Recruiting Animal

Recruiting Animal Honoured

Hi Thomas,

We just posted an article, "Top 50 HR Blogs". I thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting.

I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in this list.

Either way, thanks for your time!

Kelly Sonora (Online Educational Database)

People At Starbucks

(This was written Wednesday Nov 5, 2008, the day after the US elections).

This guy was sitting beside me at the counter at Starbucks on Saturday and he was making exclamations out loud as he read the paper. I deliberately didn't look his way. Then he made a remark to me as I was leaving so we got involved in some friendly chit chat.

Sunday I saw him in the lounge upstairs and he said, "You know, I saw that there is a way to turn off the music. It's so loud. That's why I wasn't sitting up here yesterday."

I was sitting under the speaker which is mounted high on the wall. I said, "I know but so many people come in here and they have loud private conversations. The music is the only way we have to tune them out."

But since I was about to leave I offered to unplug the speaker and did.

Today, he shows up early and formally dressed in business attire so I said, "You look sharp today." And he said, "Thanks. You know what I'm saying to people when I meet them? oBAMa!"

"Ha, ha," I said. "Isn't that witty." Then he started telling me, in a very passionate tone, how the Canadian government is already changing its tune on the environment to align itself with Obama's presumed approach.

I can't remember how we started talking about Afghanistan. I just wanted to get back to my work.

He was going on about the UN not keeping records on Afghanistan so he was paying his tax dollars for the war when there were no metrics on the progress of democracy and human rights in that country.

But when I replied he got very upset and said something like, "I don't speak quickly and I can't have a conversation if you are going to interrupt me."

He does speak quickly but I said, "Sorry, I thought you had finished." Then he said, "No I hadn't. And I can't speak to you if I have to fight with that music."

He'd been glancing up at the speaker with a pained look so I stood on the chair and unplugged it.

Then, a guy I see at Starbucks everyday came in. He waved and I said, "Hi Andrew" so this guy said, "My name's Marv. What's your name?" I told him and he said, "Well, at least we know eachother now." I said, "Well, I knew you already but now I know your name."

To which he replied, "No it's not the same! A name is very important to me!" He gave me a brief lecture about this and the whole time I was thinking that this guy is getting ready to blow.

We spoke a bit more and he might have said something like "I shouldn't keep you from your work". I said, "Yeah, you're not going to convince me of your views in the next few minutes anyway." He got upset and said "I'm not trying to convince you! I'm expressing myself. That's very different!"

Finally, he left. Then, the other guy, Andrew, said "That seemed a bit tense". I said, "Yeah, he seems pretty high strung." Andrew said, "I saw him yelling at the barista downstairs on the weekend."

Well, are you surprised? I wasn't. But now I'm wondering how often I'm going to have to deal with this guy. Every day? Oh no!

I need a nickname for him. Trippy sounds pretty good to me.

Parents

I love my girls so much that sometimes I feel like I can't look at them hard enough!
-- Cora Player on Twtter

Diet, Exercise, Attitude - Road to Hellth

Source: Toronto Star.

Dave Servan-Schreiber was a successful, young psychiatrist when he got cancer. His doctor dismissed self-help via diet and exercise because there is no scientific proof that they help.

However, Dave did eventually pursue the diet, exercise and attitude route to health and he wrote about it: Anticancer: A New Way of Life.

His remedy: Eat vegetables, drink green tea and use turmeric (a spice common in curry). Stay away from fatty red meats and refined sugars.

Yiddish on YouTube

Seinfeld in Yiddish
Not great but worth watching. Obviously home-made, the sound is inferior but you get to focus on the physical acting which is still really good.

As Brecht said, when there is an alienating element you tend to focus more on the structure of the scene and that seems true to me. You don't get so lost in the flow of the action so you actually think about how, in this instance, the writer set up Kramer to be a foil to Jerry.

Just as an aside, doesn't Maxwell Smart sound a lot like Jerry?

Making Your Own Decisions

From Steve Weinberg.

Belief in an omnipotent omniscient creator of the world does not in itself have any moral implications — it’s still up to you to decide whether it is right to obey His commands. ...

The young men who flew airplanes into buildings in the US or exploded bombs in crowds in London or Madrid or Tel Aviv were not just stupid in imagining that these were God’s commands; even thinking that these were His commands, they were evil in obeying them.

I'm not sure that Weinberg is right. Religious people not only believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient; they also believe that he knows right from wrong and only does right. So, they could do no wrong in obeying God. The problem is knowing what he wants.

Non religious people can run into similar problems. There are, conceivably, times when extreme action is called for. But it's hard to know when.

Olympic Moment - Our Greek Heritage

"Zeus doesn’t even have a line of underwear named after him"

The Greeks were brilliant thinkers, cruel slave masters, magnificent sculptors, ruthless warriors and the inventors of democracy — all this under the sway of gods lacking in what we call godliness.

Robert Fulford on the heritage of ancient Greece.

Kids Don't Make You Happy

Sociologists are discovering that children may not make parents happier and that childless adults, contrary to popular stereotypes, may often be more contented than people with kids.

Studies have also shown, says Simon, that parental depression increases along with the number of children parents have.
-- NPR

Norm Geras comments: "How many of the parents surveyed, do you think, would say that they wished they hadn't had their children after all?"

This isn't a fair question. Imagine your teenage son starts manifesting signs of schizophrenia. Would you say that you wished you never had him? No, because you love him. Would you be happier if you didn't have to live with this problem? Probably.

Tim Russert Vindictive says Friend

While Mr. Russert was well-known as a good and constant friend to many, he also was sometimes moved never to forgive or forget.

“He could see from a hundred yards away a small critical comment made about him in some newspaper or some magazine, and he had that strong Irish gene. Never forgive, never forget,” Mr. Brokaw said.

“He wasn’t thin-skinned,” Mr. Barnicle said.

“Then how would you describe it?” Mr. Brokaw asked.

“He was observant. He was very aware of everything,” Mr. Barnicle said. “Tim had a pen and a piece of paper and he took names, and numbers, and eventually … that number would come up in the Rolodex or in the gun sight and then ‘boom.’ ”

-- TV Week

Funny (and almost right on)

If 'Dream' wasn't your girlfriend's favorite song in 1987, it was probably your mom's.

From Spinner.com, Two-Hit Wonders