Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Interesting. Still not sure who it is who makes all these rules, but even in a country where the thoughts raging between your own two ears are supposed to be your property and your concern, it’s still a blessing when you’re allowed to notice what’s true.
Better point it out while you still can. This might be temporary…comrade.
“That’s all right, all of you know who I am,” President Obama joked last week when the presidential seal fell off his podium during a speech in Pittsburgh.
Even though the incident made headlines for no discernible journalistic reason, it was noteworthy as a succinct example of Obama’s arrogance problem. Rather than make a self-deprecating joke, he opted to make a self-inflating one, as if to say that the title mattered less than the man.
The good news is that it’s apparently not racist to call Obama arrogant anymore. Not long ago, Keith Olbermann and other gargoyles on the parapets of establishment liberalism insisted that if you were to call attention to the fact that Obama ostentatiously holds himself in very high regard, you were really calling him “uppity,” if you know what I mean.
Now, what was once taboo has become undeniable. Even the New Yorker’s David Remnick, author of a loving biography of Obama, tells Der Spiegel, “Obama has a considerable ego.”
And here’s Time’s Mark Halperin: “With the exception of core Obama administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusion: The White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.”
There are times when I’d feel more comfortable hearing our current President wax lyrically about the faked moon landing, or how the Cubans shot JFK, or that a UFO landed in Lafayette park the night before last, than I am hearing the kind of self-important puffed-up ego-driven drivel that spews out of our nation’s First Cakehole.
Forget the birth certificate — I’m interested in seeing some hard evidence that He doesn’t suffer from some mental illness.
As some of the more persistent and perceptive readers have observed, my “day job” is in technology and that’s the way it has always been. I’ve been in that field for a quarter of a century now. It is a vocation that is populated with some colossal egos, because the people who throw the money around want reassurance things will be done right the first time, all the time. Half the time they’re impressed by substance and half the time they’re impressed with the packaging. When fifty cents out of every dollar are freely given to whoever has the brightest smile and can talk like an auctioneer, it means not everyone on an upward career path necessarily understands as much about how things work, as they pretend to understand. The net effect is that you don’t have to wait long for the chance to meet some insufferable jackasses.
My career has seen five presidential administrations now. Always, I’ve had stories to tell about some colossal, easily bruised ego from work who was more puffed-up and self-important and useless than the current prez. I’ve even known some people who were more that way than Bill Clinton.
But now, the guy in the Oval Office takes the cake. When people get a new boss and they complain about that guy, President Obama is the epitome of what they’re complaining about. Every single success, He’s there to suck up the credit — no natural curiosity about how it was really done, who did what. None whatsoever. Take it to the bank there will be an impressive speech, though.
Failure? The search for a scapegoat becomes a ritual. Set your watch by it. Everyone is to blame except Barry Soetoro.
Of course, anyone working outside the White House will never know…not until the tell-all books come out. But people like this are absolute murder on moral. Even when they’re not in charge, they bring it down — and then when they start making decisions, look out. That’s when it collapses, like a tent suddenly deprived of its long pole. People start showing up later in the morning, and going home earlier in the afternoon. What’s the point of hanging around? Mister Wonderful has things well under control — unless he doesn’t, in which case it’s better to be gone before the blame game starts. No decisions anyone’s looking for out of me anyhow. Just ask know-it-all over there.
Yes, Obama has a larger than average ego that might not be compatible with true mental stability as the rest of us know it. And because His skin happens to be light-coffee-color, it hasn’t been P.C. to notice it up until now…but now it’s okay to notice it. That’s a good thing. Maybe the healing can begin.
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A modern day President?
- Kini | 10/15/2010 @ 20:40I have had bosses like this. I don’t understand how they manage to become managers. Every last one of them was incompetent, had no drive, delegated poorly, micromanaged the departments toward considerable financial loss, and yet, were never ever fired. Always someone else got the ax. Must be a problem that is old as time.
- Jewel | 10/17/2010 @ 07:44I have two explanations, neither of which is flattering to the organization…
One, if a Director chooses a Manager and the Manager makes a poor decision that the Director should have been able to prevent from happening, it’s just less destabilizing to get rid of the Manager than to get rid of the Director. If nobody is to be given the axe and the whole thing can be smoothed over with a simple reprimand, it’s still less rocking of the boat if the reprimand goes toward the Manager because the same rule applies. Executives get the axe during a shake-up, which is a planned bit of chaos with a scheduled end-date. Otherwise, the “bumper” absorbs the impact. Call it executive privilege — immunity. Of course there are some exceptions; but they are few & far between.
Two: As one rises up the ladder and his responsibilities become more vast and far-flung, it seems he is expected to assign less and less time to inspecting the substance of the things he is tasking to have done, as opposed to packaging. I’ve become convinced that as the office increases in prestige, this numeral, between a 0 and a 1, if plotted out on a graph, becomes asymptotic — meaning it approaches, but never quite reaches, zero. It must be that way, because the consequences of your decisions that you get to evaluate the way we “real” people do, in quantity remains more-or-less constant; while the volume of your decisions that you do not evaluate this way, increase exponentially with the stature of your title. And so, up there, they tend to live in a world of packaging and symbolism. Yes, this would apply to Holy Man. And no, I’ve not been given any cause to seriously doubt or question this lately.
- mkfreeberg | 10/17/2010 @ 08:09Hell, this is not about Obama in the workplace. A workplace doesn’t choose it’s bosses. This is about us. What kind of people would bring this creature home and adore him?
It took Carter four years to cause a revolt. I didn’t stop to think Obama could do it in two.
- jamzw | 10/17/2010 @ 21:25