect - a historical mislead. It was our interactions with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan that got us into so much trouble.
History is fun? Isn't it? Also somewhat aggravating, when you think of all the stupid things we could have avoided.
[ETA:I Finally found it! I was beginning to think I dreamt watching this movie, actually sort of hoped I'd dreamt watching it.
When I was a teenager way back in the 1980s, in 1981, alone in my house, I watched a rather cheesy documentary hosted by Orson Wells that I'd forgotten all about until 2001, dismissing it out of hand, until it came flooding back to me. Why? Well... a couple of interesting things:
In the documentary it said that sometime in the late 1990s maybe the millenium, they couldn't pin-point it - a King of Terror would raise up in the Middle East and declare war. The Towers would burn. The Son of a President would fight back and declare war on a middle eastern country as a result causing a world war or some sort of war. During this period of economic upheaval and unrest - there would be all sorts of natural calamities, earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, hurricanes, and natural disasters, then at the end of 26 years, there would be a thousand years of peace and prosperity.
Now, this was shown in 1981. At the time, I thought, no way on earth we'll have a son of the a President declare war, Reagan had no sons, and I didn't envision Bush becoming President nor did I know about his son. Nor did anyone else. Probably just a coincidence, but still creepy as all get out.
Go here - to see what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Saw_Tomorrow]
The therapist asked me if I'd had any stressful events in my life recently. Yes, I said, a lot of employment upheaval. Which anyone who has been reading my lj since 2003 most likely knows about. In the past three years, I've had four different jobs in four different industries, the only thing they all had in common was the title: Contract Administrator. Two of them lay-offs, one a temporary assignment that I wisely left. Outside of that, na da. Prior to that? 23 months without any job. Prior to that two years of serial bullying from an insane passive-aggressive, misogynistic, borderline sociopath, alcholic who'd fallen off the wagon and decided to take out all his suppressed rage on me. I've no idea why. I think in retrospect I probably said or did something that pissed him off. Did not help, that one of my closest friends at the time decided to support him in his efforts (he was her boss too) in order to protect her own job. She's still there and doing quite well, apparently. Yes, we've stayed friends, even though I know she'd stab her own mother in the back if it meant getting a promotion. As long as we never work together again, and I only see her intermittently, it will be fine and dandy. So, I guess it makes sense that I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to the workplace. As long as I'm wickedly busy - life is good. The moment things start to slow down and I start to get bored enough to want to surf the net - I begin to panic, because that's what happened in all the other gigs.
Anywho... for now, all is well with my job. Not talking about it too much because afraid to jinx it like I did with all the other ones. Gun-shy, you know.
Regarding the election? The year is reminding me more and more of 1968. Spoke with my Dad on the phone tonight - who told me that he had a speaker at his world affairs club recently, this guy was apparently a former member of the UN or something like that. At any rate, the speaker parrelled all the events of 1968 with 2008. In 1968 - General Westmoreland came forward and told the assembly that there was a light at the end of the tunnel in VietNam and it looked like they were going to win, this was about three months before the TeT Defensive (sp?), or that huge bloody massacre that killed thousands of soliders. Same thing is happening now. Also in 1968 - the Democratic National Convention was violatile, they didn't have a clear candidate from the primaries and had to bring out the superdelegates. My father was a precint captain for Eugene McCarthy who was running against Humphrey (Lyndon Johnson's VP) and George McGovern (who my father says was a lot like John Edwards in his campaign strategy and political views). McCarthy brought Bobby Kennedy into the works, but Kennedy got shot shortly after Martin Luthor King or shortly before.
My parents were living in Chicago at the time, in the epi-center of the riots. Over the phone my father told me about a riot that he witnessed in Chicago - it involved three groups of people - protestors, Mayor Daly's cops, and a group of movie goers exiting a nearby theater. He told me that I could read about the riot in a book he wrote and gave me some time ago - Beach Walk - which he self-published on 1stBooks.com. Here's the passage that my father wrote - it's told in third person and from the point of view of a fictional character in the book:
He was three blocks north of the Conrad Hilton Hotel when he heard the massive screams accompanied by the sound of feet pounding the pavement like a dull pulsating drum roll. He watched in horror as the police with nightsticks filed out of the buses and in rows of two, three and four charged straight into the crowd. The confused and mixed mass of protestors surged northward toward Charlie and collided with a part of the crowd that had just left the State Street Theater. The dull rapping of the nightsticks on human heads, the screaming of the innocent moviegoers and the raucous cursing of the police all merged in Charlie's consciousness. He had never seen street violence. Police gone beserk terrified him. He yelled, 'This is America.' at the top of his lungs.
