Caution:  Foul Language And A Dead Fish

University of California President Janet Napolitano appeared on Tavis Smiley's PBS program last night touting UC's efforts to recruit and even seek out minority applicants for admission to both student and professional positions since the passage of the Proposition 209 in 1996, a ballot initiative that established racial diversity in state run schools, agencies and among state government contractors. 

Oh please. Not again. See, what Dr. Napolitano and other well intentioned ninnies mean by diversity mainly refers to black applicants, as were the kids shown in Dr. Napolitano's video clips during the Smiley broadcast.  Hispanics were included as a seeming afterthought.  As for white kids?  Pfft. They were shown as exclusionary frat rats.

Dr. Naplitiano sure as hell wasn't referring to Asian kids, who already comprise about 40% of the undergrads at Berkeley and UCLA, and whose numbers are legion in all of California's universities and colleges. 

Prop 209 was not really intended to foster racial inclusion and “level the playing field” as its disingenuous supporters claimed. It was nothing more than sanctioned prejudice in the name of slavery compensation.  

I was goddamned tired of the misnamed Affirmative Action nonsense long before I was passed over for hiring and promotion because, as I was told by the chief of staff to Jerry Brown during the weird bastard's first gubenatorial incarnation: “You're a white male.” On another occasion I was asked by a middle-aged female personnel officer when I called about my interview results, “You're the older Caucasian man we talked to, right? Well, we'll keep your application on file in case we need you.” Gee, thanks.

Another time I was told by a nervous barely 20-something Asian female: “You're overqualified.” I guessed the poor kid had been sent out to talk to me by her boss who was too cowardly to give me the bad news herself once she saw me through the office window, even though that boss and I spoken on the phone the night before. She'd said she looked forward to meeting in person, but instead sent this Asian kid who had not even seen my resume.  The poor girl looked so uncomfortable that I sympathized with her. “Look, I know someone put you up to this. So let's make the best of it.  You go have a nice cup of chai tea and I'll quietly open a vein in the men's room.” She almost cracked a smile.

Finding a job these days can be discriminatory hell. Just fill out a printed job application anywhere. There's always a tear off section for the applicant to check off his/her ethnic background. I suppose this is intended as evidence an employer can use if challenged by the Affirmative Action ISIS when bidding on a government contract.  If you don't fill it out someone will fill it out for you, or mark you down as an unemployable troublemaker and all around smartass who probably does weird shit in secret, like read books or listen to classical music, and who should be medicated up to his antisocial eyeballs and locked in a padded cell  -- but not hired.  Ever.

Thing is, I have just enough Native American in my familial wood pile to count, but it's not my primary genetic heritage and my advanced age tends to cancel it out.  I know, I know, age discrimination is illegal in hiring, but proving it takes more time and legal hassles than I can afford.  Anyway, going where you're not wanted is not a good career move.

Look, I'm a commie socialist pinko knee jerk liberal and life-long Democrat of Medicare age who wants to tax everyone to the tits so politically enlightened local governments can declare eminent domain over every goddamn golf course in America and replace them with subsidized housing for unwed crack whore mothers, especially those gated communities occupied by annoying old farts who tool around in golf carts and complain a lot.

But goddamnit, Dr. Napolitano, your university affirmative action program is nothing more than bigotry dressed in a graduation gown with a mortarboard hat.

Worse yet, thinking like yours is just the kind of well-meant social justice bullshit that's given rise to the right wing basket of deplorables who believe that a blow-dried serial bankrupt with the family values of Caligula is presidential material. 

Seems that we liberals have awakend the hungover sleeping giants among the loudmouthed yahoos who let an OxyContin addicted gasbag with a radio show and a skinny blonde shrew of a right wing author do what little thinking they do for them. And the bastards actually vote while too many of us smug liberals get complacent and do not vote at all.  Or if we do, we vote against someone we deem toxic instead of voting for someone we deem beneficial.  Even many women who tell pollsters they're voting for Clinton are ambivalent about her, citing the trustworthiness issue.  

So basically we're voting from reaction and not reason.