A new wave of the blue-helmeted mob carried riot guns, gas masks and nightsticks. Some carried shotguns. They systematically clubbed their way through the crowd and continued to batter the young people after they had fallen. Many wouldn't stop clubbing until the young person got up and ran. Those arrested were those caught in the tangle of police and protesters. Most were escaping, but with bloody heads or tear gas filled lungs.
According to my Dad, they were heavily involved at the time. They were also involved in the prior elections, although not as closely. Mom gave me the history lesson - stating in the one before 1968 - it was Lyndon Johnson vs. Barry Goldwater - people voted Johnson, because they feared Goldwater would keep them in the war at the time, Johnson they thought was less likely to. Later in 1972, it was George McGovern against Nixon, and we all know what happened there. Watergate. Dad told me that McCarthy brought in Bobby Kennedy after MCarthy drove out Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 election, then Bobby got killed and McCarthy got defeated by Humphrey who had more delegates. Bobby was a lot like Obama - he had that same level of charisma, people reacted to Bobby the same way people react to Obama online and often said the Kennedy cult or the cult of Kennedy. There were folks who hated Bobby because they found him smarmy. My father relates a story about going to a woman's house while campaigning for McCarthy and almost having the door slamned in his face because she thought he was campaigning for Kennedy. Martin Luthor King had similar problems - which is why both men got killed. They were almost too charismatic. I see some of the same reactions on my flist - people have written negative posts about Obama that you could literally substitute King or Kennedy's names in and they'd still ring true - in a really creepy way. King got into all sorts of trouble for his interactions with Malcolm X - who was the Louis Farrakan and Jeremiah Wright of his generation. Same deal with Clinton - I could substitute Lyndon Johnson's name in some of those posts and it would be like reading a history book.
Other frightening parrelles to 1968 that you may not be aware of - according to my father, the economy had dipped dramatically, we were on the verge of a major recession, which in fact became a horrid inflation under Nixon, Ford and Carter. Carter got blamed for it. But it really was in the works in 1968. The war had nearly bankrupt the US. The World was highly critical of the Vietnam War - a War that the French had ironically warned the US, much like they did this one, not to get involved in. And, the country was having peace riots all over the place.
It was in short a volatile year, not unlike this one. With protests. Economic fears. And an government that a lot of people wanted to see kicked out.
What makes 2008 interesting is that instead of McGovern, Nixon and Humphries - we have a female Lyndon Johnson, a Barry Goldwater, and a black Robert Kennedy. If it weren't for Obama, we'd have John Edwards as the stand in for George McGovern or at the very least John Kerry (actually Kerry's record and campaign strategies are much closer). McGovern in 1972-73 ran an anti-war crusade against Nixon that many people think is similar to Obama, except both Clinton and Obama are running it against McCain, who is acting more like Goldwater and Theodore Roosevelt than Nixon. Shame, of the three, I think I may prefer Nixon - who began diplomatic talks with China, got us out of Nam, and started the EPA. Granted he was a crook, but so were Regan, Bush, and Bush, Jr. Nixon was just the only one who got caught. Or have you forgotten Iran Contra? And let's not forget Bush's lie about the Weapons of Mass Destruction again - ironically in Iraq? Hmmm, since Carter's Iran Hostage Crisis and least we forget, President Jimmy Carter's response to the Soviet Union over Afghanistan - which was later resolved by Charlie Wilson during Ronald Reagan's presidency which in turn opened the doors to the Taliban and Al-Quedia - our recent history has basically been all about skirmishes with Iran and Iraq. Looking back on the whole deal, the Soviet Union doesn't seem all that bad in retrospect - a historical mislead. It was our interactions with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan that got us into so much trouble.
History is fun? Isn't it? Also somewhat aggravating, when you think of all the stupid things we could have avoided.
[ETA:I Finally found it! I was beginning to think I dreamt watching this movie, actually sort of hoped I'd dreamt watching it.
When I was a teenager way back in the 1980s, in 1981, alone in my house, I watched a rather cheesy documentary hosted by Orson Wells that I'd forgotten all about until 2001, dismissing it out of hand, until it came flooding back to me. Why? Well... a couple of interesting things:
In the documentary it said that sometime in the late 1990s maybe the millenium, they couldn't pin-point it - a King of Terror would raise up in the Middle East and declare war. The Towers would burn. The Son of a President would fight back and declare war on a middle eastern country as a result causing a world war or some sort of war. During this period of economic upheaval and unrest - there would be all sorts of natural calamities, earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, hurricanes, and natural disasters, then at the end of 26 years, there would be a thousand years of peace and prosperity.
Now, this was shown in 1981. At the time, I thought, no way on earth we'll have a son of the a President declare war, Reagan had no sons, and I didn't envision Bush becoming President nor did I know about his son. Nor did anyone else. Probably just a coincidence, but still creepy as all get out.
Go here - to see what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Saw_Tomorrow]