That reaction is so pervasive it even got to my goldfish.  After seeing last night's Trump-Clinton debate from the privacy of his fishbowl, he made a suicidal leap from his watery balcony during the night.  I found his stiff little body on the floor this morning. There was no note.

-oOo-

E-mail comments, critiques, corrections and death threats to tomatomike@aol.com.

Well, there’s just no way of getting around politics and the commensurate emotions. Some things just can’t be allowed to pass. The NAFTA deal cost millions of jobs and Hillary backed it. She has touted the TPP as the “gold standard” of trade deals which she has now flipped on. She will likely amend it in some inconsequential way and back it again if elected. The TPP, which Obama is pushing with all his might, gives some unelected multinational corporate entity the power to decide our laws on labor, trade and manufacturing. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Hillary and Obama are globalist lackeys.  What comes next, authority over more of our laws? This is our sovereignty folks. You really need to think about this. -- Wht
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Jesus! One email and I've been reading ever since.  All your Times piled one after another.  Great.  -- Thea
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I was once told by a high rise law firm's hiring partner, "Oh, yes-- you're the one who fits the profile that we used  to be looking for."  -- Trog
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I couldn't stomach listening to the debate last night. I'm not fond of Clinton, but Trump makes me want to throw things.  I read all about the debate in several articles in The Washington Post.

Thing I don't get, Trump wanting to keep bringing up Bill's infidelity and actions he took as President. Has no one told him it's Hillary running for President? She's not the one who had the affairs. She's not the one who signed trade agreements. He can try to rattle her, but he should have asked Ivana for her opinion. She could tell him that, after publicly experiencing the pain and humiliation of something so publicly exposed, bringing up the subject again, bringing those women into the debate room wouldn't rattle Hillary.

If Donny Boy wants to bring up infidelity, well... Marla Maples comes to mind. HE is running for President. -- Brat

My dearly departed goldfish and I didn't watch the entire debate either, and look what happened to him after what we did watch.  MB  

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When I apply for a job, I PRAY for paper applications. As it stands now, most places with corporate offices, want you to apply on line. If you can remember your last job, when you started (day/month/hour) how much you were making when you started and how much you were making when you left, you're gold. Well, silver. Then try to back up from there until the blanks run out. If you get through the remembering part, you get to take a half-hour test about how you'd handle this if this happened, of this if that happened, and then they ask it again in a different form to see if you were paying attention. Aaargh! So stupid if you're an elder soul, just looking for a few part time hours to supplement your paltry Social Security. I don't know who to blame for that. Progress, I guess. Thanks for making me angry again! (Seriously, glad to see you venting. Saved me the trouble). – Beaty

Well, maybe getting angry over a blog post is healthier than getting your blood pressure up with a double espresso latte or an 8-ball of speed. MB  
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Sigh.....I read this piece with great understanding.  Here I am, and have been for decades, just wishing everyone was treated equally.  You know, equal pay for equal work, don't care what color you are, or where you're from or what your gender is.   It has seemed odd to me that in order to get more diversity into the work force the solution has become to limit how many of this heritage or that gender or whatever other lines are drawn with crayon and we've all gone mad.  Why (yes, I'm still Pollyanna here) is it so hard to just hire somebody who applies for the job and has a bit more savvy than somebody else, and maybe who isn't wearing a foil hat?   Why doesn't everyone just require himself to be colorblind or culture-blind or...oh never mind.  Young black men are getting shot by white officers in the street, middle-eastern men are shooting people by the dozens in malls, Natives drink too much and Asians are...taking up a lot of space in colleges.   And white people....well, maybe I ought to stop writing things like this because someone will think it's easy for me to say anything since I'm white.  Why do so many insist on reporting things that incite and not mention the people from all over the world in all walks of life who live here peacefully and want no harm played out on anyone?  Humans are missing the important stuff, Mike.  Pardon me for humming Kumbaya, but I would just like a better line drawn - one that happens to curve around us in a circle and nobody is left out.  Maybe it's the hippie in me.  -- Zoey